Penelope Douglas - Until You

“Tate?” I called out before I even climbed back into my car.

She turned around, raising her eyebrows as she stuck her hands into her hoodie pocket.

“You’re with me, baby,” I told her. “Get in.”

Not waiting to even see the look on her face, I slid into my seat and leaned over to open the passenger side door.

After my win, I forwent the traditional bonfire after the race and dragged Tate out of there, never before in such a hurry to get back home.

Not many people were going to be clueless as to what we were going to go do, either. Immediately after crossing the finish line, I’d taken all of two fucking seconds to snatch off Tate’s and my seatbelts and drag her into my lap for a kiss.

The race had kicked up my blood pressure. Feeling the energy of excitement as she sat next to me got my muscles and nerves pumping with adrenaline.

Racing had always been enjoyable, but with my father bleeding me for every bit of cash I had, the thrill of it had long since worn off. Now I raced as a way to make money, and Tate had changed that tonight.

As I raced, I had a hard time keep my eyes on the track. Her delicious little gasps as we rounded turns were addicting.

My blood finally ran hot for this again, and I never wanted to go back to the Loop without Tate.

“Jared?” she piped up from the passenger seat as we made our way back to my house. “Where do you go on the weekends?”

The weekends.

I narrowed my eyes. A jumble of thoughts swirled in my head, but I couldn’t grab onto just one. My stomach hollowed out, and with every breath I wanted to bolt from the car.

My father in prison. I couldn’t tell her about that.

Jax in a foster home, and his mother some barely legal teenager that our father had preyed upon. My mother, too, for that matter. What would she think?

The beatings. The basement. My betrayal, leaving Jax behind.

The bile crept up my throat, and I could barely swallow it down much less tell her the whole disgusting story.

“Just out of town.” I kept my reply short and simple.

“But where?”

“What does it matter?” My bite wasn’t a cover. She needed to shut up.

The past was embarrassing and dirty, and no one except Jax knew what had gone down that summer. If I could erase it from his memory, I would.

Yanking the steering wheel to the right, I bottomed out as I hit the dip turning into the driveway. Tate grabbed hold of the handle on the roof to steady herself as I sped up my driveway.

“Why can Piper know, and I can’t?” she pressed, her tone more urgent and defensive.

She knew about Piper?

“Fuck, Tate,” I gritted out and hopped out of the car, briefly registering that my mom’s car was in the open garage. “I don’t want to talk about it.” And that was the truth. Not today, not ever. I wouldn’t even know where to start. If she really wanted to move on with me, then she’d let it go.

“You don’t want to talk about anything!” She followed me out and yelled over the hood. “What do you think’s going to happen?”

Happen? She might see me for who I really was. That’s what could happen.

“What I do with my free time is my business. Trust me or not.”

“Trust?” She scrunched up her eyes and looked at me with disdain. “You lost mine a long time ago. But if you try trusting me, then maybe we can be friends again.”

Friends? We would never be just friends again.

Push her down or push her away, I told myself.

“I think we’ve moved beyond friends, Tate,” I sneered with a sour smile, “but if you want to play that game, then fine. We can have a sleepover, but there will be fucking involved.”

She inhaled a sharp breath, and her shoulders straightened. Her eyes stared at me with hurt and shock, and I’d fucking done it again.

Why did I keep doing this shit? I could’ve just let her down easily and walked away.

But no. In the moment, I power on with anger and fight.

But either way, I still saw the same look in her sad, tear-filled blue eyes, and I wanted to grab her and kiss her eyes, her nose, and her lips like it would erase every horrible thing I’ve ever said and done.

“Tate…” I started rounding the car, but she stomped up to me and shoved something into my stomach.

I latched onto it and watched helplessly as she ran across our yards and into her house.

No.

Staring after her—at the now darkened porch and closed front door—it was a minute or two before I felt the paper in my hand.

As I looked down, my mouth went dry, and my heart started pounding painfully in my chest.

It was a picture.

Of me.

When I was fourteen.

I was bruised and bloodied from the visit with my father, and Tate had found it at the bottom of a box underneath my bed.

She hadn’t come to wish me “Happy Birthday” tonight.

I’d caught her snooping.

And I’d just pushed her away for not telling her what she already knew.

I barreled out of the driveway and drove hard. Down the street and to the edge of town where the lights didn’t reach.

Driving helped clear my head, and it was now a mess again because of Tate. I wasn’t running. I was detaching.

She wouldn’t understand, and she would sure as shit see me differently. Why didn’t she see that it wasn’t important?

I could’ve been gentler about it, I guess, but she kept prying into shit that wasn’t her business.

I strangled the shit out of the steering wheel, willing myself to stay on the gas and not turn around.

I couldn’t go back. She’d want to know it all, and the shame I felt for what I’d done to my brother outweighed the shame I felt for what I’d done to her.

Didn’t she see that some things were better left buried?

“Go. Help your brother,” my father tells me, too gently.

My hands are shaking, and I look back at him.

What’s going on? I ask myself.

“Don’t act like you have a choice.” He gestures me on with the bottle in his hand.

The wooden stairs creek with each step I take, and the small light below offers me no comfort.

It’s like the creepy light coming from an old furnace, but I can feel the air getting chillier the more I descend.

Where’s Jax?

I look back at my father, where he stands in the kitchen at the top of the stairs, and feel more and more like I’m being sucked into a black hole.

I’d never be seen again.

But he motions with his hand for me to keep going.

I don’t want to go. My bare feet are freezing, and splinters of wood from the stairs poke them.

But then I stop, and my heart jumps into my throat.

I see Jax.

I see them.

And then I see the blood.

I parked my car in the lot near the back entrance to the park. Eagle Point had two ways in. A drive-in front entrance and a rear one for walkers and bikers. But the back entrance offered a parking lot to leave your car and walk through. It was this gate I chose.

The one closest to the pond.

How I got here escaped me, but when I drove, I zoned out. Sooner or later, I always ended up where I wanted to be.

Sometimes, I wound up at Fairfax’s Garage to fiddle with my car. Other times, I ended up at Madoc’s house to party. And a few times I’d found myself at some girl’s house.

But tonight? The park? The fishpond?

The hairs on my arms shot up, and I felt acid burning a line up my throat. I wanted to be here about as much as I wanted to see my father tomorrow.

But I walked in anyway. Through the gate in the middle of the night. And down over the rocks to the pond I hadn’t seen in years.

The pond was man-made, and the area was accented with sandstone rocks which made up the footing around the pond, the cliffs surrounding it, and the steps leading down to it. A path made of the same stone led away from the pond, into the woods where you could walk to a lookout over the river.

It was private, quaint, and special to Tate and me. We’d come here for picnics, a neighbor’s wedding, and just for hanging out on late nights when we’d snuck out of our houses.

The last time I was here was the last time I cried.

“Tate? Come here, honey,” Mr. Brandt calls her, and my heart jackhammers in my chest. I can’t wait to see her. To hold her.

And tell her what I should’ve told her before. That I love her.

My stomach shifts and growls with hunger, and I look down at my hands, grime in the creases. I wish I’d cleaned up before I came to look for her, but I know Tate won’t care.

Moving down the stone steps, I see her plop down on the blanket, leaning back on her hands with her ankles crossed.

She’s so beautiful. And she’s smiling.

Jax flashes through my mind, and I feel my muscles tense with urgency. I have to tell someone.

But first, I need Tate.

I start to walk to her, but then I see my mother, and I duck behind the boulder.

Anger and disgust grips me.

Why is she here? I don’t want to see her.

I’d called over the summer. I’d tried to get her help, but she’d left me there.

Why is my mother here with them?

I try to get my breathing under control, but I feel my throat tighten like I want to cry.

Tate is my family. My real family. My drunk of a mother has no right to be here having fun with them.

“I can’t wait for Jared to get back.” I hear Tate’s smile in her voice, and I cover my mouth to choke back the cry creeping up my chest.