Flawed, Page 3

  I also know it’s in a place she shouldn’t be showing off in public, least of all to my brother.

  I plunk the five-dollar bill James gave me on the hairstylist’s table and slide out of the chair.

  James manages to peel his eyes off Claire’s bared hip long enough to glance at my hair. A hint of something—sadness, maybe?—plays across his face when he sees how much I cut off, but he only smiles. “Looking good, Sar-bear.”

  I duck around him, irritated that the way he was staring at Claire bothers me so much, and wait by the mirrored wall display while he pays. Claire’s hint that she’ll see him later follows us out the door on a breath of eager anticipation.

  Could anyone ever feel like that about me? Could Sam?

  Doubtful. I’m so good at being invisible, not even a boy I’ve known half my life can see me.

  James touches my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  No way am I telling him that I’m wishing his best friend would look at me like James looked at Claire’s tattoo. “Doesn’t it bother you?” I demand instead. “Knowing she sleeps with everyone at Logan?”

  “Who cares? It’s not like I’m marrying the girl.”

  “I care,” I say. “You’d never let me date a guy like her.”

  He frowns. “You want to date?”

  Yes. Except, I know exactly how my brother feels about me dating. He maintains a strict No Guys policy. And with how messed up our parents are, I can’t blame him. “Never mind.”

  He blocks my escape to the truck with his body. “No. This is obviously bothering you, so let’s talk about it.” He folds his arms across his chest. “You know how I feel about the assholes in this town.”

  “Yes, I do.” Though you seem to like Sam and Alex well enough. “Can we go now?”

  “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “I know.”

  Seconds tick by. Really loud seconds. Or maybe that’s my heart. Finally, James turns around and walks, not to his side of the truck, but to Triple Scoop a couple storefronts down. I glower at his back. Plying me with ice cream isn’t going to make me feel better, nor is the grin he shoots me before disappearing inside.

  My empty stomach growls its disagreement. I grind my fist into my belly button to shut it up, but like everyone and everything else in my life, it doesn’t listen.

  Six

  Three hours, a double scoop of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, and a slice of Hawaiian pizza later, I’m feeling better about what happened at the salon.

  Somewhat.

  “What good is me having a job if we never get to do anything fun?” James asks after he’s driven us deep into the forested foothills just outside Granite Falls. Apparently tonight’s party is being hosted by Smokey the Bear and his pack of furry woodland sidekicks.

  “Any money we spend is less we’ll have to get a place after I graduate,” I say when he turns onto a gravel service road. “We’ve already talked about this. Spending a weekend in a hotel isn’t worth the extra weeks we’ll be stuck in that house.”

  “I didn’t see you complaining about money when I paid for that haircut.”

  I open my mouth to protest—my haircut was only fifteen dollars with the tip—but James doesn’t pay attention to little details like that. That’s my job. Also, he’s right.

  “How about as soon as it gets hot enough, we drive to the coast and hang out for the day? Gas isn’t that expensive.”

  Even though the thought of losing fifty dollars on gas stings, he deserves the break. And getting away from our house for a day is definitely worth it. “Sure.”

  Now that I’ve caved, James resumes acting like his usual, dorky self. Girls wouldn’t drool over him near as much if they saw the side of him I do—the side that thinks bits of ice cream-coated waffle cone that fall onto the nasty truck floorboards are still edible, heavy metal is meant to be danced to in your underwear, and forty-mile-an-hour brake-checks on dusty forest roads are funny.

  By the third brake-check, I’m regretting the extra scoop of ice cream.

  We wind our way deeper and deeper into the forest, up the first set of hills and down into the thick trees of the valley on the other side. Finally, when I’m half a second away from asking if we’re lost, he turns onto a bumpy dirt road. The sun is just beginning to sink on the horizon, but trees as thick as these swallow daylight. If not for the artificial light streaming through the windows of a building in the distance, it’d be black as night out here.

  At least a dozen cars, trucks, and SUVs are parked haphazardly in the gravel scattered around a rusty green and silver doublewide trailer so covered in moss and mildew it practically blends into the forest. As soon as James maneuvers us into a fairly flat spot close to the trailer, two tall guys and a familiar, skunk-headed cheerleader stagger through our headlights and out into the trees.

  Apparently Claire decided not to wait for James.

  Right before they disappear, one of the guys drags her body against his and gives Claire a kiss sloppier than any I’ve seen before. The other guy shoves them farther into the darkness.

  And then I notice the silence inside the truck.

  Suddenly I don’t want to be here. Not when the only sounds are the distant giggling that keeps getting cut short and the uneven breathing of my brother, punctuated by the dull thump of bass coming from the trailer. All my weird feelings from Super Clips come rushing back. He probably wishes he’d flirted more with Claire so he could be the one all over her in the woods—

  What is wrong with me? It’s not my business who my brother drags off into the trees, not matter how weird the thought of him doing it makes me feel. Needing to get away from myself, I throw open the door and stumble out onto the gravel driveway.

  That’s when I see Sam.

  He’s waiting for us beneath the sickly, green floodlight hanging from the roof of the doublewide, hands jammed into his pockets and his head cocked a little to the left. The dark gray t-shirt he’s wearing stretches tight across his shoulders, and even at this distance, I can make out the glint of silver at his neck.

  One of these days, I’ll ask James what Sam wears around his neck. Maybe.

  Maniacal laughter and the sound of someone thrashing through underbrush echoes from the trees to our right. If I didn’t know that laugh, I might be terrified a hyena was about to eat us.

  As James would say, Alex is batshit crazy. Sure enough, a bulky blur of white skin and reddish-orange hair streaks between the trees, circles around a large pile of dirt and branches, and stumbles into the gravel beside the house where a group of snickering guys toss him what looks like a superhero cape. Or maybe his cap and gown?

  “Put your clothes on, asshole,” James shouts from behind me. “There are women and children present!”

  More hoots of laughter, and several chuckled “busted”s and “uh-oh”s from his friends later, Alex’s very white butt disappears into a pair of shorts. Thank God he never turned around, or I’d be scarred for life.

  “Women and children, eh?” Alex’s voice is muffled, his thick arms tangled in the mess of his white t-shirt as he yanks it over his head. When he gets himself straightened out, he whips around and flashes me his biggest wannabe-ladies-man grin—the one that shows off his twenty million freckles. “I’m cool with Sarah seeing me naked. Especially if she re-cip-ro-cates.”

  Disgusting, but I smile anyway because he’s obviously trying to rattle me, and for once, I have a snarky comeback. “That’s a pretty big word, Alex. Do you think they’ll teach me how to use big words next year, too?”

  James chokes on a laugh, and Alex’s grin fades as he shoves his arms into a tattered green graduation gown that’s clearly seen too much of the forest. I’m rewarded with a warm chuckle from Sam that makes my chest ache with a feeling I can’t place.

  James is too busy ribbing Alex for being slammed by a girl to notice me drifting toward the house. Toward Sam. His face is hooded in shadows, but I want to see his eyes. I want to know if he’s looking at
me, and if his eyes match the dark jeans he’s wearing tonight, or if they’re closer to drizzly-sky-gray like the last time I saw him. They’ve never been the same color twice.

  After a few more steps, I have my answer to at least one of those questions.

  Sam Donavon is definitely looking at me.

  I take a shaky breath and hang back, waiting until Alex and my brother start joking about the new guy who got his ass kicked at the Armory last weekend before I close the rest of the distance. Sam watches me inch toward him. If I could see his eyes clearly, I know they’d be intense.

  Everything about Sam is intense.

  “Hey,” James says to him, pushing past me to give Sam their old slap-slide-bump. I’ve had their secret handshake memorized since I was eight in the unlikely event they let me hang out with them. One of these days, I’ll walk right up to Sam and stick my hand out. It’ll probably be far less humiliating than trying to talk to him.

  Sam’s smile is empty as he takes in the purplish-black bruise on James’s forearm that I refuse to look at, and the tiny scab by his eyebrow I spent Wednesday night blotting with toilet paper until he let me cover it with anti-bacterial cream and a Band-Aid. I wait for Sam to ask James the inevitable. He doesn’t.

  Instead, he turns to me.

  “Sarah,” he says with a nod.

  Sam Donavon is speaking to me? In front of my brother and Alex? I blink up at him. He seems a lot closer all of a sudden. I think he is.

  “Um,” is all I can manage.

  “I like your hair,” Alex chimes in, slapping his graduation cap onto my head. I swat it away. Apparently, me getting attention from a guy without James knocking out said guy’s teeth is an opportunity Alex can’t resist. “It’s kinda sexy. What do you think, Donavon?”

  My mouth falls open—not because of what Alex said, but because Sam’s cheeks turned red when he said it.

  I will never doubt my brother’s opinion on hair again.

  I rack my brain for the plan I put together at the salon and come up empty. What would Claire do? Show him her tattoo, probably. Ugh.

  Going with my gut, I offer him a reassuring, possibly flirtatious smile. Possibly because I’ve never flirted with anyone before, so I can’t be sure.

  He turns even redder.

  If I could feel my legs, I’d do a victory dance.

  “Okay, okay,” James grumbles. “Are we going to do this thing or not?”

  “After you,” Sam says to him.

  My brother looks from Sam to me and back, mutters something under his breath, and heads for the door with Alex trailing behind like an overgrown puppy wearing a floppy green cape. Before I can follow, Sam leans in close and whispers, “I’m glad you came tonight. Maybe we can talk later? Catch up or something?”

  He wants to catch up with me? Wait…we’ve never spoken to have anything to catch up about. Now that my heart is stumbling around drunk inside my chest, what’s left of my frazzled brain attempts conversation. “Oh, um, yeah. Sure. It’s pretty out here, don’t you think? Once you get past the potholes in the driveway, anyway.”

  God. No wonder guys don’t talk to me.

  Sam chuckles. He’s probably making fun of me, but my knees still wobble and I can’t breathe. I rarely hear him laugh, which is kind of strange because we’ve been in the same orbit for years. Closing my eyes, I let the sound wash over me, hot like the water at the salon.

  “You coming, or what?”

  James stopped at the corner of the house and is looking at us. I back away from Sam, my cheeks on fire, hoping my brother didn’t see me swaying on my feet in front of his best friend. He doesn’t look pissed off, so I’m guessing not. I duck my head and force my shaky legs to catch up.

  Music and light floods through the open front door out onto the trampled weeds, gravel, and makeshift porch—three wood pallets set side by side—enticing those of us outside to come in. I hesitate at the door. As freaked out as I am to be here, surrounded by tons of people from school who usually pretend I don’t exist, the damp mist that clings to the trees in the valley is too cold for us to stay outside. I reluctantly follow my brother inside.

  The second we step through the door, a heavily pierced girl winds herself around James like a safety-pin-and-metal-studded python. I choke on my shock when he grins and kisses her on the lips. It’s only a peck and looks about as romantic as a bowl of cold oatmeal, but I’ve never seen James kiss anyone. The sudden pain in my chest confuses me.

  “And who do we have here?” the girl asks, looking at me as she unwinds from my brother’s body. “I’ve seen you before. You go to Logan, right?”

  James pushes me behind him and shakes his head. “Sarah’s with me.”

  “Yes,” I say over his shoulder, “I go to Logan.”

  Her dark-lined eyes widen impossibly. “So this is the little sister you keep hidden away? She’s cute, James.”

  Any warmth leftover from being close to Sam in the driveway melts away, as does any trace of friendliness on James’s face. I may not get out much, but I’m pretty sure the way she’s peering around James to look at my body—pausing in several choice places below the neck—is universal for I’m checking you out. I shift closer to James.

  “Fuck off, Leslie,” he says. “Just give me what I want.”

  He might as well have kicked me for how fast the air whooshes from my lungs. There’s only one Leslie in Granite Falls who’d throw a party like this. If my brother is hanging out with her after growing up with our mother, I’m going to kill him. I step back and collide with a hard chest.

  Sam.

  His hands settle on my shoulders to steady me before falling away. After a lifetime of only being touched by my brother and father, the sensation makes me dizzier than Sam’s laugh. Needing more, I shift my weight, just enough to feel the fabric of Sam’s t-shirt brushing against my shoulders and his body heat mingling with mine.

  The renewed contact crackles through me like static. Dangerous static. Addictive static.

  Leslie laughs and holds out her hand to my brother. “You have to pay to play tonight, J. Ten more for bringing a spectator. Unless she’s buying?”

  “No.”

  James fishes out his wallet and hands her three twenties. Tucking it into her red and black lace corset top, she grins at me. “Get your brother to share. If you like it, come find me and I’ll hook you up. Alex?”

  “Mmm, baby,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “My account still good?”

  “You know it. And I’m guessing holier-than-thou Sam is still a downer?”

  “Yep,” Sam says.

  From somewhere—I don’t even want to guess—beneath the waistband of her black plaid mini-skirt, Leslie withdraws two tiny baggies of pills and hands one to Alex and one to my brother. “Enjoy,” she purrs, then melts back into the crowd.

  I know Leslie deals. Everyone knows. Even the cops, from what I’ve overheard at school. What I didn’t know was that my brother uses whatever she peddles. Explosive anger overrides the electricity skittering through in my body. I smack James on the arm. Hard. “How can you take those things after what you did to me?”

  The memories flash white-hot like a burning dagger through my brain.

  “Find the blue ones with the hole in the middle,” he whispers.

  “It’s too dark,” I whisper back. “I can’t see.”

  He grabs my wrist and drags me down the narrow hallway. When we reach what I assume is the mattress-less master bedroom, he pushes me down onto one of the many beanbag chairs littering the floor. There are only a few people in this room that I can see in the dim-lighting: a couple making out in the far corner, a sleeping girl, and two guys sprawled across four of the beanbag chairs talking about video games and marshmallows.

  James is in my face before I can say anything. “These aren’t what we took,” he says in a hushed voice. “They’re just muscle relaxants. Soma, you know? I only take them when I need to get away for a little bit. I’ll give you one of mi
ne if you want to try it.”

  “They’re the ones that start with V, ” he says a little louder, a little more urgently from his place under our mother’s bed. “Look for the V on the label.”

  At five years old, I can’t read yet, but I do know my letters.

  I squeeze my head to dull the pain. Behind my brother, Alex empties the little baggie of pills into his mouth and swallows them dry.

  James clutches me tight and rocks back and forth, back and forth as I fight my lungs for breath. “Don’t die, Sarah,” he sobs. “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die…”

  I remember all too clearly what it felt like not being able to breathe through the dribble of vomit I’d sucked into my lungs. How my heart pounded so hard against my ribs, I swore they’d crack open and all my guts would spill out onto the floor. “There’s no way I’m taking one of those things. And I don’t want to watch you take them, either.”

  “Fine,” he says, though it’s obvious this is anything but fine. I try to grab his hand, but he brushes me off and shoves Alex in my direction. “Hang out with these guys, then.”

  My mouth drops open. “James!”

  But he’s already barging back down the hallway. I watch him push through the crowd until I see his blond head vanish through the door. There’s no way I’ll find him outside if he doesn’t want to be found.

  Sam stares after my brother looking like he wants to punch something, but his eyes soften when he turns back to me. “You okay?”

  I haven’t been okay for a long time, and Sam’s concerned expression isn’t helping me hide from that fact. Afraid he’ll see through me, I focus on an unruly chunk of his dark hair threatening to fall forward into his eyes.

  Alex rubs the back of his neck and grimaces. “Actually, there’s something I promised the guys I’d do before I got too messed up to do it. You cool hanging out for a bit?”

  Judging by the emptiness taking hold of Alex’s eyes, “messed up” might come sooner than he expects. I force myself to nod. “We’ll be fine.”