Punk 57 (13 page)

“Get off the truck.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know who you are or where you come from,” I snarl, “but I don’t get pushed around. In case you haven’t heard.”

He jerks his chin, indicating something behind me as he smiles. “I guess we’ll see.”

I turn and see Lyla and Katelyn sitting on the ledge at the top of the steps, watching us. Great. How am I going to explain this?

“Watch out. You’re being judged,” Masen taunts. “Don’t choke.”

I step down from the cab, and he puts the truck in gear again. But before he can take off, I call out, “You’re living in an abandoned theme park.”

He stops the car again and lifts his chin. I stroll up to his window, feeling a bit of my power return as I give him a small smile.

“I’d only be doing the compassionate thing,” I tell him, “letting a responsible adult know about your homeless situation.”

He stills at my threat, and I offer a sympathetic sigh. “Social services would come in, find out where you come from and if anyone’s looking for you…” I go on, putting my finger on my chin in mock contemplation. “I wonder if Masen Laurent has a criminal record. Maybe that’s why you’re hiding out? You definitely want to stay invisible. I’d bet money on that.”

His scowl is hot, and I can see his jaw flex. Yeah, he might be eighteen and perfectly able to squat wherever he likes, but that doesn’t mean he’s up for any attention, either. Maybe his parents are looking for him. Maybe a foster family.

Maybe the police.

Not many kids transfer schools six weeks before the end of their senior year, after all. He’s running from something.

He shifts the gears again and finally speaks. “I’ll bring it tonight.”

“You’ll bring it now.”

He turns to look at me. “If you have me picked up, you’ll never get it back,” he points out. “I got shit to do. I’ll see you tonight.”

Dear Ryen,

I hold the pen over the paper, frozen, the millions of things I want to say to her every day lost once I sit down to write. What did she always tell me?
Just start.
Don’t worry about what I’m going to say. Just start, and everything will open up.

I couldn’t write lyrics before Ryen. And now, since that night three months ago, I can’t write anything.

I stare out into the empty warehouse, black soot from past bonfires coating the walls and the warm breeze whipping through the broken windows and hitting my back.

A chain hanging somewhere in the vast space above me blows in the gust and bangs against a rafter while a shiver creeps up my spine.

It feels different here. At night this place is packed, but during the day it’s quiet and empty. My favorite place to come when I need just that.

I stare down at her name, trying to remember how easy it was to always open up to her.

I hate this
, I tell her.
Everything fucking hurts. They weren’t supposed to bury her. I shouldn’t have let him. She saw a movie when she was a kid, about a woman buried alive, and it scared the shit out of her. She didn’t want to go underground, but my father said we needed a place to visit her as if her wishes weren’t the most important thing.

I close my eyes, wetness coating the rims of my lids. Anger churns inside me, and it flows down my arms as I carve the words into the paper.

I can’t write you. And when I can, I can’t send the goddamn letters. I want to hurt you. I don’t know why. Probably because you’re the only person I have left to hurt. Every letter you send that I don’t answer is the only thing that makes me feel good anymore. You want the truth? That’s it. It feels good to play with you like this. It gives me pleasure, knowing you’re thinking about me but wondering if I’m thinking about you.

I’m not. I never do.

I keep writing, letting every ugly thing spill out, because she loves me, she wants me to be happy, and she wants me to smile and do mundane shit like talk about Star Wars and music and what I’m doing for college. Who the hell is she to assume there aren’t more important things than her going on in the world?

All your letters, over all the years, immediately went into the garbage after I read them. Didn’t you see how pathetic you looked? Sending five letters for every one of mine? I’ll bet you deluded yourself, too. Did you fantasize I kept them? Maybe with a little red bow tied neatly around the stack as I jerk off to them, because I love your pretty words so much?

No. Because after I eventually fucked you, I’d get bored. That’s all it was about.

I draw in air through my nose, locking my jaw together as I press the pen into the paper. Guilt creeps in.

Ryen.

The liar. The poser. The superficial bitch who’s no different than all the others.

But then I drop my eyes, remembering...

Ryen.

The kid who slipped five bucks in a letter in fifth grade when I told her my dad took away my allowance.

The girl who makes me smile when she argues about how sausage overpowers the taste of pizza and sent me a Veggie Lovers Pie for my birthday to prove me wrong. She didn’t. Meat Lovers is way better.

The girl who gets all my movie references, knows when something’s wrong, tells me everything I need to hear, and stops the world from spinning around me.

Ryen. The beautiful, perfect girl who’s so different from all the others.

I run my hand over my forehead and through my hair, my throat tightening into a knot and my eyes burning.

Fuck. I put the pen to the paper and scrawl what my goddamn heart can only whisper.

I miss you every day
, I write
. You’re my favorite place.

And then I drop the pen and tear the paper out of my notebook. I dig a matchbook out of my jeans, the one I use for lighting my lamp in my room at the Cove, and strike a match, watching as the tip glows orange and yellow. I bring it up to the letter, setting the corner on fire. Quickly the edges burn black as the flame spreads across the paper, eating every single word as the blue lines slowly disappear.

I let out a sigh, pulling my lip ring in between my teeth. The girl I saw yesterday in the classroom—she disappointed me. My Ryen, the one I thought I knew, would never treat someone the way she treated that kid, Cortez. The way she just stood by and let that cocksucker mess with him. I waited for her. I sat there and waited for her to stand her ass up and speak up for him, to say something, to do anything, but…

Nothing.

Everything makes sense now. The cheerleader she talked about in her letters and everything she hated—she was talking about herself.

I drop the small fire in my hand to the cement floor and stand up, grinding my shoe into the dust, stamping it out.

I look at my watch and see it’s after seven. I’d stopped by my house after school, before my dad got home, to check my mail and pick up some things, and then I grabbed some food and came here. I remember Ryen saying in her letters that she teaches swim lessons Tuesday thru Thursday nights at the school’s pool. That’s where I’ll probably find her now.

I should’ve just given her the book back. She’d found Annie’s locket, and I don’t want to start any shit with her, especially when she’s not the reason I’m here, and I’m skipping town as soon as I get what I came for.

And she and I will never have to cross paths again.

But, I have to admit, fucking with her in class today was the first time I’ve smiled in a while. It’s hard to resist.

I walk out of the warehouse to my truck and climb in the cab, slamming the door.

But then I see the passenger side door swing open, and I jerk, startled.

Dane hops in the truck and shoots me an easy smile as he sits back, looking at ease. “Netflix and chill?”

I scoff and turn my keys in the ignition. “Get out.”

The engine rumbles to life with a smooth purr that I’ve worked hard to maintain. My cousin left me this truck when he was “indisposed” for three years, but now that he’s around, he hasn’t come to claim it, so I guess it’s mine. I was grateful when he passed the keys to me all those years ago. I hadn’t wanted to ask my dad for a car when the time came.

“So I had this date last night,” Dane goes on, ignoring my order. “Do you remember that girl from Sigma Kappa Whatever? She was at the gig last night, and everything was going great, both of us eye-fucking for like four frickin’ hours…” He pauses and turns to me, his voice turning urgent. “She takes me home, dude, and I’m sitting in the living room while she’s in the bathroom, and I’m so ready, because she’s so hot, right? And who walks in?”

“Dane.” I close my eyes, willing him to shut the fuck up.

“Her mom, dude!” he bursts out. “Her mom in her light pink nightie with legs for days. And let me tell you, man…Stacy’s mom has got it going on?”

I can’t help myself. I break out in a laugh at the song reference and pinch the bridge of my nose, tired but a fraction more relaxed, even if I’d never admit it to him.

Such an idiot.

Dane is twenty-one, but he never quite figured himself out after high school. He still lives in his parents’ house, loves to make music, but he’s in no hurry to be someone by a certain age. I wish I could let things go as easily as he does.

I let out a calm breath and look over at him, guilty that he’s still a good friend, and I’ve been a shitty one lately. “I’m sorry about the band.”

After Annie died I couldn’t see anything beyond that. I started skipping school, I left the band, I stopped trying to have a relationship with my dad…

He was destroyed, losing Annie, and I went through the motions for a couple months, sticking around, but we couldn’t mourn together, and I couldn’t stay to watch. He was sad. I was angry. Losing her only broke whatever small link we had to each other.

And my piece-of-shit mother never even showed up to the funeral. Every day I think about it, I get more livid.

But Dane just shrugs. “We’re killing time until you’re ready to come back,” he tells me. “You know we’re not shit without you.”

“Yeah, well… I haven’t written in months. It’s gone, so don’t wait for me.”

After I left the band, the guys all stepped in and carried on with three people. They still perform here and there, and the summer tour is still on. I know Dane is hoping I’ll be back on track by then, but I have zero interest. When I lost Annie, I lost Ryen, too, and now nothing is speaking to me. I don’t know if I’ll ever have anything to write or anything more to say.

“What’s this?”

I cast a glance over at Dane who holds Ryen’s white notebook, fanning the pages as he looks inside.

“Are you writing, after all?” he asks but then stops on a page. “Nope. This is a girl’s writing.” He continues to read and then lets out a little laugh. “A very bad girl’s writing. Who is she?”

I snatch the notebook away from him and drop it to the seat. “My muse.”

“Does she want it back?”

I smile to myself. “More than anything.”

And he grabs his seatbelt, fastening it. “Well, then let’s go.”