I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2)

I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2)

S.R. Grey



Prologue


Chase


I lean my head back against the headrest, crank the passenger window down the rest of the way. The June night air rustles through my hair, reminding me I desperately need a trim. I run my fingers through the strands, chasing the path of the breeze.

My grandmother likes to lecture that I shouldn’t have hair sticking out at odd angles, strands curling at the nape of my neck.

“You’re such a handsome young man, Chase,” Grandma Gartner said just this morning, tsking when I sat down for breakfast. “You look so much like your father did when he was your age. But, you know, he always kept his hair short and tidy.” And then there was a pause, a long, dramatic sigh. She set down a plate of eggs—over easy—in front of me. “My poor Jack. God rest his soul.” My grandmother crossed herself.

Her poor Jack, my father with the short and tidy hair—dead and gone.

I thought: I am not my dad, Gram. He failed us, he gave up on us. But the words never passed my lips. And they never will. Hearing them would only hurt my grandmother’s feelings and she’s too good to hear the angry thoughts poisoning my polluted mind. So I keep all that shit locked deep inside.

This morning was no different. I kept things light, said something like, “The girls like my hair like this, Gram. Got to keep the ladies happy, ya know.”

Then I ducked and waited for the inevitable swat with the dish towel. But it never came. Instead, the lines in my grandmother’s face deepened.

“You don’t need to be concerning yourself with keeping ladies happy, young man. You’re only twenty. Messing with women at your age will only lead to trouble.”

I knew what she meant this morning, and I know it now too. She’s worried I’ll end up getting some girl pregnant. Then I’ll be f*cked, well and good. But I’m always careful, take the necessary precautions. Besides, it isn’t my womanizing ways that’s becoming a problem. If only. No, unfortunately, it’s my ever-growing dependency on drugs—something my grandmother would never suspect—that has me worried these days.

These days… Yeah, right. More like these blurry, f*cked-up segments of time.

Sighing, I roll the window up just enough to lean my head against the cool glass. What am I going to do? I silently ask myself.

What I really need to do is get the hell out of this tiny Ohio farm town I landed back in two years ago. I’m spinning my wheels here in Harmony Creek, hanging with a bad crowd. Problem is I have no plan, no money either. Drugs are my escape and have been for quite a while. My priorities are all f*cked up. My life, it’s upside down. Every day it seems like getting high—and staying that way—is my only goal. I want to stop—believe me I do—but I don’t think I know how to anymore.

A lump forms in my throat at this thought, but I swallow it down. “Hey,” I say to Tate, who is driving. “Let’s get out of this town.”

Tate Cody, my friend…and my partner in crime in everything wild and crazy these days—women, drugs, drinking, fighting—you name it, we do it. And if we’re not doing it nowadays, chances are we’ve done it at least once over the past couple of years. We’ve yet to slow down; we live on the edge.

I sometimes wonder when we’ll fall.

“What do you think we’re doing, Chase, my man?”

I take in and process Tate’s reply, while he lifts a bottle of cheap gin to his lips and hits the gas. And for this one long, tortuous drawn-out second, I can’t make a distinction between what I asked Tate and what I was only thinking. I panic, assuming my partner in crime’s response is to let me know it’s finally happening, we’re really falling.

But then Tate adds, “I’m getting us out of here as fast as I can,” and I breathe a little easier. He just means we’re leaving Harmony Creek. Not falling, after all. Shit, I need to ease up on the drugs.

I glance out the window, and though it’s dark I can see we’re heading east, nearing the state line. Soon we’ll be out of Ohio completely, and in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. That’s where we’re supposed to hook up with two girls tonight. They’re from New Castle, and we’re meeting at a lake across the state line.

I don’t really care about all that, though. What I’d really rather do is keep on going. Hop on Interstate 80 and clock the miles to Jersey. Better yet, Tate and I could go farther. We could drive our asses straight into New York-f*cking-City. Now that would be sweet.

So while Tate barrels down a back road the police rarely patrol—until you get into Pennsylvania, that is—I pretend we’re leaving Harmony Creek for good. No looking back, no regrets, just flying the f*ck out of this lame-ass small town.

And speaking of flying, I’m flying a bit now too, feeling fine, baby, fine. I close my eyes so I can savor the s-l-o-w creep of numbness that cocoons me like a warm and fuzzy blanket.

I feel nothing, yet I feel everything.

My skin tingles a little, but when I touch my hand to my face it feels detached, like these parts of my body belong to two different people, neither of them me. That thought makes me happy, escape is exactly what I crave.

Needless to say, I’ve smoked—a lot—and not just weed. But it’s the pills I swallowed a while ago that are starting to wrap me up and spin me the f*ck out.