Untouched (Bay Falls High, #1)(64)
Talk about a shitty feeling.
I had to get out of there.
I drove down Ruby’s street.
The long street of row homes.
And then I saw her.
Sitting on the stone wall that made up the front porch, her feet dangling off, smoking a cigarette.
I quickly pulled over and put the window down.
Someone grabbed Ruby and pulled her down off the porch.
“Ruby!” I screamed.
A second later, her head popped up.
Along with Garcia’s head.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “I thought it was something else.”
For a second I was confused.
Then I realized… they thought it was some bad dude coming to shoot them or something. A drive by kind of thing.
Which happened before on this street.
“Ti?” Ruby called out.
“I texted you,” I said. “I wanted to take a ride over…”
Ruby walked down the steps and admired the SUV. “Nice wheels.”
“Not mine,” I said.
“They hot?” Garcia asked. “You steal ‘em?”
“No,” I said.
“She’s living rich now,” Ruby said.
“Yeah right,” I said. “Believe me, it’s not-”
“Bitch, do you have power?” Ruby asked.
“Power? What?”
“Electricity,” Ruby said.
“Yeah.”
“We don’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something happened,” Garcia said. “Been out two days now.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“To who?” Ruby asked. “You?”
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. “You could come stay…”
Ruby laughed. “Stop it. I’m not you. Getting pulled off the street.”
“I didn’t get pulled off the street, Ruby. My mother is in rehab. And the second she gets out, I’m screwed. This is all fake.”
“Yeah, well, fake looks nice,” Ruby said.
My heart was racing. “Ruby…”
“It’s all good,” she said.
“What about Amelia? What’s up with her? I texted her too.”
“I don’t know. She’s…”
Ruby’s front door opened and out walked Amelia.
She looked at me and stopped. “Whoa. Stranger danger.”
“You were just going to lie to me,” I said to Ruby.
“It’s not lying, Ti,” Ruby said. “It’s saving ourselves here. You don’t get it.”
“Are you serious? You have no idea what I’ve been going through.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s tough,” Amelia said. “You probably only have, what, two private bathrooms? Or is the pool not big enough? Or is the walk to the ocean too far?”
I gasped. “What the hell…”
“We looked up the house,” Ruby said. “You’re living right, Ti.”
“Living right? It’s not mine. I’m only there for a little bit.”
“You already changed your number,” Amelia said.
“That’s because my phone fell into the pool and-”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Ruby said.
“Why are you being such a bitch?” I finally snapped.
“You could have stayed,” Ruby said. “You got your chance and took it. And you know what? We don’t blame you. We would have done the same.”
“But don’t come back like it’s a favor,” Amelia said. “Or drive around town in your fancy ass ride. Looking at all the old haunts, right? Remembering what it was like when life was so hard.”
“You have it all wrong here,” I said. “I wanted to come see you. Hang out. Talk. Laugh. Cry.”
“Cry over what?” Ruby asked.
“You can’t imagine…”
“Yeah, we can’t,” Amelia said.
All they saw was the SUV. And all they had was assumptions.
Of who I was.
Of who I had become.
And even though I told myself I wasn’t someone different, that was a lie.
I watched as Ruby walked up the steps and pointed toward the door.
She, Garcia, and Amelia went into the house.
I put the window up to the SUV and realized I had nowhere else to go.
Except back to BFH.
I looked at the side mirror to make sure nobody was coming down the street.
And that’s when I saw something else.
A familiar vehicle.
One that had probably been following me the entire time.
The Rulz.
twenty
I was going to just drive back to BFH but I made it all of three blocks from Ruby’s house before I pulled over into an empty parking lot. There was once a little pizza place and an everything discounted store there. Both closed up because even an everything discounted store wasn’t discounted enough to survive in this area. Not to mention those two places were robbed over and over and over again.
My heart was still racing, along with my mind.