Burn It Up(54)

“Why?”

“Because I bought you for six hundred bucks off some junkie in a stupid hat.” Her old dealer, and a buyer of James’s illegal firearms.

“Six hundred dollars? I’m not a whore.”

“I never said you were. You’re here because you remind me of my little sister and because I’m a f*cking idiot. I have absolutely zero interest in f*cking you,” he’d said. “Not even if you took a shower—which you really f*cking need to— and not if you gained ten pounds, and put on some lingerie, and did your hair real nice. The only reason you’re here is because I couldn’t not get you out of that place, but I don’t have the first clue what I’m gonna do with you. Except maybe sober you up, and feed you, and make sure you get that goddamn shower. After that, your choices are up to you. I’m just doing the bare minimum I need to to get some f*cking sleep tonight. You got that?”

For a criminal, James had proven a man of his word—he hadn’t made a move on her. Hadn’t put a hand on her except to usher her out of his little house, into his truck, through the entrance to a methadone clinic. A shake on the shoulder to wake her each morning . . . and a rougher, two-handed shake later, when she’d really pushed him.

She’d stayed with him for more than two months. Long enough to pass through the hell of withdrawal and get clean, to gain back the twenty pounds heroin had stripped from her bones. Long enough for her hesitation to grow to trust, for trust to become gratitude, and, in time, for gratitude to morph into a crush. He’d been thirty-seven, and she twenty-one, but age gaps had never given her much pause.

He’d resisted her flirtations admirably, for maybe two weeks. But in the end, no man was that saintly. James had tried to be, tried real hard, God help him, but it had been no use. Abilene had been helpless in many ways, but not without her leverage.

The sex had been good. Not amazing, but intense, and tender as well. With other guys she’d been in it for whatever benefits were to be gained—shelter or favors or money—but with James it had simply been the contact she’d wanted.

For him it had been sexual, too, almost purely. Sex and some affection, probably a touch of attachment. She’d made him feel strong and needed, she thought. He’d made her feel safe and desired. It had met their needs for as long as it had lasted, but it had always been doomed, and they’d both known it from the start.

Whatever they’d been had lasted just a few weeks. Long enough for them to mess up and for her to get pregnant, though she hadn’t known that when she’d left him. She hadn’t gotten her period in ages, hadn’t felt normal in forever; the symptoms had been wasted on her until she’d been four months gone, and by then James had been out of her life for longer than they’d ever been together.

She studied his expression, all that skepticism, maybe even pity. It burned her. There was a time when she’d been only too happy for people to see her as helpless and in need of safeguarding. It had been her currency. But with Mercy now in the picture, the concern grated, as did the assumption that she always relied on other people to get what she needed—the assumption that she couldn’t make it on her own.

“I’m not the same person I was when we met,” she told him.

“I hope that’s true. But you gotta understand, my imagination jumps straight to you using, not caring about anything except where your next fix is coming from. That girl I found in that trailer, she couldn’t take care of a baby. She couldn’t take care of herself. You’re a goddamn professional victim, sweetheart. So sue me if I was worried you might need rescuing. Again.”

“Well, I don’t,” she spat back. “And I’m not a victim. I never was.”

His smile was pitying. Maddening. “You were sleeping with a stranger for heroin when I met you. What the f*ck does that make you? A goddamn feminist?”

“Fuck you.”

That gave him pause. His expression went from smug to uncertain in a blink.

She was shocked herself. She doubted she’d cussed since labor. And before that, only during flashes of hormonal insanity. And before that, heroin withdrawal.

“I was never a victim,” she repeated. She thought back on what Casey had said about luck, about choices. “Every shitty situation I’ve wound up in, I got there myself. Because I made lousy decisions and trusted people I shouldn’t have. For a dozen stupid reasons. To defy my parents, to escape from my hometown, for a place to stay. For attention. I may have woken up in some real nasty places, but I walked myself there on my own two feet. I chose all of that stuff, though I’m not proud to admit it.” At first, for a taste of freedom, of what she’d mistaken for adulthood. Later, out of necessity.

“You only think I’m a victim because I’m the woman. But you take a long, hard look at our breakup, and tell me who felt used when it all turned to shit.”

He blinked at her, eyes wide.

“I haven’t been a good person,” she went on, cooling her head. “Not for a long time. Not until I found out I was pregnant. But I’ve done better since then. I quit smoking; I worked hard. I asked for help when I truly needed it. And I’m a good mother. Mercy is healthy and she’s loved, and has a whole house full of people who want her safe.”

“A whole house full of people who think I’m the dangerous one,” he countered. “And maybe I am. Maybe I’m a criminal, and maybe I’ve hurt people, but never my family. Never any woman, and never any kid. I’m not perfect, but I provide. But you . . . You always fall apart or you run, the second something goes wrong.”