Purple Hearts(81)

His lips darted to my neck, to my collarbone, to the top of my breast.

I moved my leg over his while his palms fell down my back, over the curve of my ass, and then up, under my shirt to my skin. The sensation of his skin on mine shocked both of us. I heard him gasp, and I stopped.

I thought of Toby, at home, asleep, Lorraine purring on his chest. I remembered the promise I had made to him. Even then, it was a lie. For some reason, I couldn’t find the guilt where it should have been. My body couldn’t yet process what we’d just done. What I’d just done. All I could think about was wanting more.

“Hey,” Luke said, looking up at me.

I moved back to sitting on the couch, breaths still coming quick, brushing the back of my hand across my wet lips. “Hey.”

He was trying to slow his breath, too. But nothing in his eyes held regret.

I smiled at him, surprised and unsurprised at the feeling that had announced itself in me, the same feeling I got when I found the right notes. It was new and not new, the feeling of foraging for something that was already there, never hiding, but newly found.





Luke


When I was sure Cassie was asleep, I shut off the lights in the living room and slipped on my shoes. Mittens hopped up, wagging her tail.

“Not right now, Mitts. I’ll be back,” I whispered.

I was buzzing. High. Clear. The opposite of cloud head.

I still had Rita’s keys. I had wanted to do this right away after I’d received Johnno’s text, but it was best now, now that I knew Cassie was safe in bed and he was back at his house.

I got on the highway, pushing the pedal on Rita’s Volvo as far down as it could go with my left foot, my eyes out for cops. The roads were empty.

He’d gone too far. He’d taken this beyond pills, beyond money, beyond whatever ego shit he’d picked up from the street. And it might have gone on until he’d drained my pockets, until he’d sucked me back into holding for him, until he made my life as empty and ruined as his. Get up, get messed up, take out anyone who gets in the way.

But now that I was almost out of reach, I’d realized he was just playing a game. He was now just fucking with me for the sake of fucking with me. And anyone who was in my life he’d fuck with, too. If what I felt for Cassie was real, that either meant she could no longer be a part of my life or he would have to go. He and his threats and the nonexistent money he wanted.

I chose Cassie. Of course I chose Cassie.

I thought of how I had seen her tonight, wide-eyed with a baseball bat. Marisol, hunched next to her car. They should never have had to feel like that. A beast had risen in my chest, and I didn’t know why, or why now, but when I thought of her sleeping, the idea of him watching her, hurting her, I wanted to eliminate him from the Earth.

I turned down his street in Buda and switched off the headlights, rolling slowly up over the curb, onto his overgrown lawn.

His door was locked. I took out one of my old, expired credit cards and slipped it through the crack, shoving bit by bit until I levered the lock out of its slot, a trick I’d learned, ironically, from Johnno.

I strode down the hall and kicked open his door, switching on the light.

He was curled in bed in his boxers, sheets tangled around his legs. He had two posters tacked on the wall, a bird’s-eye view of two naked teenage schoolgirls entwined on a forest floor, and a movie poster for The Big Lebowski.

“Up,” I said.

I waited until he’d sprung on top of his bed to strike his stomach with the cane. He doubled over.

Cassie’s blank face filled my vision, head lolled back, so vulnerable, so opposite the sharp strength she had when she clipped her keyboard to its stand, when she noticed I couldn’t reach something and flipped it toward me, her steady eyes as she listened to me telling her about Frankie’s last moments. The idea that Johnno’s pranks had sucked the core out of her, when she had done nothing to deserve it, blocked out the pain in my leg. I felt the urge to build something for her, to use my hands, to break anything in her way.

I came down on Johnno’s back, his bony spine and ribs poking through his skin.

Once, twice, until he was down on the bed again.

“Number one, if you ever get near my family again, I will kill you. That’s a promise.”

In my periphery, I could see Johnno sneaking his hand under the bed. Once he had his hand on the gun, I stomped down hard, feeling bones crack. I picked up the pistol.

“Number two, I’m not paying you another fucking cent. I’m done.”

I cocked it near his yellowish ear.

“Understood?”

Johnno didn’t answer, breathing hard.

I pressed the barrel on Johnno’s knee. “You know I’m willing to take off your kneecap. I said, is that understood?”

“Yes, you fuck,” he said, his voice muffled by the sheets. “Now get out.”

I wasn’t about to risk the gun going off, finishing him for good, sending me into further purgatory, so I unloaded the cartridge. As soon as I did, Johnno went for my right leg, sending searing waves of pain through my body.

Before he could gain traction, I brought the gun back and whipped the front of his skull.

“Agh!” Blood spilled from his nostrils, from the cut on his head. It was a beautiful electric red. He brought a hand to his head, rolling in agony.