“Like, whatever. Benton? No fucking way. Mikaela Stephens is his girlfriend.”
“Maybe she’s just his beard.”
“Do you believe the Herring rumors?”
“I dunno, man. If he wasn’t gay, would he react this way?”
“Hey, did you hear Chambers and Stephens are bumping uglies?”
I take the bus home because Pierce has disappeared somewhere and is nowhere to be found. I’m not worried. It’s something he does sometimes. I get the feeling it’s got something to do with his sister, and even though I wish he would open up to me more, I know firsthand how bad it feels when you want to keep a secret from the world.
The bus ride is not really all that bad. It gives me time to think. I think of getting my fresh start, away from the toxic environment I call home. I think about how I’m going to go and fill my suitcase with only my most important belongings. I think about how I will mend my relationship with both my dad and Ryan—because I lo
ve them both despite of everything, or maybe even because of it—and how we’re all going to laugh about it one, two, three years from now, when I’ll be somewhere else. I imagine how it would feel to come visit them on vacation from time to time and to not feel trapped or controlled. To feel my family around me, to know that there are people who love me unconditionally, because even though I am madly in love with my teacher, what we have is different. What we have sweats and moans and thrusts and groans.
The bus stops around a mile away from my house, and I start walking, clutching my backpack straps in my hands. I sent Christian a few text messages earlier, so I check to see if he answered. He didn’t. I stare at my texts to him.
Please tell me you’re okay. Which hospital are you at?
I’m so worried about you. Why did you have to go and get yourself hurt?
Benton Herring is probably going to be expelled. It’s senior year. His parents are pissed.
I open the gate to my house that doesn’t really feel like my house anymore and walk in. Dad’s not at home, but what else is new?
Walking over to my room feels final. The house is a mess again, but I guess Ryan is on another bender. My room looks torn apart, but all my shit is still here, albeit scattered. I pull out two big and old suitcases—one of them has a giant hole in the middle and the other doesn’t zip all the way through, but they’ll have to do—and start packing the very little possessions that actually belong to me. Clothes. A teddy bear Ryan got me when I was twelve, even though I was more into skateboards. Some books and pictures my dad bought for me along the years. Photos of my mom. Photos of Ryan and me and Dad. Just…things. Things that make me sad and nostalgic and hate what we all became.
I open my nightstand drawer and pause. My camera is not there. I blink. Close it. Open it again. It’s stupid, I know, but there’s just no way that it’s not there. It was there yesterday. That’s where I put it.
Only now it’s gone.
I feel the panic grabbing my throat and squeezing hard. My camera. My mom’s camera. The only thing I have left of her. This shit is not even worth that much money, so I know for a fact Ryan didn’t try to sell it.
The photos.
Frantic, I flip over the mattress. I hide all of my photos underneath it. Everything I took pictures of. Because I’m the one who makes all the beds and changes all the sheets in the house. They’re gone, too.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I turn the mattress upside down until it’s on the floor. The photos are gone. Pierce’s photos are gone. There’s a hurricane in my stomach, and I practically fly over to Ryan’s bedroom, even though I know he’s not there. I throw the door open, and it’s empty. There are needles on his nightstand and a gun on the messy bed. I want to cry. I want to kill him. I want to help him.
I’m out of the house in a second. I’m not even sure where he could be. As fucked up as our relationship may be, there’s trust there, too. When he tells me he is going somewhere, I don’t even ask why or where or when would he be home. I try the auto shop where he’s supposed to be working, but the guy who owns the place looks at me like I’ve gone completely mad when I ask him if my brother has a shift and answers, “Who? Ryan? No, he’s not here. Hasn’t been in months.”
I walk around in circles. I try the food mart down the road and a few of his friends’ houses and even call Reed. Three hours pass. Four. Pierce is calling and texting me. I don’t answer. I need to sort this out first, I tell myself. I need to make sure that Ryan keeps his mouth shut.
I go back home and see his bike parked in the middle of the yellow dying grass, and I’m not sure what I’m more—relieved or scared. I run to the house and open the door.
“Ryan! Ryan!”
He is draped over the sofa like he’s half-dead, and there’s a girl straddling him. Correction: fucking him. She has long blonde hair. Dyed. And she is wearing a cheap school uniform. A uniform…not unlike mine. My stomach churns. I hold the handle to the front door, refusing to walk deeper into the living room. Danger is in the air. It’s everywhere. It’s in my bones.
“Get out of here,” Ryan says, holding the girl’s hips in his rough palms and driving her onto his dick, which I can see every time she pulls upwards, shining with her arousal.
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m busy.”
“You have something of mine.”