CHAPTER30
When my last class is over, I’m so ready to go home. As soon as I reach the front door, I realize it’s absolutely pouring. Normally, I love the rain, and it fits my mood well enough, but it’s almost too much. My bed—if you can call it a bed—will be soaked. I don’t know if it’ll have time to dry even if the rain ends soon, what with my bed being in the shadows of an overpass. There won’t be enough sunlight to try to stretch to reach it. Maybe I’ll have to find a bench or something.
A bench. I really am nothing but a homeless person.
I decide to linger a bit at the school and take that shower that I couldn’t this morning. The place is almost entirely dead by the time I finally force myself outside. I’m not more than two blocks away when a car pulls up alongside me and parks.
I make the mistake of glancing over. It’s Tyler in a sleek black car. A Bentley.
“Want a ride?” he asks as soon as the passenger side window is rolled down.
“No way.”
I keep on walking, head high. He drives along, going only as fast as I am, talking to me like this is normal.
“Why not?”
“Why do you want me in your car so damn badly? Do you just want to grope me? Or is it your plan to try to shove me out the door on the highway?”
An intersection is coming up. I keep walking, intending on continuing along straight, but he turns his car to the right and blocks me. Sure, I can walk around him, but there's something in the look of his eye that makes me hesitate just a fraction of a step. I walk around the front of his car, and he opens his door, jumps out, and grabs my wrist before I can get away. The rain has made the sidewalks slick, and it's not easy to have footing right now.
“Are you really homeless?” he asks. “Or are you refusing to get in my car because you don’t want me to know where it is?”
I yank my arm free. “You left your door open. Everything is getting wet.”
“I don’t care. Get in.”
“No.”
I continue walking. He spins his wheels and gets back on the road, causing another car driver to honk his horn at him. Tyler doesn’t care, and the other driver swerves around him, splashing some water. I’m far enough to the right, near the buildings, that the water doesn’t get on me. Just the rain if the building doesn’t have an awning.
There’s only one thing I hate about the rain. One time, I had been outside, playing. I had been climbing a tree. It started to pour, just like now, which made the branches super slippery. You guessed it. I fell and hurt my hip badly. I didn’t break it, but if it rains hard enough, that old injury bothers me.
And it’s starting to bother me now.
Another block, and it's starting to become really painful to walk. Tyler's still beside me, and he rolls down his window again.
“Come on, Erika. Stop being a stubborn woman. Just get in.”
“Your seat is all wet.”
He grabs something from the back, a jacket or a blanket, something, and he wipes down the seat. It’s a rushed, half-ass job, but it’s better than nothing.
I tilt my head back and stare up at the ominous, black clouds that don't show any sign of rolling away. It's not a thunderstorm. At least then, the storm would be over soon. They never tend to last longer than a half hour, but this is just a plain ole rainstorm, so it can rain and rain and rain and rain some more.
With a sigh, I hobble over to his car and climb in. As soon as I shut the door, he takes off, tires squealing in protest.
“That is so terrible for your tires,” I tell him.
“I know.”
“So why do it?”
He looks over at me and shrugs, grinning broadly. Fuck. It’s not fair. Why do all of the hot guys have to be such major assholes?
Up ahead is a red light, and Tyler glances at me. “What’s with your hip?”
I shake my head. It’s not as if the story is something I need to keep quiet about, but I don’t want to open up to him about anything. My life is my life. My problem. It’s none of his concern. None of his business.