That’s too fucking easy. She’d go to this asshole she’s been feeding information to. I don’t know who Mr. D is, but her mom might know.
This is the most fucked up part of all. Even now, she’s fucking with my head. I don’t want to talk to her mom, to take advantage of her ignorance, if her daughter is dead. But if she’s alive, I have to find her. It’s pissing me off that I don’t know what way to be, to act.
“I’ll let you know if I hear from her,” I tell Mrs. Apple. “I’m sorry she ran off on you.”
“I’m sorry she ran around onyou,” Mrs. Apple says. “Some girls don’t know a good thing until it bites them in the ass.”
The last thing I should care about is who Harper was fucking, but my caveman brain can’t think of anything else. “Is that why she said we broke up?” I ask carefully.
“I just figured,” she says. “You know, if she’s not here, nine times out of ten she’s with that boy who does the tattoos. He’s been hanging out on the corners with the Crosses lately, probably selling that Alice in Wonderland shit that’s been all over the news. They say it makes you go all night, so if he’s dipping into his supply, he’s got a lady to reap the benefits.”
I try not to react. The smell of the place is making me sick. Blood rushes in my head. I don’t want to be here, in this death trap. Again, I push the box at Mrs. Apple, or whatever the fuck her name is. I never asked Harper if her mom got married. I just know she didn’t marry Harper’s dad, the disowned Darling.
“You could always try texting her,” she says. “It’s a shame you two broke up. If you need to talk to somebody, maybe drink away those troubles…”
“I’m good,” I say, backing toward the hallway. Suddenly, I can’t be here. Her ghost is breathing down the back of my neck—no, screaming down it.
No wonder Harper never let me come in. Her house is shit. Her mom is shit. Her life is shit. If she worked herself free of those ropes, she probably headed in the opposite direction from Faulkner and never looked back. She’s too smart to come back here, especially knowing she’s crossed the wrong fucking people.
I ignore Mrs. Apple’s attempts to lure me back as I hurry outside, holding back the urge to heave. The low clouds have started spitting rain, and the air is thick and heavy with moisture. The little girl is standing on the roof of the car, dancing in the rain to another song no kid should be listening to.
“Yeah, you go on and go home!” Her high voice cuts through the splattering rain. “You ain’t welcome here, on account of you broke Harper’s heart.”
Ignoring her, I hurry to the Range Rover and climb inside, slamming the door to shut out the rain and the girl and the feeling of that house that clings to me like the skin-crawling sensation of dirt and grime and sweat after a football game.
Trash, all of them. Just like Harper.
I try to keep that thought in mind instead of feeling like the piece of shit I am, running from them like a guilty conscience.
I take a few deep breaths, telling myself I’m imagining the stench of her life lingering around me. Then I shift into drive and take off, back toward the side of town where the rottenness makes sense to me.
I don’t go home, though. I keep going, toward old man Darling’s house, the one where we went after I disowned Crystal but before she died.
I pull off at the bridge. This is where I belong. Honoring the memory of a girl who deserves my remorse. The first girl I killed, two and a half years ago.
Grey drizzle splatters down on the windshield. It’s not the kind of rain that fell on the night the river took Crystal. It’s the kind that was falling the night Harper came to our house the first time, thinking she’d spy. She was good at finding my hiding spots, the places I go to remember, to prove they don’t hurt me. I have mastered this place the way I mastered Devlin’s balcony.
His house is gone now, and Harper can’t haunt his balcony, but she haunts the river. I left her in the swamp, but her ghost is here. It’s in the rain on the windshield, the blanket in the trunk. It’s under the bridge, where we lay and talked and fucked. It’s on the far side of the bridge, where we fought the Darlings, and where I pushed her down and fucked her ass the first time. It’s in the back seat of this car, where I plowed into her and made her scream for me while her cunt choked my cock in its grip.
I lean the seat back and slide my hand into my pants. My cock is stiff, my balls ready to dump their contents into her thirsty core. I pull out my phone and thumb it on.
I think of what her mother said. I scroll down to her name and read our lastOnlyWordsmessages.
Royal: meet u at ur locker after school
BadApple: c u then
It’s so normal. So ordinary.
I press the button and shut off my screen. I should delete the whole thread, erase any evidence I ever knew her. Instead, I open the regular texting app that uses our phone numbers, the one we hardly used. It only takes a minute to scroll back all those months, to the first text she sent. It’s a picture of her in my letterman jacket, the pic I asked for over Thanksgiving. My dick jerks in my hand, and I close my eyes and take a breath, as if I can coax the smell of her from these leather seats where she lay so many times.
But no. That was a different car. She’s only been in this one once—her last night.
When I open my eyes, though, she’s still there. She’s not showing a lot of skin. She never sent nudes. That only makes me want to see more, to peel open the jacket and see her tight little tits with the caramel nipples poking out at me. She’s not wearing anything under it, but only an inch of skin shows between the buttons of the jacket. An inch of flat stomach, the little dip of her bellybutton like a tease. Below the jacket, she’s wearing tiny athletic shorts, knee socks, and tennis shoes. Her hair is messy around her shoulders, and she’s smiling into the camera, a sassy smirk that tugs at one corner of her lips. But it’s her eyes that seduced me then, her eyes that entice me now.
I stroke myself, but it’s not enough. I need her, need to crush her little body under mine, to pin it and penetrate her and hear her gasping for mercy. I look at her picture, and I scroll through the others, tugging at my dick until my skin is rubbed raw, but I can’t find relief. My balls are so full they ache. I just need one little push, but I can’t close the deal. Finally, I throw my phone across the car and slam my head back against the seat.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.