I let out a little breath and pick up a fry. “Yeah. He was there. And now he’s trying to talk to me, and I just… I don’t care what he wants. I just want him to leave me alone.”
“He wants to get back with you?” she asks, watching me as she bites into her burger.
“I don’t think so.” I shake my head, remembering Royal’s drawling voice saying he was bored that night. “No,” I say, more emphatically this time. “Definitely not. But he’s still fucking with me. I just want to survive until I can get out of this town, and then I want to forget everything that ever happened before I left. Most of all, him. But he’s not letting me.”
“Do you know how you’d go?” Blue asks.
“What?”
She nods toward the cab, where the bass is thumping from some music her sister found. “You could always dump the truck somewhere once you get out.”
I realize she thinks I’m leaving now. I could. I don’t even think Preston would call the cops. I could just blow right the fuck away, like Mabel Darling. But then I’d be a high school dropout, maybe one with a criminal record if I underestimated Preston’s reluctance to involve anyone else.
“He saved me,” I say quietly. “At least, I thought he did. But I’m not so sure anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not a hero.”
“But he’s taking care of you,” she says, biting into her burger. “And all you have to do is fuck him? I mean…”
“Yeah,” I say. “For girls like us, that’s as good as it gets.”
“No,” she says. “That’s better than most girls get.”
“But now I need protection from Royal,” I say. “And he can’t give it to me. He won’t.”
We eat in silence for a while. When we’re done with the burgers and fries, Blue turns to make sure Olive is okay before scooting back into the bed of the truck, resting against the wheel well while I match her position on the other side. She sets her soda beside her and takes out her cigarettes.
I stare at our shoes—her scuffed Vans that probably cost ten bucks at a second-hand store, and my new leather Doc Martens that cost over ten times that much—and guilt swells inside me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what Preston’s done. I do. And I don’t want more from him. He doesn’t owe me anything, not even what he’s done already. I have no right to expect him to protect me, especially since I know what it’ll cost him. Colt already paid that price.
My phone chimes, and I glance at the screen to see an email notifying me that I have one new message and 27 unread messages on theOnlyWordsapp. I haven’t used it since I cut off Mr. D, but he probably wants his car back. I’m about to close it when another email comes through. Blue gives me a mildly curious look and hands me a cigarette.
I take it with a sigh and hit the button to download the app, though it makes a clammy, cold sensation crawl up my back despite the sweltering blanket of summer spread over us. I set down my phone and light up, take a drink of my Dr. Pepper, and wipe my hands on the floral dress Preston bought me sometime this summer. It’s funny how much of the past few months feel like a dream.
I pick up my phone and open the app. My soda catches in my throat, and I choke, dropping my phone on the tailgate. It clatters across the surface, and Blue gives me a funny look as I try to suck in a breath. I pick up the phone, my fingers trembling. I don’t know why I’m surprised.
Royal: What r u doing?
I drag hard on the cigarette, remembering how Royal almost never texted first. He made me come to him every time. Even then, half the time he ignored my texts, probably just to prove he could. Now he wants to know what I’m up to, and it’s so far past too late that I can’t even comprehend that he thinks it’s okay to text me.
I’m tempted to say something smartass, but I remind myself that I did that for six months, and it got me nowhere. I’ve given up. I won’t fight him anymore. I type in all the information he could want, so I won’t have to see his name on the screen again and feel that sickening lurch in my stomach.
BadApple: Eating w friends at the quarry. Plz don’t text me.
Royal: doesn’t seem like a good place 4 someone who wants 2 die.
BadApple: seems like a good place 2 me
Royal: Don’t make me come find u.
BadApple: I’m fine. I wont jump.
I set my phone down and wave to Olive, whose greasy fingers are pressed to the glass as she makes faces at us out the back window. Blue flicks her cigarette butt over the edge of the truck bed. “If you need protection, you should talk to Mav,” she says. “He’s running with the Crossbones now.”
I think on it for a second before shaking my head. There’s no way to defeat the Dolces. I’ve already tried. I lost, and everyone I involve will lose, too. I needed to tell someone, but some tiny tendril of self-preservation has sprung to life inside me. That’s why I told Blue, who won’t do anything more than Preston will. I could have told the cops, or someone who would go to the cops or pressure me to. But I didn’t. I told Blue because I needed someone safe, someone who won’t be hurt by my secret because she will never whisper a word of it, and no one will ever know that she knows.
Colt had it right all along.