We drive in silence for a minute. “You think you’d have done that?” he asks. “If you’d gotten pregnant, and you had the money...”
“What, run away?” I want to say I’d never do that, but if I’m honest, I have to think about it. “I don’t know,” I admit at last. “Probably. I wanted to get out of this town, and you were scary as fuck.”
“Is that still what you want?” he asks.
“Yeah, for a while,” I say. “But I think I’ll actually miss this place. I don’t think I ever really hated Faulkner. I hated being trapped. Probably why I also don’t want to have kids.”
“You don’t?” he asks, his brows lifting as he turns to look at me.
“Do you?”
He turns back to the road for a minute and then shakes his head. “No. I’d fuck them all up.”
“And hey,” I say. “If we ever change our minds in the future, at least we know we can’t be worse than our parents.”
“What about the other thing you said?” he asks. “You still think I’m scary?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “But not to me.”
He’s quiet as we turn onto the road that leads to his neighborhood, the quiet, two-lane blacktop that winds through an area of skeletal winter trees. The road is still wet from last night’s rain, and the yellow lines in the center glow out of the dark. I’m sure we’re both thinking the same thing, about how we blew up his father just last night. I don’t want to know how many people he’s killed before that, but I’m not stupid enough to think he’s harmless. I’m just secure enough to know that he won’t let any harm come to me.
thirty-four
Duke Dolce
The house is veiled in darkness, like it was after Crystal died. Ghosts float through the halls. No one can see them but me. No one can see the shadow over us, either. They’re lucky.
I fall back on my bed and scroll my phone, ignoring the presence hovering over me, like when you walk through an invisible spiderweb, and it sticks to your face.
I reach for the remote and flick the TV on, scrolling toLocal News with Jackie. I’d bang that MILF in a heartbeat, but apparently she doesn’t like younger dudes. Her husband is ancient.
She’s standing in front of the mall, her dark hair blowing in her face and the wind trying to steal her voice from the microphone. “In the latest development from the explosion that happened last night at the recently-shuttered Faulkner Mall, a body has been recovered at the scene,” she says, clutching her khaki coat around her. “Police have not yet released the identity of the victim, as this is an ongoing investigation.”
I switch over to an internet browser and pull up something better—girl on girl action. I grab the lotion and a box of tissue and get to work, throwing an arm over my face at the last minute to block out the unseen eyes.
It’s not my brother. He’s alive.
He took the Tesla and got the hell out.
I know he’s okay. I’d feel it if he wasn’t.
Or maybe I wouldn’t. Royal thought Crystal was dead all that time, and he’s her twin. He said he couldn’t feel that she was alive, which means I can’t feel that Baron is.
But I know it, anyway. He’s too smart to die.
It’s Dad’s body. He’s the ghost haunting the halls of our house, back for revenge. Dad doesn’t forgive. It’s why we’re in this town.
I get up and throw away the tissues and wash my hands. Then I shut off the TV and open the fridge. The worthless maid didn’t restock my beer. Again.
I stomp downstairs, the emptiness hovering around me like another ghost. That’s not Dad. It’s Baron’s absence.
I grab a sixpack and head outside to escape the hollowness inside. Dad’s not here, but it’s not like we spent any time together. It’s the empty space of knowing he’ll never be home again that fills me with heaviness. Baron’s gone, but he’ll be back. Royal is gone, off somewhere with Harper. Even she’s better company than the ghosts.
I could call a chick from school, but it all got monotonous at some point. Even with Baron around to make things interesting by making them do some sick and twisted shit, there came a point where there was nothing new. One pussy was the same as the next, and there were no more things to try that weren’t so extreme even I wouldn’t cross that line.
Besides, half the girls at school won’t come crawling back when I call, thanks to Harper and Dixie. Not that it was a great loss—we’d already run through most of those girls, anyway. We didn’t even want those bitches, so it’s not like we cared if they cock-blocked us. There’s plenty of other girls to fuck, but I’d rather go jerk off again than have one of them in here asking where Baron is and faking sympathy in hopes of sticking to me the way Harper stuck to Royal.
When I step outside, there’s a kid sitting on the steps that curves around one side of the house, the side where I always sit. I take a seat there anyway. There are too many kids to keep track of anymore.