“Fine.”
Fitz chants ‘haagen-daaz’ a million times as he slides into Burn’s convertible. Bee looks hesitant, then turns to me as I’m putting on my helmet and shoes.
“Can I…ride with you?”
I want to tell her to ride with Burn. To stay away from me. Mark knows her, now. He’s touched her with his filthy tendrils of hate and vitriol. I wanted to keep her away from that. I wanted to keep her safe from it.
From my past.
I nod. “Yeah.”
I pass her a helmet, and soon we’re on the road, Mom’s bike eating up pavement. At a stoplight, a warm pair of slender arms hesitantly clasp around my waist, and I feel the pressure and heat of her chest against my back.
“Is this okay?” She asks. I wait for the tremors in my hands. They’re small, so small compared to what they were just minutes ago. She isn’t Mark. She won’t hurt me. That much is clear.
I know that much about her for sure.
I nod, and she rests her head on my shoulderblades, the weight and warmth of her better than any spinning rings on my fingers.
****
BEATRIX
A week after what Burn and Fitz and I have been referring to as ‘the pool thing’, Fitz hacks me.
I guess he decided it was a good reward for defending his brother against his abuser, but frankly, I couldn’t understand the logic. Not that I understood the logic of anything that went down that day – I couldn’t understand Mark’s awful, discriminate hate. I couldn’t understand why the pool people didn’t ban him for being so awful instead of asking us to leave. I couldn’t understand why Wolf let me ride on his bike with him again, this time practically hugging him.
But if there’s one thing I learned with Dad’s illness, it’s that maybe I didn’t need to understand. Maybe I just needed to be there.
So yeah - Fitz hacked me. And what did he do with his almighty powers over my computational livelihood? He made my entire desktop background a picture of a pizza with corn on it.
I instantly knew it was him. I texted him.
Nice one.
He replied a millisecond later with a smiley face.
^_^ I knew u’d like it
What inspired it?
i asked burn what to hack u w/and he said ‘something disturbing’ so I did my best It’s true, it’s the epitome of horror. You’ve found my one weakness. Corn on pizza. Cizza.
or porn
No, thanks. Cizza is slightly better
ur a party pooper
And you type like you’re in middle school.
saves time. Also, stops me from looking like a giant, grammar-correcting douche like u
Fair, fair.
so u and Wolf r getting cozy, huh?
What do you mean?
u rode home with him last week. Plus burn said he saw u 2 holdin hands in the back of the car after the skydive My heartbeat skyrocketed. I tried to change back my desktop picture to the picture of a basket of kittens it used to be, but I couldn’t access my control panel. All I got was a frozen screen. I let out a sigh and my phone vibrated again.
im holding ur computer hostage until u confirm or deny
Ugh, fine. Yes. We held hands.
arent u super excited about it?!
Yes, but. It’s just hard.
yea, duh. that’s luv
I rolled my eyes, but the pit of dread in my stomach only grew. It was fine, letting him believe what he wanted while I did the whole reconnaissance thing for his dad. But what about after? I’d buried myself so deep in these brothers’ lives, I doubted I’d be able to disentangle myself so easily when the time came. They would get hurt.
And what about me? What did I want? I wanted my scholarship secure. I wanted to graduate from prestigious Lakecrest. And I wanted to go to NYU. But somewhere along the way, Fitz and Burn, at least, had become my friends. Friends I convinced myself I never missed having. Wolf was, despite our commitment to hate each other, important to me. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be – it was supposed to be easy, shallow. It wasn’t supposed to turn into something….real.
I hated the stuck up, spoiled Blackthorn brothers. They hated me. That was the way it was supposed to be.
Part of me would give anything to go back to the first moment Wolf gave me my red card. Just do everything over again. But that wasn’t the present. That was the past. And I had to put my big girl pants on and buckle up for the bumpy ride of the future.
“Bee?”
The knock at my door made me look up. I turned my computer off quickly – I didn’t want Mom asking questions about why a Cizza was my desktop picture.
“Come in,” I said, cracking open a textbook to look busy.
She opened the door, entering with cautious steps and a nervous smile on. I might’ve gotten my physical stuff from Dad, but Mom and I were the same when it came to emotions – we were both shit at hiding how we felt. I could tell she was feeling guilty about being out so much, and this was her check-in on me to placate it.
“Hi,” She said. “How are you doing?”
“Great,” I motioned to my book. “Just finishing up on studying for this last big test before Thanksgiving break.”
“And how’s school going?”
“It’s, you know, the same as ever.”
Mom smiled. “Right. Do you know what you want for your birthday, yet?”
“Mom, no,” I groaned. I’d seen the bills on the counter – things were tight as ever. I knew we couldn’t afford something for me. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”
“Come on, sweetie, it’s your birthday! Anything you want. Anything at all.”
Her guilt tinged her voice, sounding a lot like desperation. I wanted to tell her money wouldn’t fix the fact she was ghosting out of my life lately. Out of Dad’s life.
“I just want you to – to be home more,” I said. “If that’s okay. That could be my birthday present.”
“Oh, honey,” Mom bit her lip. “I wish. I wish so much I could be home, but with things like they are at the hospital, I’m covering double shifts.”
I sniffed the air. Double shifts she had to wear perfume for? I sighed.