I put on my shit eating grin. “She sure as fuck does, Doc.”
“Bullshit.” She put her hands on her hips.
“Mirna not only knows, but it’s been Granny approved, Doc. I have a feeling I could have taken out half of Logan’s Beach and she wouldn’t give a flying fuck as long as you were still alive, because unlike you, Mirna knows what family and loyalty is all about.” Dre’s eyes widened at my admission and her shoulders fell, but just for a second, before straightening again and assuming a defensive stance. “Wait, never mind, you do know something about loyalty if you count giving that shit-bag Conner a pass for some obscure reason you refuse to share. I mean, I could say you were loyal to heroin too, but here you are two whole weeks sober, one conscious, so I guess you fucked that bitch over, too.”
Dre drilled me with her eyes, her plump red lips a hard line. We were standing so close I could feel the warmth radiating off of her skin and smell her light flowery shampoo. “And you know so much about being loyal?”
“Fuck of a lot more than you do.”
“I don’t have to listen to this!” Dre shook her head. “You don’t know a fucking thing about me!” She turned back toward the house. I grabbed her wrist, digging my fingers into her flesh.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said, spinning her back around.
“Let me go!” she said, arching her back and planting her feet for leverage, but it didn’t matter how hard she was pulling, I wasn’t letting go.
“No! Not until you tell me why you’re being such a fucking cunt right now.”
“Fuck you!” she spat, her face reddening as she pulled harder and harder.
“Always a possibility, Doc, but stay on the fucking subject.”
“You want to know why I’m being this way?” She stopped struggling and stepped up to me, so close she had to crane her neck. “You!” She jabbed her finger into my chest. “My problem is you! You grow your plants and make your confusing sarcastic remarks and think that because you’ve got this unique beautiful charm thing going on, and you smile a lot, that you can do whatever you want. Well, newsflash. You can’t. You got the old ladies fooled but you aren’t fooling me. You don’t own me.” She tried to wedge her fingers under my arms to loosen my grip.
I pulled her against me, roughly. I leaned down, my lips at her ear. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“You think you’re better than me,” she said. “But you’re not.” Her voice took on a serious tone. She lowered her head and stepped back. I allowed her the space but didn’t let go of her. “When you’ve gotten what you want from Mirna, you’re gonna pack up and go without another thought for her or her feelings, and she’s going to worry about you when you’re gone. She’s going to hurt when she doesn’t know where you are.” Her step faltered. She dropped to the ground and looked up at me with glassy eyes. “And it’s all because you caused her a kind of hurt that you can’t take back.” I released her wrist, and she rubbed the red mark on her arm and looked to the ground, shuffling her feet.
“I don’t think we’re talking about me anymore, Doc.”
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about anymore,” she said, running her fingertips over the marks on her arms. “I did things. More than leading Conner and Eric here, knowing what they…what we intended to do. To my dad. To Mirna. I can’t erase what I put her through, but that’s all I think about.” She bit her bottom lip and shoved her hands into the pockets of her skirt, bringing the neckline down lower, exposing more of the top, rounded part of her tits.
“You’re talking about the checks?”
Her lips parted in surprise.
“Mirna told me,” I said, before she could ask. I purposely left out the other part Mirna had told me she knew. “I told you, she’s not stupid.”
Dre dropped her head to her knees. “What the fuck am I going to do now? I have to apologize.” She looked up to the house where Mirna was sitting by the window laughing with her friends, that glazed look easily noticeable even from the frontyard. “But I can’t.”
“Doc?”
She spun her head around and quirked a brow at my outstretched hand. I held the file in the other. “I think I know how we can help each other.”
“How?”
I crouched down in front of her. I tapped her on the forehead with the file. I flashed her my best reassuring smile. “First…” I brushed a curl off her shoulder, and she stiffened at my touch, “…you need to get your ass in the motherfucking car.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PREPPY
“Why is it so important to you to get King’s kid out of the system?” Dre asked after I explained to her the situation with King and Max.
“Because he can’t do shit while he’s locked up, and because he’s not just my best friend. He’s family, and family fights for one another,” I said, turning onto a dirt road. It was pitch-black out, and where we were at there was no such thing as streetlights. Thankfully, I could find the place we were going drunk, high, and naked.
And I have.
“You make it sound so simple,” she said.
“It is. When I was a kid there wasn’t anyone around to fight for me. My mom was a piece of shit and so was every single man who found their way into her fucking bedroom.” I shrugged like it was nothing, but I’d rather take a spike to the eye than talk about my childhood, but I needed Dre to understand the situation. “She was a junkie, a loser, a deplorable human being. I learned from her. She was a walking ‘what not to do’ guide to family.”
“A junkie loser,” Dre repeated softly, looking out the window.
“Ain’t no other way to describe her because that’s exactly what she was,” I said.
“Go on.”
I tapped my fingers to the beat of the Kane Brown song playing on the radio. “Mommy dearest was the worst of the worst, and not like she outright beat me or anything, but she wasn’t exactly a member of the PTA. There was this one guy that she married, well maybe she married him, she called him my stepdad, but I don’t remember a wedding or anything. Anyway, his name was Tim, he was the worst of them all.”
“What did he do?” she asked, hesitantly, no longer looking out the window but at me.
I cracked my jaw as I recalled the day King walked in and found Tim rutting into me like a fucking barnyard pig. “He beat the living shit out of me…amongst other things.”
I heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Don’t pity me.” I glanced over at Dre, who was picking at her nails and looking down at her lap. “I sure as shit don’t. Listen, life isn’t about what happened to you in your past, it’s about where you are now and where you’re going. Onward and upward and all that jazz.”
“That’s very poetic,” Dre said. “But I’m surprised you moved on without seeking justice or revenge.”