“’Real new. ‘Cause we don’t call cops,” Bear added, pushing his gun into my hand. As soon as I touched the cold metal I knew it wasn’t his gun after all. It was mine. “We didn’t get rid of all of your shit,” Bear said to me.
“What? You gonna shoot me in front of all these people? You gonna kill me in the middle of the fucking day with a bunch of witnesses standing around who could send you to jail?” Buck rolled his eyes.
“He really must be new in town,” Bear joked.
I raised the gun and aimed it at Buck’s chest.
“Why do you keep saying that!” Buck screamed backing up and raising his hands in the air. He looked over my shoulder to the crowd where not one person was making a move to protect him.
“Because,” I said, cocking the gun. “None of them are going to call the fucking cops.”
“Oh yeah?” Buck challenged “And why the fuck is that?”
I pulled the trigger twice, sending Buck’s bleeding body rolling into a heap of his own garbage.
“Because, unlike you, they know who we fucking are.”
I may not have found Bo, but I did find someone else. An old friend of mine I didn’t even know I missed.
And his name was Revenge.
“Reunited and it feels so goooooood,” I sang out the open truck window as we flew over the causeway. I breathed in the salty air and it wasn’t enough. I opened my mouth so I could taste it on my tongue. Bear pulled me inside by my shirt. “Fuck, that was better than any therapy,” I said after planting my ass back on the seat. “What a fucking rush!”
“Yeah, Prep, if it put you in this good of a mood we should find someone else to kill,” Bear said.
I pulled the note from my pocket and smiled. “Done.”
“‘Bout time you started feeling better,” King said, turning onto the dirt road under the bridge.
“No!” I exclaimed, turning toward them and gesturing with my hands as I spoke, one of which was still holding the gun. MY gun. “I don’t just feel better; I feel...” I looked up at my two best friends who were eagerly awaiting for me to tell them something the shit eating grins on their faces told me they already knew.
“ALIVE. I feel fucking ALIVE.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Five Months Later
DRE
I pulled the covers up to my chin but was still unable to shake the chill that had seeped into my bones. Every single degree the temperature dropped made me miss Logan’s Beach even more than I already did.
When I realized the chill was coming from my bedroom window that I didn’t remember leaving open I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders and padded over to shut it, sleepily bumping into my desk in the process.
“You look like an adorable fucking eskimo,” a deep voice said from out of nowhere. I turned around and jumped back, bracing my hands on the window sill as the door slowly creaked closed. A face I never thought I’d see again stepped out from the shadows. He smiled and his eyes gleamed.
“What?” I asked. “Why are you here?”
“Why wouldn’t I be here?” he asked like it was an absurd question, and I wasn’t sure if he was telling me that was the reason he was there or just stating a fact.
“Because it’s been five months and I haven’t heard a damn thing from you,” I said, trying to catch my breath. Preppy walked around the room slowly picking up frames and trophies from my youth and running his hands over my ribbon for winning first place in the eighth grade science fair. “You scared the shit out of me you know.”
“How’s your dad?”
“He’s fine now. It was minor heart attack. He just has to watch what he eats and his stress levels. He was lucky he noticed the signs as early as he did and Edna called for help,” I said.
“That’s good. What did you make to win this?” Preppy asked. He held up the ribbon.
I mashed my lips together. “A portable printing press.”
“For books and shit?” He set the ribbon back down.
I shook my head and wrapped the blanket around me tighter. I shivered, but this time the cold had nothing to do with it. “A money press.”
Preppy smiled and I saw pride gleam in his eyes. “You made a counterfeit money printing press in the eighth grade...and you won?”
I shrugged. “Wasn’t that hard. Second place was one of those volcanoes that dripped tomato soup from the top.” Preppy was quiet as he approached the bed where he stood on one side and I stood on the other.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“The divorce papers,” Preppy said.
My heart sank. “So you came here to deliver them in person?”
Preppy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a manilla envelope. “Something like that,” he said, opening it and spilling paper confetti onto my bed between us. “More like bring them back.”
Preppy was silent as he paced the room, tugging at his hair. A vein pulsed in his neck. I couldn’t help but notice that he’d gained a substantial amount of weight since I’d last seen him. Mostly muscle. His biceps flexed under the fabric of his white button down. This was no longer skinny-lean Preppy. He might have been lean but when his arms lifted over his head and he let out a deep sigh I couldn’t help ogling his ab muscles outlined by his shirt.
That’s also when I realized that for the exception of a missing bow-tie he was wearing typical Preppy attire. Suspenders, khakis, boots. His hair had grown into the style I remembered from years ago, long on the top, shaved on the sides.
My insides clenched but my mind raced along with my heart. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What do you want?” I screamed, literally pulling at the roots of my hair and charging him across the mattress until I was on my knees on the bed eye to eye with the man who’d broken my heart on more than one occasion. It was a good thing my dad was out. “You have to tell me what you want!”
He stood his ground and shouted back. “I want YOU!”
“Then let me the fuck in!” I yelled through gritted teeth, shoving against his chest. “Tell me what happened to you and let me the fuck in!”
Preppy growled. “He fucking tortured me!” he screamed, his face turning red with his anger, a vein pulsed in his throat. I gasped and sat back on my feet, watching as his walls finally crumbled. “Is that what you want to fucking hear? Do you want to know about all the times he beat me with a bat, waited for my injuries to start to heal, before doing it all over again on top of the bruises? Do you want to hear how sliced me with a sharp knife until my skin was shredded?” His voice grew lower, darker. “Or maybe you want to hear about how he sent one of his biker bitches down to fuck me in the ass in an attempt to fucking break me? You want to know how he sounded when he laughed as he came on my back? Or how he kicked me in my spine when he was done and I blacked out when my head hit the fucking wall because I couldn’t even hold myself up.” Preppy looked to the sky and then back to me. “I couldn’t hold myself up never mind fight him off even though I tried. I fucking tried!”