'Hey, Sleeping Beauty'. Her sarcastic voice and dark eyes met him. He was confused. Why was he in white room with beeping machines ? Why was he anywhere with her? He tried his best to focus. She couldn't be real.
'Hey Atwood, pay attention to me numbnuts!' she continued before smiling and pinching his arm. He heard her clearer this time. She was real alright. Only one person ever called him that. Trey turned his head to face her. Theresa Sanchez was sitting in a plastic chair beside him, looking hard and tired and older than he'd ever seen her.
'What the fuck happened?' he asked, trying to sit up and extricate himself from the intricate web of wires that held him still. He attempted to move his right hand, but as he pulled he felt a familiar metallic strain. Handcuffs were holding him on to the bed. The hospital bed, he'd worked out that much.
'You really wanna know ? I mean so soon, and stuff?' Theresa shifted her weight awkwardly from side to side. Trey thought he could see the beginning of lines forming at the edges of her lips, where they curled with an almost dead smile. Maybe it was just the shadows darkening her face. Maybe it was just her life.
'So soon? T, what's going on?' his voice was more aggressive this time. He knew this had to involve Ryan. Why else would she be there? She'd always belonged to him. Trey remembered the day he first caught them on Ryan's bed, back in the house of trash, his own private nickname for the place he once called home. She was only fourteen. He wanted to be proud, in some weird way. His baby brother was finally getting some. But part of him was jealous. He knew it was wrong. But part of him had always loved her really. From that day forward though things seemed to change. He found other girls with Ryan in the room they shared. He knew Theresa was starting to hang out with Eddie, no matter how many warnings Turo gave her. On one of those sticky thickly hot August evenings, he'd been sitting on the porch smoking, avoiding AJ's fists. He'd seen her get out of Eddie's truck and kiss him. Not on the cheek like a friend, but a real kiss. She'd jumped down from the truck and walk to her own front door, seeming not to notice Trey until he called out to her.
'Hey Theresa!' he grinned.
'Trey' she looked a little shocked and awkward.
'You saw' she deduced, looking at the ground uncomfortably.
'Maybe' he replied playfully.
'You… you won't tell Ry will you ? I mean you know what he's like' she continued.
'Your secrets safe with me.' he replied, a little enchanted by her then, knowing that despite public opinion his little brother wasn't a saint either.
'Scouts honour' he assured her 'Wanna share a smoke?' he offered.
She walked over and joined him, taking the packet from his hand and selecting her cigarette, taking the one he always turned upside down for luck, the one he always smoked last, before closing the top and handing them back.
'You were never a boy scout' She laughed.
'Yeah, well' he shrugged, and nudged her gently.
'Now are you gonna give me a light or not?' she laughed.
'Maybe' he grinned, catching the way her eyes looked in the dirty dusk, and just knowing that he loved her.
Maybe if he thought about it long enough. And he did, a lot, after that night at the beach, after too much tequila and blow. The night with Marissa was never about Marissa at all. It was about Ryan, what Ryan had and what Ryan gave up for Newport and his homecoming queen princess. It was about Theresa and how all Trey had ever wanted was never good enough for his little brother.
'Trey?' her voice sounded alarmed. He must have spaced out.
'You wanted to know right?' she continued.
'Right' he looked her in the eye.
'Do you remember anything?' she asked tentatively.
'I remember Ryan coming to the apartment' he told her, not even sure if that was right, maybe his mind was making things up. She looked at him, those fudge caramel eyes widening with burden. Maybe that hadn't happened at all. Maybe he'd just imagined Jail and Newport. Maybe he'd crashed that Camero and had some weird-ass, long as fuck dream or something.
'Yeah, he did' she said quietly. 'He did'. Screw maybes. It was real.
'You guys had a fight, at least, that what the police said. And' Theresa looked down. 'Marissa came over and tried to stop you…' Theresa's voice seemed to trail off.
'T' he urged her, 'c'mon'. He tried to stroke her soft graceful hand.
'She shot you'. Theresa continued. That would explain why it felt like an elephant had sat on his chest, he reasoned.
'Is Ryan ok?' he asked, knowing he couldn't be, knowing this was only the build up.
'He's…' Theresa had tears in her eyes now. 'He's gone, Trey' she finished.
'What, like he skipped town or something?' he asked, squinting in the bright hospital light.
'No' she sighed.
'When Marissa shot you.. She just closed her eyes and shot a few times..one bullet hit you, but the other one hit him…they were both for you...but…she shot him, by mistake, she says….and that's when Seth and Summer arrived. Seth told me, he said, the EMT's tried. He said they were more concerned with him than you, y'know…but..but' Theresa couldn't finish.
'He died' Trey finished, knowing the Ryan had met the fate intended for him, as though their luck had switched bodies during the fight.
'Yeah' she finished, taking his hand in hers. Kissing it in support, in memory of his brother, of the love of her life. His sweet Theresa of Avila. That's what he always called her, secretly, in his head. After that stained glass picture in that church they used to when they first came to Chino, before mom started drinking Southern Comfort for breakfast. Here she was standing above him, that arrow piercing her heart, but no smile. The smile he'd thought would be his salvation was gone.
'When's the funeral?' he asked, feeling blank and tuned out.
'Its…its been awhile Trey' Theresa told him, almost whispering through her tears.
'What?' he asked, feeling disconnected from his own voice and his own question.
'You were out for two months' her voice sounded as full of nothing as he felt.
'Right' he replied curtly.
'It was nice. I mean not nice, but , y'know, they loved him a lot, The Cohen's, y'know?….But I mean, they're gone now. Sandy and Seth moved up to Berkley and hasn't gotten out of the drinking facility place yet. They don't know if she ever will…I mean now' Theresa explained.
'Marissa?' he asked. His voice was already angry and brimming with blame.
'She's in a facility too. One of those places that rich people go instead of jail and named stuff like Sunny Pines and shit. She tried to kill herself after the funeral' Theresa informed him.
'Well, it's a laugh riot around here' he commented.
'Trey' she warned him, sounding just like her mother.
'I know' he said, quieter this time, fighting the sudden urge to cry.
Theresa drew up her chair closer to the bed and kissed his cheek now, as though she could purify him with all her goodness and all her heart. 'T?' he asked her in a half whisper.
'Yeah' she swallowed away another portion of pain like only she could.
'Its his kid, isn't it?' he called her on the suspicion he had since the night he went back to Chino. He left his apartment in a daze, trying to forget it all. He'd gone looking for Turo on his way to the bar, for someone real and un-Newport to help him not think about what he'd done, to Marissa, to Ryan. But Theresa had answered the door, with a baby on her hip, a baby with big blue eyes. He'd only seen eyes like that twice before. Once on his father and again on his baby brother. Those were Atwood eyes. In that moment he knew Theresa's secret. He knew that she'd always be Ryan's girl. Those eyes would bind her, always and forever. 'Trey Atwood' she stated looking a little confused and wholly unimpressed.
'The one and only' he'd proclaimed
'Turo's in lock up Trey, he's not here' She'd told him, sounding a little angry.
'T, c'mon, let me come in. I mean, its been a while and you had...I mean..' he'd gestured to the child.
'Just don't Trey. Don't' were the only words she said before closing the door in his face.
'Scouts honour' he'd mumbled to himself before, kicking the dust on her doorstep and moving along.
'Yeah' Theresa said, her face was kind now, unlike last time.
'Can I ask you something?' Trey looked up at her.
'Something else ?' she laughed that sad resigned laugh she'd had since she was seven years old.
'When I get out…of here, of jail, wherever, can I …help, I...with him, y'know…' he'd never been good with words and now they were failing him once again.
'No...I mean, its just…he.. he wouldn't have wanted that' she answered without needing to hear the rest of his question.
Theresa had always spoken the language of the Atwood boys. She knew how to interpret. She always knew what he meant. He'd never have to explain to her like he tried to Marissa, after that night. He just nodded. She leant over and kissed him again. On the lips finally, and it didn't feel like the other girls, like Jess, like Marissa, he didn't feel like she made him dirtier. He felt like she'd saved him.
She drew back and smiled at him. Trey closed his eyes. When he opened them, Theresa was gone.