Burn
Twenty-Seven
Rust
Ramon and Derek are wearing identical looks of terror and disbelief as I pick myself up off the floor gingerly, feeling my ball-joints creaking and scraping, the back of my head pounding steadily.
We're all very quiet for the longest time until I open the fridge to replace the peas back inside, selecting a still-frozen bag. It's Ramon that breaks the silence.
"What the fuck just happened?" he asks me weakly, his thick voice thin and reedy as he gets to his feet.
"Royce was angry," I answer, placing the peas on the spot where the pain is the worst, like the sharp corner of a dresser banging into my skull repeatedly. Now that Derek knows I'm not crazy, the anger settles instead. While claiming to be my best friend, when I spoke about Royce and the haunting in the mental hospital, he'd turned away from me and brandished me with crazy.
Like the scarlet letter, I wear it and everyone knows of my sin, but he was the one who started it. He was the center, the focal point, the one who began my spiral, wasn't he?
Derek doesn't say anything, only keeping his green eyes on Ramon, who's wrapped his hands around my little girl waist and inspecting the bump on my head. He's jealous, I can tell, but that's not the problem. My problem has a dark smile and an even darker temper when he's pissed.
"What about a priest?" Ramon suggests, gingerly probing the bump with icy fingers, ignoring me when I wince.
I shoot him a look. My hands shake when I answer. A million scenarios rush to the forefront when he says that: the flames of my old house, the heat searing my skin, the smell of charred flesh—my breathing is short and tight, coming in puffs that makes my ribs creak.
"No, no, ca-can't, no." The words won't form correctly, but he understands that gist of what I'm saying and doesn't push for a why. Derek, however, doesn't.
He stands up, one long pull of motion that makes my stomach twist, and levels his stare at me. "Why, Chloe? It's obvious you can't deal with this on your own."
Every word he says—worthless, pathetic, weak, good for nothing, dumb—and the ones he doesn't stab at me, piercing me through. My black blood spills out, slicking the floor and soaking the fabric of my shirt. He doesn't see I'm bleeding out. And then my anger takes a hold of me.
"I have my reasons, Derek. Why'd you vanish when I needed you the most? Not a text or call. Even Simon quit talking to me. What, did you make your entire family quit talking to me?" I spit, unable to help myself.
His face goes bone-white and his eyes narrow. With his nostrils flaring, he draws a deep, angry breath and pulls himself to stand straighter. Ramon shifts a little so he's kind of blocking Derek, but I shake my head, and he backs down.
Derek notices.
"What about you? The minute you're out of that hell hole, you quit talking to me, and when you invite me over, you're flaunting some random guy in front of me?" he says quietly, and the calm anger is worse than any loud explosion from Royce.
"Flaunting...? You're the one who doesn't want me, Derek, and you're the one who turned his back on me." My voice tired now, and I want to go lie down under a million blankets because I'm too thin, and I can't regulate my heat very well.
Ramon grips my arm firmly, his keen eyes bouncing between the two of us, his mouth set in an angry line. He doesn't like the sound of fighting, and my knees are threatening to buckle the longer I stand.
"Leave, Derek. I'm so tired of this, of you, of us, of the hurt, and I'm sure as hell sick of you acting like you're not at fault." My legs are honest to God shaking now, and Ramon is all that's holding me up. I haven't eaten anything today, and my head swims.
Derek looks like he's been slapped. "Chloe," he tries, his voice low, muted, his eyes radiating hurt.
"No. You get the fuck out. When you get your head out of your ass, come find me," I say boldly, the burst of anger making my legs steady and walking to the front door. My hand does not shake when I twist the knob and open it, gesturing outside to the shiny black pickup that's sitting in the driveway next to Ramon's van, the truck I never knew Derek ever had or have ever been inside.
I don't know anything about this boy.
And, as he eyeballs Ramon sulkily and then drags himself away, I find that anything I've ever known about him—anything about his family—I'd had to drag it out of him. While I poured my heart out to him about the man who'd haunted me with soft, sweet words and ink-black bruises, he had never tried to share the same.
As the sun gleams off the raven-black hair while he walks away, maybe for good, it occurs to me that I don't give a shit. I'm tired, and I'm going to bed. Ramon can nap with me for all I care.
I slam the door extra hard.