Whiskey and a Gun (2 page)

"What took you so long?" Rodd asks.

Grayson points to me. "Douchenozzle here hadn't seen the infamous return of Tawny Owens yet."

This elicits a round of groans from everyone in the group.

"God. Why did she have to come back? I'd be happy if I didn't have to see her face for the rest of my life," Bridget says.
 

"Why?" I ask.

"Oh my God. I forgot you came last year, so you don't know about her. She's like, the skankiest girl in the school. I mean, did you
see
her skirt? So short. So ugly. She's probably screwing someone right now before she makes it to her first class."

I raise my eyebrows, intrigued. Girls are so confusing. Bridget's dress is short, too. She also eye-fucked me in my Jeep. And she thinks this other chick is a skank?
 

"Wow," is all I can muster.
 

Bridget intertwines her arm with mine. "I'm so glad we don't have anyone in our group like her, aren't you?"

"Oh, yeah. Totally."
 

The warning bell echoes through the hallway, and people scatter like mice in a maze. The classrooms are the cheese and the first one in the room gets the best seat. Bridget untangles herself and waves to me.

"Bye, Carter. See you at lunch?"

"Yup," I say with a smile as fake as her tan. As if I have anything else to do with my lunch time.
 

My first class is English with Mr. Ratche, and I couldn’t care less where I sit—it’s not like I’m going to listen anyway.
 

Inside, only one seat remains, in the back. Next to Purple Plaid Girl. I can't say I'm too broken up about it.
 

I slide into the seat and toss my backpack next to my feet. I don't have to look at her to know she's staring at me. Brown, almost black eyes hold my gaze when I turn to her. They catch me off guard. I've never seen eyes so dark they look like coals.
 

"What are you staring at?" she asks me, her voice throaty. Like she spent the last couple days screaming at someone. Maybe she did.

"Nothing. Sorry."
Invisible, Carter. How fucking hard is this for you?
I open my notebook and pretend to focus on Mr. Ratche. Really, I'm watching her in my peripheral vision, even though she's kind of a blur. She curls a strand of her hair around her finger and bites the end of her pencil until Mr. Ratche says something she deems important enough to write down. Her pencil glides across the paper, her cursive graceful. My cursive is shit. She'd laugh at mine. She bends down closer to the paper and I catch a line of ink across her right shoulder blade; her freckles surround it like a constellation. I shift in my seat to get a better look, but she turns and holds my gaze.
 

"Mr. Brooks?" Mr. Ratche's voice filters to the back of the classroom.
 

I snap my head in his direction. "Hmm?"

"I asked if you read any good books over the summer." His voice is accusing.

My mouth starts working before my head does. "I don't read."
 

Half the class roars with laughter while the other half stares at me, their expressions filled with pity or dislike
—
I'm not sure which one I prefer.
 

The thing is, I do read. In secret. I have to hide the few books I can get my hands on. My father thinks books are a waste of time and money, and he made damn sure we knew it growing up. It's always, "What the fuck you want to fill your head with that shit for? Go outside and be a boy. Play sports, for God's sake."

Mr. Ratche's hands cross over each other and his eyebrows knit together. "Is that so?"

Today is just not my day. "Kind of."

"Unfortunately, Mr. Brooks, you'll be doing quite a bit of reading in this class. It's a good thing you'll have time to make up for your lack of summer reading, huh?"

"Yes, sir," I say.
 

Mr. Ratche moves on to someone else while Purple Plaid Girl kicks over my backpack, spilling its contents. I scowl at her and pick up my textbooks, binders, and my copy of
In Cold Blood
.
 

"If you don't read, what's that?" she whispers.
 

"Is that why you kicked my shit over? To catch me in a lie?"
 

She shakes her head no. "I just wanted to see which book it was."

"You couldn't have just asked?"

She smiles but doesn't answer me. Her focus remains on Mr. Ratche for the rest of class. I don't even catch her staring at me.
 

#

For as involved as my brothers are in sports, I figured they'd already be at one practice or another. Instead, I walk in through the garage and find them huddled around the bar in the kitchen. They drop their conversation when they see me.

"Hey, asshat!” Billy says. “What'd you do to piss off Dad today?"

I walk past him to the fridge. "Me? I didn't do anything."
 

"C'mon, Carter, Dad doesn't punch holes in the wall for nothing." Ray's condescension touches a nerve; it feels like a bee-sting.

"Yeah, you must have done something," Billy adds, backing me into the refrigerator door. His stinger goes a little deeper into my skin.

"Just tell us what you did and maybe we can calm Dad down," Ray says, the corners of his mouth threatening to lift into a smile.
 

"I didn't do anything, dammit!" My fists burn at my side and my ears pound as if I'm in a tunnel. The room spins slightly and my brothers are no longer gargoyles, but fuzzy shapes melting into the background of this cookie-cutter kitchen in this cookie-cutter town. When the sting sinks to the bone, like right now, I can't control myself.

So I can't help the manic laugh that escapes.
 

"If you two weren't so fucking dumb, you'd realize Mom isn't manning the kitchen trying to fake how happy she is, and you would have seen Dad's note sitting on the table," I say.
 

I shake my head. The level of their stupidity still surprises me.
 

My brothers come back into focus just as Ray grabs me by the shirt collar. The metal door handle on the fridge pushes into my backbone so hard it will probably bruise tomorrow. It could be worse.
 

"Listen, you little shit. Just because you're in high school and you think you're all that doesn’t mean you can get away with it at home. I'll knock your fucking lights out if you do it again. You hear me?" His breath is full of chewing tobacco and stale beer. It burns my nostrils.
 

I push him away from me. "Yeah, I heard you."

It's Billy's turn. His face is inches from mine and when he talks, he spits in my face. "You're a nobody, Carter. You don't belong in this family. You'll never be better than we are. You're a pussy. A little fag. If it weren't for Mom, Dad would have tossed you on the street the first chance he got."
 

If I had a knife right now, I'd slit his throat wide open. He'd crumple to the ground, a crimson river running down the front of him, and I'd laugh. The vision fills me with a disturbing amount of joy. I hold onto the vision and step away from them.
 

"Fuck you guys. I don’t give a shit about this family," I say as I walk back out the garage door.
 

Our house sits in a cul-de-sac at the edge of town, and there's an enormous clearing behind our neighborhood. I call it the dividing line. On our side are the larger-than-normal houses for people keeping up with the Joneses. On the other side is Windy Mills Trailer Park. In the winter, if you look close enough, you can catch a glimpse of the roof of a trailer. I step in the grass, pausing to look back at my house. It's unassuming with its blue shutters and manicured lawn. No one would guess that my mother's skull was fractured on the bottom basement step or that my nose was broken on the laundry room door. I turn away from my house and push through the clearing.
 

Smoke billows ahead of me, and I break through the dividing line to see angry red flames licking the air in a fire pit.
 

"Who are you?" That voice. I recognize it. I squint through the smoke and make out Purple Plaid Girl sitting in a lawn chair on the other side of the fire pit. Her plaid skirt is replaced by a pair of jeans. What a shame. Legs like hers should never be covered.
 

I wave at her. Then clench my eyes shut. Seriously, Carter? Waving? Why does she make me feel like such a fucking idiot?

She narrows her eyes. "Why are you here?"

"I live over there." I point toward my house, but it's hidden from sight. The only thing visible is tall, tall grass. The flames spit and crackle, and a whiff of pine and oak lingers in the air.
 

"Okay, but that doesn't explain why you're here. In my yard."

"I didn't know you lived here." Her attitude doesn't surprise me now. The choice of clothing. Tough, outside exterior. Typical trailer trash. But the way her feet dangle off the side of the lawn chair, one arm draped around the back
—
it's almost like she's in her own world. Untouchable. Unbreakable.
 

Her eyes roam every inch of me. This is what girls like Bridget must feel like when guys like me look at them.
 

"You don’t have to stand there all night, ya know. Here," she says, pointing to the lawn chair next her.
 

"Thanks." I sit down and she scoots her chair closer to me. She doesn't drop her gaze, just stares. It's creepy.
 

"I'm Tawny."
 

"I know.” I say.

"And you are?"

"Carter."

"Carter, huh? That's a preppy name if I've ever heard one. You said you live over there–" she points to my neighborhood, "–which means you're a wealthy prick like the rest of them."
 

She's so matter-of-fact. So honest. So…fearless. "Yeah, I guess I am."

She smiles and sits Indian-style in her chair. "At least you admit it. That's a first."

I don't know what I thought I was going to get by crossing the dividing line, and I'm not sure what this weird girl wants me to say. I turn toward the fire and close my eyes, letting the heat wash over my face.
 

"You're pretty quiet," she says as she pulls a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and smacks it against the palm of her hand.
 

I shrug. "You know those things will kill you, right?"
 

She snickers. "Why do you think I smoke them?" I recognize myself in that statement. This attitude…she needs it. She wears it like a skin-tight coat, hiding something bigger about herself. Can she see that my invisibility is the same way? That these traits are what hold the two of us together at the seams? Otherwise, everything would just go to shit on us.
 

"Where were you last year?" I ask.

She takes several long drags from her cigarette before she answers. "It's none of your goddamn business." She lowers her gaze and kicks at a patch of dirt. "Why? What did you hear?"

Everyone hates you. You're a skank. Bridget hates you.

"A little of everything. Drugs, murder, abortion. You know…the usual," I say.

The corners of her mouth turn upward, though I can tell she's fighting it. "Ah. I was hoping the sluts of South Water would be a little bit more creative. I see I was wrong."

She sucks on her cigarette, inhaling deeply and blowing the smoke out in rings. Perfect O's spiral toward the sky until they dissipate completely. With half-closed eyelids, she exhales, her bottom lip jutting out just enough to make me want to take it in my mouth and nibble. She's a spider, and I'm a fly caught in the middle of her web of seduction.
 

"So…is the truth stranger than fiction, in this case?" I ask.

She blows her smoke in my face. It's something my brothers would do. I clench my fists but release them a second later when I look into her eyes and see myself scowling in her eyes. It's not attractive.
 

I relax my expression so I'm back to preppy-boy Carter with a smirk and inquisitive eyes. At least I look the part now.
 

"My mom went to jail, and my dad ran off with some bimbo to Florida. I was shipped off to my aunt's in Colorado."

"That blows," I say.
 

She offers me her cigarette. It's been a long time since I've had one, but I take it anyway. I suck in, letting it fill my lungs. I can't hold it in, though, and I sputter. I shove the cigarette back to her.
 

"Whoa, killer. Take it easy," she says, sliding the cigarette back to her mouth. It looks better on her. "You're different," she adds.

"How?" I
am
different. I've always known it. But not in the way she's probably thinking.
 

"I don't know yet. You're not as much of an asshole as your friends."
 

"Thanks, but they're really not as bad as they seem."
 

Her laugh mocks me. "That's because they actually like you."

"So why'd you come back then, if you hate everyone here?"

If her glare could knock someone dead, I'd be a goner. "I don't hate
everyone
, and it's my home. Even if most of the people are assholes."

I get it, even though I've never had that experience. We're always moving, always on the run. Never in one place for too long, otherwise someone might pick up on the bruises. The hospital trips.

"Is your mom out of jail?"
 

Tawny snorts. "Out of jail? Yes. Off the drugs? No. It's only a matter of time before she gets caught again, and who knows where I'll go when that happens."

"Sorry," I mumble.

"Don't be. It's not your fault." She puts out what's left of her cigarette. "Now that I've shared a glimpse into my wretched life, what's your story? You new this year?"

"No, I got here last year. My dad's in the military, and he gets shifted around a lot." I say every word with precision and careful thought. It's the truth without giving anything else away.