Page 77 of Forty

“He could have died.”

“He almost got addicted to those meds.”

“He kind of gave up there for a while. Until Heavy took him and the boys on that camping trip up the mountain.”

“We weren’t gonna let him give up.” Annie’s crying now.

“Where were you, Nevaeh Ellis?” Harper bends at the waist and rests her index finger on my chest, flicks the tie to my hoodie with one blood-red nail. “Getting internet famous for cat fights in your panties? Joy riding in stolen cars? Seeing how close you could get to mobsters before you got burned?”

She waits for an answer.

She can keep waiting.

I don’t owe Harper Ruth shit.

But damn if everything she says doesn’t crank open that spigot of self-loathing wide, and I’m cowering on this bottom step while in my head, I’m flailing around in a flood of all the horrible things my brain accuses me of whenever I stop long enough to listen. Dirty. Foul. Weak. Coward. Ruined. All your own fault.

“Forty was risking his life for his country. What were you doing, Nevaeh?” Harper cocks her head. “Yeah. I’d have nothing to say for myself if I were you, either.” She grabs her black leather purse from Cheyenne, roots around in it for a second, and pulls out a set of keys.

“Heavy says he offered you a Ford Focus and fifty thousand?”

I grind my teeth so hard they ache.

“He’s so smart, but he doesn’t understand women. Here. Take my Audi. It’s parked out front. Drive wherever you want. Sell it. Keep it, if you want. It’s paid off. It’s a gift. To make starting over easier. But it’s not a payoff.”

Harper drops the keys into my lap and crouches until she can speak directly into my ear. “‘Cause you’re not going to leave because I asked you to. You’re going to leave because you know Forty Nowicki deserves better. He deserves someone who cared whether he lived or died. And he deserves better now than a lying little attention-whore who vandalized her own car.”

She steps back. My heart’s slamming against my chest. I can barely swallow past the shame in my throat.

“There’s about a quarter tank of gas left. Registration’s in the glovebox.”

Then, she spins on the ball of her red-soled shoes and struts off to the bar, swinging her wine bottle. Cheyenne swats the side of my head, and then turns to follow, Annie and Danielle on their heels.

My ears are ringing. The commons are totally silent. Grinder and the other old guys are staring at me, pity on their faces.

I need to get out of here.

And I have car keys, and my legs work, and fuck this. Fuck them. I get to my feet, and I jog toward the door, and then I’m sprinting, cackles, hooting, catcalls following me, but not into the parking lot.

When the door to the clubhouse slides shut, it’s quiet. There’s a full moon, and streetlights, so it only takes a second to find the Audi. Harper parked in one of the closest spots.

I’m not keeping this car. But I am getting the hell out of Petty’s Mill.

I was crazy to think I could come back here. Make things right. What a joke.

The car is a stick, and reverse is in a weird place, top left. I strip the gears as I pull out onto Route 12. The interior reeks of gardenia perfume and strawberry air freshener.

Ah, shit. I can’t ditch this car. Mine’s still at Big George’s garage. I’m going to have to start a new life in a car that smells like my grandmother’s bathroom.

I head for the house on Barrow Road. I only have some spare clothes and my cosmetics bag at Forty’s place, and besides, I don’t have a key. I have enough stuff at Lou’s to tide me over.

My face is burning, blood whooshing in my ears. I press the gas, accelerate into the curves as I navigate the back roads to my old house.

What am I doing here?

I wanted to go back to the beginning, fix things, and like every time travel movie ever made, it didn’t work.

Instead, I ran head first into the immutable fact that every choice I make blows up in my face.

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