Page 25 of Crew
I was texting, Heading over now when the closet door suddenly opened. Only one person could've figured out I was in here, and because of that, I took my time finishing the text before looking up.
When I did, Taz stared down at me.
There was no surprise on her face. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail, high on her head, and she had glitter on her cheeks. She'd morphed into one of them since I saw her at school. I was half-expecting her to be wearing a cheerleading uniform--they did that sometimes--but she was still in the same clothes.
Hitting send, I put my phone away and stood.
I glanced at the door to the room, but it was closed.
Taz stepped back, sitting on Cross' bed. "You heard all of that?" She pulled at her ponytail, her fingers flicking the end over and over.
"Yep."
She let out a resigned sigh, her hands falling to the bed. "What are you going to do?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want to know?"
"I'm being serious. What are you going to do?"
There was something more in her tone, something uneasy, something...
"You're not actually worried about it, are you?"
The guilt flared in her eyes before she hung her head.
"This has to do with Cross." I sat on his desk chair, connecting the dots in my head. "They came in here. They tried to hack into his computer, and you know I'm going to say something."
She didn't answer me. She didn't need to.
I went through the scenarios of what might happen if I told him, but only one stood out. "You're worried he's going to move out?"
This morning made a whole lot more sense now. That's what Cross would do when he found out his privacy had potentially been invaded. He wouldn't put a lock on his door. He wouldn't say something to his parents. He would move to my place, or more likely Jordan's, because Jordan's parents didn't mind that Zellman lived there half the time already.
Hearing a sniffle, I looked back at her.
Taz lifted her face with tears in her eyes. "Do you know what it's like to have your twin be closer to three other people than you?"
Not a twin, but a brother. Yes.
She kept going, her tears falling now. "I barely see him anymore. He's either partying with Jordan and Zellman, or off with you. You're his family, and he's eighteen. My parents can't keep him here. I feel like he's going to fade from my life." Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "I'm going to be all alone."
Channing had always been gone.
He'd been out partying or fighting. I'd been home, just waiting, hoping he'd come back. When he did, there were fights, raised voices, threats. Doors slammed. Walls punched. But I remember one thing more than everything else.
"It was the worst when the door would shut."
"What?" She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"When Channing would leave, it was the door. I got to the point where I didn't care who was yelling or cursing, it was the silence after. He'd slam that door shut behind him and be gone. Days. Weeks sometimes. I hated hearing that damned door."
She looked at her hands, folded on her lap. "I forgot about your brother." She laughed sadly.
"Yeah."
She swallowed. "I'm sorry for unloading."
I shrugged. I didn't care about that, but I did feel bad because she knew what I had to do. There was no option here for me. "I gotta say something to Cross. You know I have to."
