Page 50 of Just Dare Me
Jay sits next to me, resting his elbows on his knees. After a long silence, he says, “Please stay.”
Dominique jumps up and storms out of the room, nearly smashing the door off its hinges.
Jay falls backward on the bed with a sigh. “That’s ayes.”
My claws are still buried in the mattress. Every muscle of my body is tensed. “That’s ayes?Do I even ask what anolooks like?”
“It wouldn’t look like anything, because you’d be dead.” Slapping his thighs, like,Welp, that’s that, he gets up, swipes a towel off the bedpost, wedges himself into my matchbox-size bathroom, and starts the shower.
So much for five more minutes. I couldn’t sleep now if I tried. Standing in front of the vanity mirror, I poke and prod at all the different wounds on my body. Black stitches form jagged lines on my hip and my neck. Dad’s handiwork. With all the trouble me and the Cody boys brought home over the years, Dad’s become a regular field medic. It keeps us from having to explain some really unexplainable wounds to human doctors, plus it saves a butt ton of money.
Over the years. What am I, sixty? Reminiscing about the good old days when I was a cub? I run my fingers along the frame of my old vanity mirror. It’s scratched and chipped, showing five layers of different colored paint. All four corners of the mirror are covered in stickers—unicorns and four leaf clovers in the lower corners, and up top, decals from various brands of alcohol and those little stickers you peel off of bananas—don’t ask me why.
It’s weird to be back home, but alsonothome at the same time. Jay’s my home now. We have a house with our own memories together, just waiting for us to come back. Having him here is an odd melding of two worlds, past and present. I can see both in my reflection—the wild-haired girl who could never tell you how she somehow always came home covered in dirt and scrapes and bruises, and the woman who just looks haggard and can barely smile because it might pop her stitches. Maybe this can be the symbolism that good books are supposed to have. Look at me and see the deeper lesson, kids: adulthood willbeat your ass.
After Jay gets out, I take a long shower that consists mostly of me trying to find a spot on my body where the water doesn’t hurt. Jay helps me get dressed, carefully pulling clothes over my stiff limbs and bandages.
I snap the front of my Tigers jacket as we wind our way through the maze of stuff crammed into unit #2—books piled on end tables, end tables standing on books, clothes hanging on a rack next to an old tube TV with a rounded screen. My dad’s motto has always been to use it up, wear it out, and then when it ceases to serve any possible function…keep it around anyway.
I push through the whining screen door onto the porch, it’s long wood planks sagging under my weight. Russo and Charlotte are here. He’s crammed into one of two plastic chairs. She’s leaning over the porch railing, staring at the large bonfire at the center of the wagon train. I see the familiar silhouette of my dad sitting on his usual log near the flames.
I could easily excuse myself and go talk to him, but my heart—my dominance, really—knows that I’d only be avoiding Charlotte. Usually I’d be thrilled to run away from confrontation, but right now I can’t stomach the thought. Standing my ground and facing up to the consequences of my choices feels right. If Charlotte chews me out, fine. At least we’ll have maintained the honesty between us.
Jay pulls the other plastic chair next to Russo and sits. They both pretend not to be watching me and Charlotte, but I can tell they’re waiting for the show to start. Well, no sense dragging this out. Folding my arms to brace myself, I say, “So, what do you think?”
After a long pause, Charlotte drags in a breath, then lets it out. “I don’t know what to think anymore. You had a choice. You should’ve shot Tabitha. That would’ve ended this whole thing. You win, East Side loses, Detroit is safe, the Underworld stays hidden from the public. Everything you want. There’s a high likelihood you’ll regret that choice later. Maybe sooner than later. I know I wouldn’t have made the same choice if I were you.”
“I know you wouldn’t. That’s how you always win and I don’t. You do what’s right for the world, and I do what’s right for me. It’s no secret by now that I won’t make the tough sacrifices when it comes down to it. Too selfish for that.”
“Detroit may hate you for it in the end. Hell, the whole world might curse your name.” She turns to me with emotion glistening in her eyes. “But I never will. The only thing I’ll ever feel about what you did is gratitude, and that makes me both selfish and a hypocrite. I don’t care.” She wrestles with her emotions, swallowing back a lump in her throat. “And I’d say you don’t care what I think, except there’s obviously some part of you that does, or you would’ve made therightchoice, instead of the one I don’t deserve. I can never repay you for that. I’m truly at a loss when I try to imagine what would’ve happened if you…” She pauses when her voice breaks. “All I can say is…thank you.”
I’m not sure how to respond or what to say, but I definitely know how I feel. A weight lifts from my shoulders. A smile wants to form on my lips, but I resist, not sure if that’s appropriate for the moment. Finally, we agree on something, and not just about some fact or a strategy, but a feeling. A feeling for each other, I guess, right? Isn’t that what this is all about? Screw it—I let the smile spread across my face.
Russo matches my smile, giving me a proud nod. He, of all people, knows what a feat it is to gain Charlotte’s affection, and to hear it spoken out loud, no less. Then, being the social expert he is, Russo keeps the perfect moment from being ruined with awkward silence by telling me, “Hey, your dad was looking for you. Wants to check your stitches.”
Charlotte recedes back into herself, leaning on the railing to stare blankly into the fire. I skip down the porch steps with a groan. “Yeah, yeah, doctor’s orders.”
Dad hears me coming—I can tell by the way he cocks his head slightly—but, characteristically, he doesn’t otherwise make a show of greeting me, even though we haven’t spoken to each other in months. Dad and Blanche are the same—always even-keeled, always contained. Neither of them is the type to throw their arms out for a hug when a simple smile will do. Dad is wearing that smile now when he says, “There she is. Sleep well?”
The word I’m thinking isorgasmically, but the word I say out loud is, “Yep.”
“Stitches holding out okay?”
The response I’m thinking is,Well, those stitches held up just fine through several mind-blowing orgasms, but the response I say out loud is, “Yep.”
“Good, you can do me a favor, then?”
“Sure.”
He holds out a coffee mug. As I reach for it, he says, “Take this in to your mother.”
I want to pull my hand back, but it’s too late. My finger is hooked around the handle and Dad lets go. There’s no sense pushing back on this. Whenever Dad calls heryour motherinstead of justMom, that means he’s telling, not asking. Still, I have to try. “This coffee’s cold, Dad. Why don’t I have Blanche make a new pot?”
He makes eye contact with me, which is about as firm as my dad gets. “Won’t matter, really. It’s not coffee your mother needs right now.”
Sigh. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
With lead feet I trudgeup the steps of unit #5, the mug of cold coffee in hand. There’s a frame for a screen door, but no screen—very typical. Probably the casualty of some poor loser at the poker table, or one of Ben’s coyote goons got shoved through it in a bout of rough-housing. Stepping through the frame of the non-screen door, I ease the front door open, tiptoe inside, and silently close the door.
