Page 3 of Jagged Line Paradise

Andrés’ tension shows in his shrugged shoulders and his voice turns gruff and gritty as his anger at her ticks up. I don’t blame him for hating her; I hate her sometimes, too.

“Well, technically, I’m an adult now, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“She’s a fucking adult, too, and should get her shit together for her daughter.”

“Aw.” I lean over to put my head on his shoulder. “You care about me.”

He kisses the top of my head before I lift it away and finish the last bite of cupcake. “’Course I do. You’re the most important girl I know.”

“Please,” I smile, brushing the crumbs from my jean shorts and off my bare thighs, “I’m awomannow,” I joke. “I’m eighteen.”

“You’ve been eighteen for like…a day.”

“What do you know?”

“I’m older and wiser. You should listen to me.”

“You’re older by ten days.” I shove my elbow into his side and he chuckles.

“Ten days is ten days. And I really am worried about you being home alone. If someone wanted into that shitty trailer, it wouldn’t be hard for them to get in. Who’s going to protect you?”

“I’m going to protect me. Just like I always have. Why are you so worried?”

“These dead girls they’re finding. They’re sixteen- and seventeen-year-old runaways. It’s fucking scary. Do you even watch the news, Lonnie? There’s a serial killer dumping bodies all around the county.”

“I watch the news. But what could happen to me here in this paradise?” I gesture out toward the horizon where the sun is lowering behind the jagged line of the mountain scape. “Nothing bad could happen here in my jagged line paradise…this place is perfect.”

My gaze follows a path down below the bluff, looking out at our cluster of homes scattered among the Joshua trees. Though the mountain base is far in the distance, it rises high and proud to cut that jagged line across the sky, which makes it feel as though it touches heaven. I like to think that if the mountain touched both heaven and the desert sand we walk upon, then this place we live in-between must be paradise.

I know Andrés disagrees. He says the place between heaven and hell is purgatory, and he thinks that’s where we all are, but I just don’t think that way. He gets better grades than I do and he’s so much smarter than I am, but that doesn’t mean he knows everything.

To me, this place is paradise.

“Nothing’s perfect,” he says quietly. “I just don’t like you being alone at night. I know you think this place is safe, but it’s just not. Everyone in our trailer park is a lowlife or a criminal.”

“Not everyone.” I curve my palms around the edge of the bluff, watching my bare feet as I kick them back and forth.

He turns his head and grins sideways at me. “You’re the only good one in the bunch.”

“You’re good, too.”

He shrugs. “Maybe…at least, I hope so. I don’t know. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of this place.”

“Don’t remind me.” My tone comes off a little gruffer than I had intended.

“Sorry, it’s the truth.”

Suddenly, I don’t feel like talking and my glitter-painted toenails become something interesting to stare at while I brood.

“Avalon.”

“What?”

“Just…tell me what you’re thinking.”

I blow out a harsh breath. “I’m thinking that I want you to stay, but there’s no point in saying so because you’re dead set on leaving.”

He turns sideways, pulling his knee up from where it dangled over the edge and faces me. I feel like he’s sitting too close. His body is a pillar of pure heat against my side and it’s overwhelming.

---