Page 17 of Giving In

“‘Me, that bike is as old as you and I know you’re tiny, but it looks like it’s going to break under your weight. Come on, let me drive you to school. That’s what every bestie does. Camila drives Rachel in her stupid bimbo Lambo every morning, I want to do that with you.”

“Em, you’ve got a Lambo.”

She scoffs at me as if I’ve just insulted her. “Don’t compare my beauty to her piece of trash. Hers is sport and gold because she’s an attention-seeking bitch. Mine is black and it’s an Urus, babe, sweet and classy like me. Let me take you to school goddammit.”

“Em!” I’m not crazy about God, but I do enjoy my time at the church. I tend to avoid all sorts of cursing and blasphemy. Except when I talk to myself.

“My bad, my bad sorry.”

“Look,” I start. “That bike is way older than me. It was my dad’s, he had fixed it for my brother and then, you know, I took it from Aaron.” I shrug as if it wasn’t a big deal, but it is.

I love riding my brother’s bike. I still remember when dad fixed it for him. I was so jealous of it, Dad said he would buy me one, but I didn’t want one from the shop, I wanted to repair a bike with him and bond like he did with my older brother. Dad promised we would fix a bike together, but time ran out before we could get around to it.

Emily is looking at me with sorry eyes and I know I shouldn’t have said anything.

“I... I’m sorry, I knew that. I didn’t even think about it.” Em goes fully quiet and now I feel horrible looking at the sadness in her eyes.

Around three years ago, Emily and Aaron started dating. We were 14 and he was 17, and they were in love, real love. It was beautiful, we all thought they were going to be the kind of couple that lasted forever. High school sweethearts who get married and have kids. Except Aaron’s forever got cut short less than a year into their relationship.

I subconsciously run a hand right under my bra strap, on my left shoulder. The bullet wound is almost three years old but when I talk about Dad and Aaron, it burns just like the first day. Emily’s heart is just as broken as mine when it comes to my brother and I can’t blame her for not wanting to talk about it.

“Hey,” I say, putting my hand on hers. “How about tonight I bring that bike home but tomorrow you pick me up in that beautiful Lambo of yours.”

We share our pain for a few more seconds followed by a smile.

???

The next morning, I hop in Emily’s car with new confidence. Jake White can shove his threats up his ass. If even Chris thinks he’s out of line, then he’s got no one to back him up in his shit. Except for his stupid twin but she never addresses more than one word my way.

“Hold on, hold on, he turned psycho,” Emily points to my arm, “because you talked about a dude he doesn’t want you to talk about? What the actual fuck is wrong with this guy?!” She takes a deep breath. “Alright, before I conclude if I’m going to kill him painfully or not, what do you know about the mystery guy? Was he hot?”

I can’t help a laugh. “He was good looking. He also looked about as nice as a gangbanger.”

It’s Emily’s turn to explode laughing, “Alright, I see. What was his name?”

“Sam, I believe.”

I’ve barely finished my sentence when Emily hits the brakes hard enough to come to a stop in the middle of the road. A few cars behind us honk as they suddenly have to overtake our car.

“Oh my… Em!”

She puts the hazard lights on and turns to me. “Sam you said?”

“Yes Sam, why? Please start the car.”

“Dark and handsome with a British accent?”

I can’t believe she knows who I’m talking about. “Do you know who he is?” I ask. “I had never seen him before.”

I can see she is thinking, as if trying to put memories back together.

“I,” she hesitates. “Well, you know I always dig into my mom’s files, I can’t really help myself.”

“Yeah…” I try to encourage her to keep going but I’m not sure what she’s getting at.

Emily’s mom is a famous Stoneview judge. She deals with anything that happens in Stoneview and the surrounding areas. One thing that has always linked my best friend and I is our lack of boundaries when it comes to our curiosity. I remember bonding with her in kindergarten because we both loved to roleplay detectives while others wanted to be moms and dads. I can’t count the number of times we both looked into her mom’s files because we heard of a story on the news that was going to court.

She nods and continues. “When the twins moved to our school and we learned they were in the system, I knew there had to be some trace of them in my mom’s files. And there was. For the Murrays to become their legal guardians it had to go through my mom. On the day they went to court they were accompanied by a guy called Samuel Thomas.”

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