apartments, most of them dark from not paying the electric bill, kids outside trying to hustle in the streets because their parents were getting high.
Kyle made it worth staying. I would have left and gone to live in one of Mario’s apartments a long time ago. Maybe I would do that until this little break of hers was over.
But I didn’t like the way she had looked at me in the alley.
Or the way she hadn’t looked at me at all.
Something about this didn’t feel right.
“Watch it,” some guy said to me as I passed him.
Our shoulders smacked against each other.
I turned around. “You fucking watch it. Who do you think you’re talking to?”
It was the wrong hour to piss me off.
“You got something you want to say to me?” he barked.
I told myself to turn back around. I told myself he wasn’t worth it. I told myself not to pay attention to anything this dude said.
But Kyle didn’t give a shit about me anymore. Heroin was more important to Billy than I was.
So, I stopped caring, too.
I wasn’t going to give a fuck about anything—not that guy’s face or what my knuckles were going to do to it. I clenched my fingers together to make a tight fist, and I aimed right for his goddamn nose.
Thirteen
Kyle
When I woke up, there were two trays on the floor. Beard must have delivered them while we’d both been asleep. I was surprised the sound of the door hadn’t woken me. It was the scariest noise inside our cell, and it was a sound I had quickly come to fear. I must have been too mentally worn to hear it, or the drugs had kept me knocked out as they worked their way through my system.
Garin was still sleeping, so I carefully wiggled away from his body and carried the trays over to our bed. He had told me not too long ago that I needed to eat to keep up my strength; so did he. We didn’t have antibiotics or first aid. We had rusty water and food that tasted like plastic. It would have to do.
I traced my fingernails up and down the dark hair on his forearm. “Garin, you have to wake up and eat.”
He stirred slowly, eventually looking at me through his long black lashes. “I was dreaming.”
“About?”
“Us. That night. The sound of the gun.”
My throat started to tighten.
That night.
It had been significant for so many different reasons.
“I dream about it often, too,” I admitted.
“Does the outcome ever change in your dreams?”
I shook my head. “Never. Paulie…doesn’t ever make it.”
The truth was, I didn’t just have that dream often. I had it constantly. I figured it was one of my punishments, and I’d accepted that.
“Eat.” I handed him a piece of cantaloupe, hoping the presence of food would keep him from talking about that night. “This actually isn’t all that bad.”
I swallowed the bite after mushing it around my mouth. Maybe I was just getting used to the plastic taste. At least they’d also given us two small paper cartons of milk, which was the first time they’d ever set drinks on our trays.
He ripped off a piece of the toast and put it in his mouth. His hands stayed near his lips, touching the cuts, feeling around some of the bruises.
“Your face looks worse today.”
The bruises under his eyes seemed to have darkened, or the lighting in here had gotten worse. The cuts had started to heal a little, the wide dotted scabs showing how deep and long each gash was. His beard hid the marks on his cheeks, but because I had stared at him for so long, I knew what lay beneath the hairs.
I continued to watch him as he took a bite of the cantaloupe. My tray sat mostly untouched, besides the fruit. Eating meant I would have to look down at my food, and I didn’t want to move my gaze from his damaged face. I wanted to save this moment. Hold it. Live in it for as long as I could. I would use this moment the next time I was taken from my cell. The next time I was slapped and jizzed on. The next time I needed to feel something beyond my own pain. Because I feared we didn’t have many more moments like this together.
“Do you have guilt, Kyle?”
And then the moment was over.
The truth stared into my face, and I hated the way it made me feel. I didn’t