When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys #2) - Emma Scott Page 0,13
to say.
She patted my cheek. “Have a good day, Mr. Holden.”
“Right. Thanks.”
I hurried out of the kitchen, seeking the reassuring weight of the flask in my coat pocket. Before I reached the front door, I took a deep, fortifying pull. The unsettling feeling in my chest drowned in the vodka that burned a path down my throat, the sharp edges of reality blurring slightly.
That’s enough of that, thanks very much.
Kindness, I’d come to know in my seventeen-and-a half-million years on this planet, had only been ever used as a tool to get something out of me. The docs at the sanitarium used it to encourage me to spill my guts in therapy, and my parents…
Charles and Estelle Parish had turned on the warmth just before sending me to conversion therapy. They shocked me with their sudden care and concern so that my naïve fifteen-year-old-self tearfully agreed to let a sadist who called himself Coach Braun take me to Alaska where he and his “counselors” reached into my chest with cold hands and tried to rip out a fundamental piece of me. A part of me that was as essential as my blood and bones but a “reckless lifestyle choice” to my parents. That night, after they explained the camp, Mom actually cried and Dad touched me, right on the cheek, for the first time in years. So I agreed. Anything to have more of that.
“Fool me once,” I muttered as I walked down the driveway and away from that awful night.
I took another pull from my flask, but the day was annoyingly brilliant. Ocean salt laced the air, and mountains draped in forest cradled this city by the sea, forcing me to acknowledge its beauty. Mags and Reg were stuffy and sort of ridiculous, but they were also trying their best to take care of me. And Beatriz and her goddamn mothering… What the hell was that about? I’d fallen through the looking glass from a cold, loveless wasteland into a world of sack lunches and parental figures wishing me a good day.
It won’t last. Give it a month before they try to get rid of you.
The driver my parents had hired for the year lounged against the side of a sleek black Cadillac in a black suit and white shirt, smoking a cigarette.
“Morning, James. Got a light?”
“Good morning, Mr. Parish. Of course.”
James Costa was pushing fifty with salt and pepper hair and a tough mobster look about him. We’d been getting weird looks all summer as he shuttled me around to explore the city and its tourist-packed Boardwalk. I imagined how the two of us would look, rolling up to Santa Cruz Central High School in this black sedan.
I lit a Djarum off his lighter and inhaled. “They’re going to think we’re mafia, James. I can’t tell if that’s a good or bad thing.”
“If I may say, sir, I wasn’t under the impression you gave a fuck about what anyone thinks.”
“Too true, my good man.”
When we finished our cigarettes, I ground mine out under my boot and James opened the back door for me.
“Welp. High school awaits. Can you see it, James? Me? In high school, like a normal guy?”
“Not especially, sir. No offense.”
“None taken,” I said, climbing in. “I’m rather curious about it myself.”
It only took until first break to know that I’d never fit in at Santa Cruz Central High.
Prior to Alaska and the stint at the sanitarium, I’d only attended—and been kicked out of—stuffy prep schools. Regular high school was all so hopelessly, depressingly normal. A good percentage of the kids were probably going through some heavy shit, but I had nothing in common with any of them. I stuck out like an elegantly dressed sore thumb.
Rolling up in a chauffeured black Cadillac had begun the rumor mill churning. By the time morning classes were over, whispers followed me down the halls. Girls gawked at me with thinly veiled interest. Others stared at my wardrobe choices. The word “vampire” was tossed around more than once.
But I made it through most of the day without seeing a single person of the masculine persuasion who seemed even remotely interesting.
Until lunch.
The bell rang and I followed the crowd to the cafeteria. Some students opted to sit inside. Others sat in groups on the grass or at outdoor tables. I debated my options while inspecting the sack lunch Beatriz had prepared for me: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, corn chips, sliced apple, and a small carton of milk.