and looks cool doing it, cigarette clutched in his opposite hand.
“When?” I ask, and Victor shrugs.
“This morning. I was worried Pamela might not like you staying here permanently.” He steps forward and hands the phone back to me. When he leans in and puts his mouth against my ear, my eyes close of their own accord and my fingers fist in the front of his t-shirt. “I’d have told you sooner, but Oscar’s dick was shoved up that sweet cunt of yours.” I punch Vic in his man-tit, but it doesn’t do any good. His muscles are like rocks.
“Why the courthouse?” I ask as I move aside to let him out of the bathroom. “Don’t we have to have a proper ritualistic Western marriage to get your inheritance?” He glances back at me, grinning big and showing teeth.
“Sure, yeah, but we need a marriage license at least three days before the wedding.” Vic turns away from me to watch as Aaron comes down the stairs, his hair wet from the shower. He was in there a long time, so I can only guess he was doing something other than chastely washing his body. Our eyes meet and an awful sense of dread washes over me. I have to tell him that I had sex with Oscar. Like, now.
“We are not getting married in three days,” I snap with a roll of my eyes. Aaron continues down the stairs and heads into the living room, grabbing his boots before he goes to sit down on the long couch. His face very clearly says the fuck happened to my furniture? I pretend not to notice, at least for the moment.
“No,” Vic agrees, nodding his head as he pauses in the archway that leads to the kitchen. “We’re not. We’re getting married in six. Right on my motherfucking birthday.”
One year earlier …
Callum Park
There is nothing more beautiful than Bernadette Blackbird, bathed in moonlight and sleeping peacefully beneath my overly protective gaze. When I first started coming out here and climbing to the roof to watch her, I felt like she could sense me somehow. I’d place my fingers to the glass and let my breath make little clouds in the cool air.
Her unease would quiet, and she’d finally find a chance to rest.
Now that I’ve been doing it for a year, I’m sure of it.
She only truly sleeps when I’m around.
I sit down and cross my legs in front of me, resting my elbows on my knees and parking my chin in my hands to wait, to watch, to keep her safe. I don’t trust that her stepfather will stay away because of the video, so I make certain of it as often as I can.
Instead of letting myself be shackled to a broken dream, I’ve found a new one in the face of a girl who thinks she’s jaded to a fine point. In reality, there’s an innocence in her that’s rare and precious.
Even in the face of hate, of pain, of ruin, Bernadette has never stopped watching us.
Never stopped loving us.
And we, we love her.
Me, most of all.
She just doesn’t know it.
I touch my blue-painted fingernails to her window, wishing I could open it and crawl inside, curl my body around hers and hold her tight.
But I don’t; I can’t.
I sit there, and I make sure her door remains locked, her eyes closed, her mind safe from the destruction of her stepfather. With my chance at escaping South Prescott dashed to ashes, I’ve found a new mission.
Bernadette will be happy, whatever it takes. It doesn’t matter what sacrifices I have to make—even my life is not too much. And if it truly took the death of my dream for me to understand this, then it will have all been worth it.
I chuckle and light up a cigarette, turning my head to look at the moon.
Silver light bathes my face as I close my eyes, dreaming of a day where I don’t have to sit in the cold outside her window, when I can actually touch her, when she’ll talk to me.
Of all the things, that’s what I like best of all, hearing her sweet words.
When the sun begins to peek its head above the horizon, I leave, climbing back down and landing in a crouch in the side yard of the duplex. I don’t like to leave my grandmother home alone, but if it’s between her and Bernadette, I know the hard choice I’d have to make.