Crew picking me up off the side of the road, I might do just that. “For you to give me up.”
“All of them,” Aaron says, sighing and finally dropping his hands to his sides. I hate to admit how empty and lonely I feel without him touching me. “You've seen how it works, when we come up with a price.”
“You could've said no,” I snap back, all of that old hurt and anger rushing to the surface. No matter how many times I try to pretend like it doesn't affect me anymore, it's a lie. I'm not sure I'll ever truly heal from that pain. “You could've walked away.”
Aaron turns his head and puts a tattooed hand over his mouth, closing his eyes.
But just as I've told him before that I could never go to Nantucket, he could never pass up on Havoc's protection for his sister and cousin. We're both just repeating the dreams we had for each other, dreams that are too far from reality to ever come true.
“They're your friends,” I choke out, on the verge of tears again. For two years, I didn't cry. I missed Pen with every breath I took, with every step, every heartbeat, but I didn't cry. I can't seem to stop doing just that now. Like I said, it must be a purge of some sort, a chance for my rattled spirit to expel all of that darkness out through my mouth. “They could've helped you without bringing you into the gang.”
“We're not a gang, Bernie, we're a family,” Aaron says as he drops his hand to his side. There's a tattoo on his right bicep that I've seen before, but that I've refused to acknowledge. It's my name, written in cursive across a red heart for all the world to see. I haven't let myself really look at it until now. Because it means too much. Because me being in Havoc means that Aaron and I … don't have to be apart anymore.
Havoc is a family.
I'm a part of that family.
Aaron is a part of that family.
“These things are signed and sealed in blood; they cannot be undone.” That's what Oscar said, isn't it? Aaron and I are inextricably tied now. Forever and always.
“Why couldn't they help you without giving me up?” I ask, and this time, I just acknowledge the fact that I'm crying again. I must be about to start my period, I think, but that's such a stupid copout and I know it. “They knew how happy we were together; they could see it. Vic was jealous.” This last part comes out as sharp as a whiplash. Aaron looks back at me and nods.
“He was. He's always loved you, Bernadette. I'm sure you've noticed that?” I say nothing, because it's true. I've noticed. There's proof of it enough on that paper. Victor Channing punched me in the face between first and second period for saying Bernadette Blackbird was hot. “Sometimes I hate him so much it hurts. Sometimes, I even want to kill him for what he made me do.” Aaron leans back against the trunk of a tree edging the neighbor's yard. I wonder how long it'll take them to come outside and yell at us? “But then I remember that he let us have each other, once upon a time. Freshman year was ours. I didn't know my dad was going to die, and my mom was going to leave. I thought we had forever, Bernie, that we could be normal together.”
Aaron shrugs his big shoulders and sighs again, kicking one boot up to rest the sole against the tree trunk. He doesn't look at me as he continues.
“If I was stronger, we could've been. But I wasn't. And neither were you.” He turns back to me, but I can't deny it. That memory of his father's funeral plays fresh in my mind. I can hear my own thoughts echoing back at me. I don’t know how to help. That happens sometimes, when one broken person tries to lean on another. We’re too rickety to keep the other standing. “So I let you go. It killed a part of me I wasn't sure I could ever get back.” Aaron taps two inked fingers—interestingly enough, the two with the A and V on them—against the Bernadette tattoo on his right arm.
“Wasn’t sure,” I say, my heart beating like a live thing inside my chest. I feel lightheaded and dizzy, like I might need to reach out