Fighting for Rain - BB Easton Page 0,6

I just spat on her shoes. “Are you serious right now?”

“As a fucking heart attack.”

“I said it because that’s how I feel, Wes. I don’t want to call you my boyfriend. I’ve had one of those, and it didn’t feel like this.” Rain casts a glance over her shoulder at the dark hallway stretching out behind her and the man-child sitting in the shadows beyond. “But considering that you didn’t even fight for me back there, I’m guessing that you don’t feel the same way.”

I grab Rain by the jaw and pull her into the shadows of the storefront doorway right next to us. I hate the way her eyes go wide in fear, but it’s taking all of my self-control not to scream in her face right now.

“Listen to me,” I hiss through gritted teeth. “When I found you last night, I thought you were fucking dead.” I spit the words out, remembering how heavy her lifeless body felt in my arms. How her hands dangled at her sides and her head fell back as I clutched her to my chest and cried against her cold, slack cheek. “For the first time in my life, I thought about killing myself. If I hadn’t finally found your pulse, I was prepared to lie down right next to you and blow my own fucking brains out, so don’t tell me how the fuck I feel.”

Rain’s mouth falls open in my palm as her eyebrows pull together in pain. “Wes …”

“I’ll fight to keep you alive. I’ll fight to keep you safe. But I will never fight to keep you, or anyone, from leaving me.”

A tear slips from the corner of Rain’s glassy eye and rolls down the edge of my index finger to her parted lips. Reaching out, she places one tiny hand over my heart, over the place where thirteen jagged tally marks tell the world how many foster homes I was kicked out of, how many times I wasn’t good enough, how many times I fought to stay and was left behind anyway.

Then, she says the words that make me want to put my fist through the glass shop window beside her head, “You’ll never have to.”

I tilt her face up and kiss her salty, wet mouth until her breath becomes ragged and her hands begin to claw at my belt buckle. Carter can’t see us—I made sure of that when I pulled her over here—so I know this isn’t just for show. Rain actually believes the four little words she just whispered.

If only they were true.

Rain

“Pleeeeease!” I cry, tugging on Mama’s hand and leaning with my whole body toward the Hello Kitty store. “I promise I won’t beg for nuthin’! I just wanna look. Real quick! Pleeeeease?”

“Rainbow, stop it,” Mama snaps, looking around at all the other shoppers. “You’re making a scene.”

“But Tammy-Lynn got a Hello Kitty binder for her birthday!”

Mama’s eyes get softer, and I know I got her. She never lets me get nuthin’ at the mall unless it’s my birthday, and it just so happens that I’m gonna be eight in exactly three days.

“One thing, okay? And you can’t have it until your birthday.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

This time, when I yank Mama’s hand, she lets me pull her into the store, and it’s like a Hello Kitty wonderland in there. Purses and T-shirts and lamps and stuffed animals and bath mats and bedsheets and, “Oh my God, slap bracelets! Look, Mama! Look!”

“One thing, Rainbow. And hurry up. We still have to get you some new shoes for school.”

Shoes!

I run to the shoe wall and drool as rows and rows of Sanrio characters stare back at me from the sides of sneakers and sandals and even fuzzy little bedroom slippers. But one pair calls out to me. I grab the black low-top Converse with Badtz-Maru’s cute little face right on top.

“I want these, Mama! Please?”

My mother scrunches her face up as she takes the shoebox out of my hands. “The grumpy penguin? Out of everything in this store, you want the black grumpy-penguin shoes?”

I bite my lip and nod all my nods.

Mama turns the box sideways in her hands and reads the description of my favorite Hello Kitty character out loud. “Bad Badtz-Maru is a mischievous little penguin who has dreams of becoming the king of everything one day. Although he’s bossy and he has a bit of an attitude problem, Badtz is a loyal friend to Pandaba and Hana-Maru. When he’s not getting into trouble, Badtz-Maru can