Better Left Buried (5 page)

“
And it’s not the smelly cans.” It was like he read her mind. “Make me a promise and we’re even.”

Promises weren’t really her thing.

“What is it?” She expected it to be something about their relationship, which hadn’t always been monogamous on her part.

“I want you to promise me you’re going to that appointment with Bennett this morning.”

“What kind of promise is that? I already told you I was.”

“I know what you
said
, but I know how often you change your mind. I’m non-negotiable on this one, Harm. Promise me.”

Harmony wrapped her arms around
him, summoning her sincerest smile. “I promise.”

But a promise wasn’t repayment, not by a long shot.

“There. Now we’re even.” He bent down and kissed her, his breath fresh with toothpaste. His hands slid down over her hips and his breathing slowed as the kiss lingered.

Something stirred between them, an urge Harmony was all too familiar with—the screwed up need to give him
more than a promise in exchange for his help so she’d feel less indebted. She pulled him closer, the softness of her body conforming to the hard, straight line of his, and kissed him more deeply.

“Harm, not now.”

“Please?” She trailed her hands down either side of his spine, scratching him just hard enough to wind him up. “It’ll be quick. I
promise.
” She didn’t intend to take “no” for an answer. She traced his jugular with her tongue and crusher her breasts against him.

“You drive me crazy,” he growled, each word punctuated by the smack of a kiss. He cradled her ass and
exhaled defeat. “All right. You win.”

He
ran his hands down her legs, tugging off her pants and underwear in a swift, fluid motion before lifting her onto the counter. She ignored the cold, hard surface against her skin, positioning herself so her hips lined up with his. He swept her hair back from her face and kissed her.

In that moment, nothing mattered. Not the appointment with Bennett or her train wreck of a mother.

“I love you,” he said, easing into her.

She locked her legs around him and closed her eyes. “I know you do.”

She loved him, too, in her own broken way.

Brea sat
on the stairs outside the lunchroom, finishing the short story that wasn’t due for another three days. She was hungry, but she didn’t feel right eating without Harmony. One of the perks of being a senior was that the monitors were more lenient about where upper classmen ate.

The s
tairs were reserved for weird girls:
Brea Miller, party of one
.

B
urnouts ate at the picnic tables outside, unconvincingly pretending they weren’t getting high.

Jocks dominated the
‘popular’ cafeteria tables and Rachael was in their entourage.

Brea couldn’t stay far enough away from her.

“Hey.” The deep-voiced greeting sounded distant, not meant for her, and so she ignored it. “Brea?” Her head snapped up. Jaxon stood less than a foot in front of her.

A hint of blond scruff,
slightly lighter than his hair—cut long on top and side-swept across his forehead—obscured the deep cleft in his chin that was the only thing hard about his otherwise gentle face. He wore a pair of loose-fitting indigo jeans and a blue and white button-down rolled up at the sleeves bearing the moose logo that had Harmony perpetually referring to him as “Abercrombie”.

She closed her c
omposition notebook and looked around to see who might be watching them. “What are you doing?” They’d agreed to keep their distance at school.

Her idea, not his.

“What am I
doing
? Wondering why you’re not eating lunch, mostly, and why you insist on hiding me. You’re a real puzzle, Brea Miller.” He smiled and sat on the stair next to her, spinning his key ring around his finger. He set his worn leather bag full of books between his feet and leaned back. “Where’s Harmony?”

“She had an appointment. S
he’ll be here any minute.” The double doors opened and Brea nearly jumped out of her skin. All she kept thinking was that Rachael was looking for any reason to demolish her. “You really have to go.”

But it wasn’t Rachael
coming out of the cafeteria. It was Pete Mackey, the football quarterback and a friend of Jaxon’s. He ran his hands through his dark hair, knitted his eyebrows together, and did a double-take as he walked past them.

“What’s up?” Jaxon said.

Pete shook his head. “You tell me.”

It was obviously a
rhetorical question because he didn’t stop for an explanation.

“
Jaxon, you have to go. I mean it.” Brea’s stomach was so tied in knots she felt about to throw up on her shoes. “Please, I’ll see you after school.”

When
Jaxon held her hand she thought she’d faint. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell her about us.”

He
meant Harmony. Brea had used her as an excuse when she was really afraid that Rachael seeing her with Jaxon would make things worse between them. She wasn’t prepared to fight her. Harmony would never let her live down the fact that dating Jaxon was exactly what Brea’s mother wanted, but there was no danger in that, just aggravation. Rachael, on the other hand, had been waiting to get her alone for months.

When Becky Clark walked past them laughing, Brea knew she was sunk.

If he wouldn’t leave, she’d have to.

“I have to go. We can talk about this later.” She tucked her journal inside her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

His stare burned at her back as she hurried toward the senior hallway, praying he didn’t follow her. Becky was an omen of something terrible from Rachael and Amanda, something Brea didn’t want Jaxon to see. There were only a couple of minutes left until the next bell when whatever happened would be visible to everyone. She felt sick to her stomach as she neared her locker. The word “whore” was written in crimson paint that streaked the metal door.

“Have fun cleaning that up,
whore.
” Rachael’s laugh echoed as she turned the far corner.

The air was thick with the tension of class about to be let out, of students flooding the halls, and of everyone seeing what Rachael had done.

Brea used the gym shirt in her backpack as a rag, but the paint was already starting to dry. The letters were indelible. Even smeared, everyone could read them. Paint stained her fingertips and clothes, and as hard as she tried not to cry, she couldn’t help herself. Tears rolled down her cheeks, spilling from her eyes so heavily that they blurred her vision. Without Harmony, she was a fish in a barrel and Rachael had taken advantage. Her hands shook as she worked the combination lock, terrified of what else Rachael might have done.
Please don’t let her have poured paint in there, too.
The lock released and she pulled the door open, exhaling a brief sigh of relief that everything inside was intact. She wiped her tears with her sleeve and did a quick inventory of her things. Nothing was missing, but there was a folded piece of paper smudged with red paint on the floor. She unfolded it and a new wave of dread washed over her.

“You better watch your back.”

It’s what she’d been trying to do all along.

The number twelve bu
s was full of morning commuters, business people reading their newspapers and drinking coffee from go cups, going much deeper into the city than Harmony was. She leaned her head against the cold window and listened to Concrete Blonde playing loudly through her headphones.

“This is such a bad idea
.” She huffed an annoyed breath at the lady flipping and folding the Life section in the seat next to her.

The woman stared at the pentag
ram necklace dangling above Harmony’s cleavage as though she hadn’t previously noticed it.

“What?”
Harmony pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket and tapped the box repeatedly against the heel of her hand.

The woman
tucked the paper under her arm and stood without answering, joining a neurotic, middle-aged man furiously texting on his smart phone in the aisle.

Crowded as it was, no one took the empty seat.

The bus slowed and stopped at the corner of 9
th
 and Oak.

Harmony
pulled the cord for the driver to open the door. No surprise, she was the only one getting off. She forced her way through the line of standing passengers, most of them barely taking a step back.

“Excuse me.”

T
he smell of cologne, perfume, and sweat made her sick. The conjecture whispered between the commuters as she pushed her way past them reinforced what she’d always known: she didn’t belong.

She stumbled onto the curb
and held up her middle finger. “Assholes.”

The bus driver, a graying man with thick glasses and lifeless eyes,
shook his head and closed the door, leaving her alone in a part of town that would make a less confident girl uncomfortable.

The state, in its infinite wisdom, had put the Department of Social Services offices in Mason, a ‘city’
by definition, but nothing like New York or Boston. The densely populated area had small pockets of nothingness, graffiti-laden areas not central to anything but drugs, crime, and the kind of people society would rather forget. There was no traffic because the roads didn’t lead anywhere anyone would
want
to go. People kept to themselves here, and no one ever snitched.

Bennett’s office was
four blocks away and even in broad daylight, the intimidating streets radiated a sense of danger from the bad things lurking among them.

She opened the pack of cigarettes, hoping
the nicotine would dispatch her unease. She pinched a cigarette between her lips and when the wind kicked up, catching her coat, she dropped her lighter.

“Shit.”

She bent down to pick it up and a wolf-whistle came from behind her, sending a chill up her spine. She turned to see a scruffy man—late-forties, missing teeth, wearing ripped-up jeans and paint-splattered work boots—walking toward her.

He looked like the men
who paid to have sex with her mother.

“Hey,” he said
. “Need a hand?”

She pulled her coat closed and ignored him.

“I’m talking to you.” The man unscrewed the top off a brown-bagged bottle and took a long sip. It was clear from his slow and slurred speech that it wasn’t his first of the day. “Hey, girl.”

“I’m
not
a girl,” she mumbled and picked up her pace.

9
th
Street was primarily subsidized apartments with a smattering of private businesses so few and far between that the chances of ducking in somewhere were slim.

“I’m sorry. No offense meant.
Will you stop a minute?”

“No.” She walked faster, fa
rther into desolation when she should have been going the other way. She only had to make it four blocks. She’d dealt with drunks before.

This one was persistent.

“Come on, sexy, where’re you going?” As if going from ‘girl’ to ‘sexy’ would change anything. His untied boots clapped against the cement as he jogged toward her.

“It’s way too early for this,
loser
.”

He closed the gap.

The smell of alcohol, cigarettes, and filth rolled off of him.

“I just want to talk to you. You’re so beautiful.”
A long scar extended down his right cheek and he had a rough tattoo on his neck, the kind either done in someone’s kitchen or in prison.

“
Right
. Look, I’m not interested.” She held up her hand. “I mean it, man. Leave me alone.”

An
elderly Asian shopkeeper, the only other person in sight, looked in the other direction.

“How do you know
you’re not interested if you haven’t heard my offer?” He smirked, no doubt fancying himself clever.

“
Because I’m not looking for anything.”

He smiled, half of his teeth broken or missing.
“Well I’m not, either. I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Why don’t you join me for a drink? You’d like that, right?” He held the bottle out to her. She slapped it from his hand. The glass shattered when it hit the sidewalk and brown liquid seeped through the bag.

The man’s face contorted with anger.

She knew she’d made a mistake. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

The man
narrowed his dark eyes, bending the edge of his scar. “I just bought that you little bitch.” He grabbed Harmony’s biceps with both hands.