Bleed Like Me (18 page)

I watched classic horror movies over and over. I stared at the fake blood and bad actors and longed for Brooks.

•  •  •

Ali came to visit on my birthday. She was the only one I could stomach seeing, because she'd told me the truth. She brought me some clothes from Dark Alley, which was only a minor improvement over the Gap, and a bright red card with no name on the front.

“Thanks,” I said, slicing my finger when I opened the envelope. A drop of blood formed on the tip, and I stared at it. The rush I'd always gotten when I felt pain and saw my own blood had disappeared. When had that happened?

Ali watched me. “You're welcome. I thought this would make you happy.”

I raised an eyebrow and slid the card from the envelope. My breath caught as soon as I opened it.

Gannon,

Twenty-six days, nineteen hours, forty-one minutes. Give or take. I'll be coming for you. You know what I want. You better be ready.

Brooks

My hands shook and a stupid grin formed on my face.

“How did you get this?”

“My mom dumped Skeevy Dave and started dating this juvenile probation officer named Mike. He's grown kind of fond of Brooks, apparently.”

“You're shitting me.” I stared at her. “Why didn't you tell me that in the first place? You could have been getting messages to him.”

She held up her hands and shook her head. “It's a pretty new relationship for Mom, and Mike's not exactly a rule breaker. This was kind of a big deal and I had to beg for weeks to get him to mention to Brooks that I could pass a message to you.”

“I can't believe it.” I read the card again.

“You're welcome.”

I jumped on her and hugged her. “You're the best friend ever.”

“Whoa. Don't strain yourself. That's more exercise than you've had all month.”

“Very funny.” My fingers moved over the letters on the card again.

“His ass better be worth all this,” she grumbled, but then winked at me.

•  •  •

Mom and Dad must have expected it, somewhere deep down. They knew Brooks would be released from juvie when he turned eighteen. And no amount of family therapy could change the fact that they'd lost part of me when they'd adopted the boys and the rest of me when they'd gotten a restraining order against my boyfriend. It was easy for me to let go of them completely.
And I couldn't deny that my brothers needed them more than I ever had.

Since I'd been home from the hospital, Miguel had started to steal money off my parents' dresser and Luis had been given a three-day suspension for fighting in school. Mom looked more worn down than ever, and Dad spent two to three nights a week “working” past midnight.

Every day Mom asked if I wanted to get more clothes, but I just shook my head and sat on the roof, wrapped in my thick winter coat, waiting. Ali visited a few times a week. She brought me clothes and told me stories about Jace and the poseurs at Dark Alley. She told me Probation Officer Mike said Brooks was doing okay. I begged Mom to let me visit him, but she refused. She claimed “the officials” wouldn't agree to it. Maybe she was right. I didn't think she bothered trying.

Mom had me on lockdown. Mandatory “family time” every night. No visits for me outside the house unless she drove and waited for me or I was going to therapy. I watched time pass in the grayness of the sky, the iciness of snowflakes, and the evenness of my breaths.

•  •  •

Cigarette smoke coiled around my head as I stared at the setting sun. The time for Brooks's release had passed two days ago and still no word. I asked Ali, but she didn't know anything. Probation Officer Mike was staying mute about it.

Now Dad was “at work” and Mom was “running around with the boys.” I stood alone, relishing the hour a day to myself that I craved like an addict. The hour I'd begged for and “earned” through attending crap family therapy. Winter had always depressed me with its short days, but I'd come to love the cold silence and the grayness of five o'clock.

A sharp whistle below pierced the quiet and I stared into the dusk.

“That better be Indian Spirit.”

I dropped my cigarette. “Brooks!” I shouted, and bolted to the fire escape on the side of the building. My feet couldn't move down the iron rungs fast enough. My lungs burned and my heart thumped, a staccato rhythm of
Brooks. Brooks. Brooks.

My legs ached where the burns had turned to scars, but none of it mattered compared to the boy standing on the sidewalk beneath me. He had on jeans and a T-shirt, and his eyes followed my movement down the ladder.

“It's frickin' freezing outside. What the hell are you wearing?” I screamed at him.

“I thought you might offer to warm me up.” He smiled and my insides turned to liquid heat.

My feet hit the ground and then I was in his arms, my legs locked around his waist, kissing his face everywhere. My teeth found his bottom lip and I tugged him closer to me, driving my tongue into his mouth. He groaned and laughed at the same time.

“That's my girl.”

I pushed his faded blue hair back and traced his face with my fingers. Cool, smooth skin and too-obvious bones. My thumbs moved over the deep purple circles beneath his eyes. “I missed you.”

“I know.”

I stopped tracing and gripped his cheeks. “I know? I know? That's it?”

“Yeah.” He released me and tucked my hair behind both ears. His fingers moved to the zipper of my coat and tugged. Then he pulled at the collar of my shirt and searched out the hollow beneath my collarbone.

“Not so fast.” I put my hand on top of his. “Now would be the time for you to mention you missed me too.”

“Hmm . . . ,” he murmured, and dipped his tongue into the spot his fingers had been circling. He started to suck and I swatted at him.

“Brooks.”

“Gannon.”

“Say you missed me.”

He lifted his head up and his breath tickled the hoops on my ears, making me shiver. My hands slipped inside his shirt and I walked my fingers up to the now smooth tattoo on his chest.

“You know I did,” he whispered.

“Say you love me.”

“I love you.”

I grinned at him. “I love you too.”

“Yes. Yes, you do.”

I stared at him for a long time, memorizing his features, drinking him in. My fingers played over his chest.

“Are you ready?” he asked, and leaned down so his hot breath tickled my neck.

“You still want me to go with you? Even after everything I put you through? Even knowing what it means if they catch you?”

He nipped and sucked my neck until I could almost feel the hickey popping out. Then he pressed his hand onto mine so my palm flattened against the thumping of his chest. “I'm here, aren't I? Five o'clock. The hour of your daily release.”

“Ali told you,” I said with a grin.

He nodded and patted my hand. “Yes. And see, I've come for you. Because no one else could make you bleed like me.”

I slid my hand out from beneath his shirt and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer to me. “You should see my new scars.”

“I will. Every single one of them.”

“Wait here,” I said, and kissed the end of his nose.

I jogged up to my apartment and snatched the bag I'd had packed and tucked into the closet for the past few weeks. It wasn't very full, but it had the clothes Ali had brought me
as well as all the money from my hardware savings account, cleared out one afternoon when I was walking home from therapy. As I stomped through the living room, I caught a glimpse of a framed picture of my family out of the corner of my eye. In a quick move I snatched it and tucked it into my bag before pounding back downstairs, grateful everyone was at work or at their afternoon activities.

Brooks sat on the hood of his car, shivering.

“The Civic still runs?” I asked.

He grinned at me. “Yeah, Ray drove it while I was in juvie.”

A lump formed in my throat at the mention of his past few months. And I wondered again if he was okay.

He snatched my bag from me and tossed it in the backseat next to his black duffel bag. He grabbed one of the belt loops on my jeans and guided me toward the passenger door before pulling it open and sliding me in. He bounced around to his side and started the car. It hiccupped, coughed, and then finally purred to life.

“And we're off,” he said. He pointed to the glove compartment, and I popped it open to find a carton of filtered menthols. “Just in case you weren't able to kick the habit yet.”

I leaned over and rifled through my bag until I found the bag of Indian Spirit cigarettes I'd rolled. “I've kicked the habit,” I said, shaking the bag in his face and smiling too wide.

“Thank God.” He reached over and squeezed my hand.

“So where to?” I asked.

He turned to me and stared. It was like he was memorizing every part of my face. I blushed from my striped hair to my toes.

“Don't know. Where do you want to go?”

I opened my mouth. He didn't have a plan? Panic gripped me for several seconds. I stared at the dashboard in front of me with all its cracks and dings. It wasn't his fault. He'd just gotten out. He got out and came for me. It was all that mattered. He squeezed my hand again and I looked up.

“So?” he asked.

The tiny lump in the back of my throat had turned into a soccer ball. I choked it down and took my turn to memorize his face. The face I'd missed so much, the face I'd dreamed about, now thinner and more guarded. “Just drive,” I said, my voice too low. I cleared my throat and tried again. “We'll figure it out.”

Apparently, if you want to hide from a potentially psychotic father with a penchant for taking swings at caseworkers or a messed-up family who watched your every move like you were a circus freak, you go to Minneapolis. Or at least that's where Brooks and I ended up. Seven hours in his crappy Civic, listening to Ray's white-boy-rap CDs and smoking all the Indian Spirit rolled cigarettes I'd packed. Minneapolis was far enough for me.

“It's a big city. Not Chicago big, but still easy to get lost in,” I said, pointing to the handful of skyscrapers on the horizon of downtown Minneapolis.

“Less than a day's drive from Chicago, though.”

“I gotta get out of this car. Even if this isn't home for us, we have to stop here.”

Brooks nodded and pulled into the parking lot of a sad-looking Comfort Inn with a vacancy sign.

“You're gonna have to learn to sleep in the car some, sweetheart. It's not exactly in the budget to be doing hotels every night.”

I bit my lower lip. “Maybe we could find a place to live here. Jobs and stuff.” My phone buzzed in my pocket for the four hundredth time since we left.

“Goddamn it,” Brooks snarled, snatching my phone. “Enough already.” He pulled out the SIM card and plopped the phone back in my lap.

Mom had stopped trying to get through after the first hour of straight-to-voice-mail and had now taken to leaving pleading texts every ten minutes. I'd called Ali to let her know I'd taken off and asked her to let Mom know I was fine. Then in a shaky voice I'd told Ali I'd miss her and ignored the disapproval and worry in her response.

“I can sleep in the car. Just not tonight. Not the first time I have you back.”

Brooks grinned at me, and my sulkiness over his lack of plan dissolved a bit. “Point taken. I'll be right back.” He dropped a kiss on my cheek.

Fifteen minutes later we were wrapped up in each other, rolling on the crunchy polyester Comfort Inn bedspread, hands and mouths fighting for access.

“I missed you,” I said, pulling away and breathing hard. “God, I missed you so much.”

“Me too.” He nipped at my collarbone.

“We should get something to eat,” I whispered. My arms circled around him one last time before I rolled away. “You've got to be starving.”

His head rose. “Not for food.”

I swatted him. “Don't be gross. We haven't eaten all day. Why don't you pick something up?”

“This is on me? Don't you have cash?”

I sat up on my elbows. “Yeah, don't you?”

“Yeah. But it's your turn.”

“What do you mean it's my turn? I bought the cigarettes.”

“So did I. Your crappy menthol ones, no less. And I paid for gas when we stopped.” He squinted at me and something twisted inside. This new guarded and slightly hostile part of Brooks scared me.

I bit my lip. “Sorry. I'm sorry. I don't want to fight with you. I'll buy dinner.” I shimmied off the bed and held my hand out for the car keys.

He sat up. “Now? You're gonna go now? I thought you were tired of being in the car.”

“I am, but I'm hungry and you just said it's my turn.”

Brooks shook his head. “Seriously? You're gonna leave me here so you can get food? I haven't seen you in months.”

I blinked at him. “But I ran away with you. I'm not going anywhere. I just want some food.”

“Fine. Go get some food.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and threw a twenty-dollar bill at me, then tossed the keys at my feet.

I shook my head and wished we hadn't smoked the last cigarette in the car. “I said I'd pay. Why are you getting all pissed off?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Why do you think?”

“Don't make this into a big deal. I'm hungry. I'm starting to get a headache from lack of food.”

His fingers brushed his hair from his eyes. “It
is
a big deal. I want to be with you and you only care about eating.” Anger switched to sad eyes that bored into me. “Can't you just stay with me for a little while? Please.”

I nodded and moved toward him, a strange pull drawing me back, making me ignore my hunger headache. My fingers traced his face, smoothing out the line on his forehead that hadn't been there a few months ago. He grabbed my fingers and stuck them in his mouth, sucking hard. I sat on his lap and wrapped myself around him, feathering his face with kisses, stopping myself from ruining everything by asking him what the hell had happened in juvie.