Breakdown (Crash into Me) (20 page)

“Because we almost match? You’ll need stitches for this. Do you have insurance? Are you a union member? I think there are some hospitals where you only have to give them your member number…”

He chuckled and slid his hand out from mine. For a second I was offended, but when he rubbed his eyes and shut off the overhead light, I realized he was probably just tired. Maybe not as tired as me, but tired regardless.

“I’m not worried about my hand, Jumper. I can take care of it at home just as easy, you know that.”

“What—how did you do that?” I nodded to his hand and put on my seatbelt. Though the likelihood of us going anywhere was less and less, I wanted to let him know that I was ready.  “You didn’t hurt yourself on purpose, did you? Because I’m pretty sure I trademarked that last night.”

Chuckling, I couldn’t tell if he was entertained by my worry or my attempt at humor. Still, I laughed a little along with him. “No, Jumper, nothing like that. I was trying to, ah, get something open and I wasn’t paying attention, stabbed myself with a screwdriver.” He added the last part absent mindedly, as if his own flesh were irreverent. How he could feel that way about himself when he was clearly an important person frightened me. If William thought someone as wonderful as him didn’t matter, what possible chance could I have? I shook my head and glared at him. 

“What was so distracting that you felt the need to stab yourself?”

William stopped laughing then, and looked at me with an intensity I had only seen him give the road. “You.”

Taken aback, I looked away, unable to take his stare when it was so unrelenting. “What?”

“All day long I’ve been thinking about what you did yesterday, what you told me.” He closed his eyes and gripped the wheel. “What you didn’t…”

“I’m sorry.” I told him honestly. “I wouldn’t have—if I had known you were going to feel so bad about me hurting myself, I wouldn’t have done it. But you don’t have to feel bad for me, William.” I swallowed hard and looked away as new pangs of guilt rose in my stomach. “I know you do, but you don’t have to. You aren’t responsible for me, you don’t owe me anything—”

“But you owe me something, right?” The smile was back in his voice, instantly breaking the tension between us. While a respectable girl might have, maybe should have, been offended, the offhanded remark was more flirtatious than dangerous. I, therefore, did not think twice about the fact that we were outside, alone and in the dark.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t worry, Jumper, I’d never ask you to do anything if I didn’t think it wasn’t kosher.”

Though it was dark, I looked away, unsure whether or not he could see me blush. “Says the Catholic.”

“Seriously, did you mean what you said earlier about owing me a favor?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“Good.” He smiled. “Then instead of
thinking
about talking to somebody, I want you to do it.”

“You’re kidding?”

“They have hotlines you can call, shrinks who work for free, I know a priest who is a pretty good listener—”

“Why does this matter to you so much?”

“You mean why do you matter to me?”

“Yeah.” I gulped. “I guess.”

“I—” Smiling, he shook his head. “It’s complicated. But let’s just say I get a rush out of you, Jumper, and I don’t want you to go away anytime soon.”

“Anytime soon?”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “Are you going to argue with me about that too?”

Instead of saying anything, I rested my head against the cool glass. During the steadier streams of rain, the pitter-patter would echo in my eardrums, undermining the headache that threatened me from too much caffeine and a lack of sleep. I closed my eyes and inhaled the combined scents of William and the rain.

“No, not tonight,” I said eventually. “But no guarantees about later.”

When I opened my eyes again, he was smiling.

Chapter Twelve

The rest of the weekend was quiet—quiet everywhere, it seemed, except for in my head. I wasn’t going to pretend that William’s sense of responsibility towards me wasn’t comforting, didn’t make me feel better in a way I didn’t think I ever had. Similarly, the idea of him—or anyone else—feeling a sense of obligation towards me made me nauseous. I enjoyed spending time with William, but I didn’t want him to do it if he had no real desire to do so, if he secretly disliked me and felt only pity for me.

Was that why he was so insistent on me talking to someone? Was he trying to pawn me off on another do-gooder just so he didn’t have to put up with me anymore? That alone was reason enough for me to not keep the promise I made, to put off looking for therapists that took my insurance. After all, what if I told William I found a counselor I could identify with, or a hotline that wouldn’t show up on the phone bill? Would he consider his job done and toss me aside for his next charity project?

I shuddered at the thought and tried to put it out of my mind with more shows from the Speed channel.

Then again, my desire to die had decreased in the last two weeks, an inclination that I couldn’t deny had been because of William and racing. Since he had been kind enough to introduce me into his world, offer me his friendship and protection, didn’t I at least owe it to him to keep my word the way I said I would? I had never thought about my sense of honor, nor had I ever been against lying when necessary, but there was something treacherous about not keeping my word to William, the only person who had ever seemed to express concern over whether I lived or died.

Sighing, I said screw it, and made an appointment with health services.

The beginning of the week came and went, and each day William asked me if I was still with him via text message. I always answered with the most smart-ass thing I could think of, but he never failed to answer me back with something witty or downright wonderful.

By the end of the week, my heart fluttered regularly at the sound of my phone going off.

It was Thursday night when we started talking about time travel, a conversation that had evolved beginning with 1980’s comedies and DeLoreans. I had originally settled into the living-room to study for my business law exam, but our conversation was far more interesting.

Do-gooder:
1969. The best time for American muscle cars ever
. 

Me:
If you could time travel anywhere it would be the US? For cars?

Do-gooder
:
Are you kidding, Jumper? The dodge charger? The Pontiac GTO?

Me:
You’re a waste of perfectly good time travel.

I laughed out loud, causing Dad to notice me for the first time since I had entered the room. Like me, he wasn’t even trying to look over the paperwork in his lap, but swearing and yelling at the TV. A direct result, I knew, from watching the evening news.

“Oh,” Dad coughed as if clearing his throat. “Hey, Kiddo. I ah, didn’t see you there.”

For the first time in an hour I put my phone down and tapped at my textbook. “Yep, just studying.”

He coughed again, shifting uncomfortably while shifting his papers. “You, ah, should have said something.” He pointed to the TV with the remote. “I would have tried to keep it down.”

I glanced at the TV and smiled, an expression that I found myself doing more and more. “I usually only see you yell at the broadcasters from MSNBC. What’s so special about the local news tonight?”

“They’re doing a segment on all the carjackings lately…”

I looked up just in time to see a pretty newscaster standing in front of a dirty garage. And though I didn’t find anything particularly interesting about what I saw there, Dad turned up the volume, making it impossible for me to ignore the TV.

“…more commonly known as chop shops, these garages pose as legitimate businesses then disassemble stolen automobiles in an effort to sell the parts later on. Chop shops are showing up throughout the Southland area, causing concerned citizens to rally local authorities to find a solution.” 

“Most auto thefts occur during the night,” a cop on the TV said. “The best thing to do is to make sure your vehicle is locked and the windows are rolled up.”

“Others, however,” the newscaster’s voice wavered dramatically. “Are not so convinced that the problem can be easily remedied.”

“It’s not in the high crime areas anymore.” I smiled while the TV switched to a clip of a guy pulling the microphone to his face. “Thieves go anywhere to get the parts they need. Whether they resell them or use them as betting chips during street races…”

The segment continued, but I faded out, my head and heart connecting things that I didn’t want to acknowledge to begin with. I considered everything I knew about street racing and what I had heard, combining it with William’s expensive car and the odd night jobs he never seemed to want to talk about.

William said he had cut his hand opening something. What exactly had he been opening that he needed a screwdriver for?

“Charlotte? You do lock up your car, right?”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Every day.”

“Good.” Dad nodded. “We should talk more like this.” He looked down at his papers and once again cleared his throat. “It’s nice.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It is.”

“Speaking of talking…” Dad gestured to me with the remote as if it was a maestro’s baton. “Who is that you’ve been spending all your time on the phone with? I don’t think you’ve put that thing down all week.”

I looked down at the phone in my hand and tried to ignore my reflex to frown. Who
was
I talking to? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure myself.

Dad and I made our usual small talk for another minute before I excused myself, ran upstairs, and locked my bedroom door behind me. Maybe I was being suspicious, letting my imagination run away with me, or just looking for a reason not to trust him, but the more I thought about it, the more the pieces in my head started to make sense. Sitting down at my computer, I typed in
William O’Reilly
but went straight for the backspace until he was deleted completely. Instead, I spun around in my desk chair, listening to the hinges squeak as I leaned back. When I stopped back at the keyboard I tried again, this time, typing up the words
New England
and
auto theft
and hitting enter before I lost my nerve.

Auto theft on the rise in Boston

Police throughout Cambridge are reminding the community to be more mindful of locking their car doors. A reminder that comes after an increase in auto theft throughout 2011.

Since the beginning of the year there has been a 58% increase from 2010—a startling statistic that has many car owners taking extra precautions.  

“Most thieves are opportunists,” said Sgt. Albert Hill with the Middlesex County Police Department. “They look for cars that have been left on to warm up, vehicles in plain sight.”

However, vehicle theft has come a long way from the days of teenagers stealing cars simply for the thrill of a joyride. One of the most common reasons for vehicle theft is the ability to generate profit from organized theft activities. And with the value of scrap metal on the rise, most of the vehicles are parted out before the owners even realize they are gone.

Another increasingly popular reason why vehicles are stolen is related to street racing, an increasingly popular activity that only gets attention when there is a catastrophic crash. Many of the street racers fund their hobby with false police reports or auto insurance fraud. “Eventually, they often have to steal vehicles or component parts to continue racing. Thieves need parts to repair and replace damaged parts in racing. Now they race motorcycles and perform stunts for money,” said Hill.

Police caution citizens to avoid approaching any suspicious activity and calling local authorities…

The article unsettled me, but I still read on, startled to see so many Irish surnames and the crimes associated with it. I read articles about victims of carjacking, about the gangs in the five points of New York, about racketeering, and the increase flood of drugs in Boston. And with each article I kept seeing tags like
organized crime
,
gang
, and a group called
the
Black Saints
. As much as I didn’t want it to, the cyber wormhole swallowed me easily, forcing a conclusion on me before I knew what was what. Yet why would William threaten to call the cops the night we met if he was a thief? Was he bluffing? I had never seen him make a bet at the races, so how did he afford his car? His tattoos? If his night job was what I thought I was, then it would explain damn near everything.