“Shut up!” I pushed Derek off the sidewalk as we walked down Linden. “You—did—not!’
“Honest to God,” he raised his hand proudly. “I pointed my finger in his face and said Don’t mess with me punk, I’m a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”
I was bent over at the waist, laughing hysterically for the hundredth time that day.
“And then when I turned six, Mom finally sat me down and revealed the cold, hard truth about my true identity.”
“That you weren’t really a crime-fighting turtle?”
“Exactly.” He nodded as if the childhood memory still haunted him, but the smirk on his face was clue enough that he was only telling his stories to keep my mind free and clear of Luke.
“Thank you,” I wrapped my jacket a little tighter, “but you don’t have to keep fabricating these stories for my benefit.”
“Fabricating? Ha!” he struck a karate pose right there on the sidewalk. “My crime-fighting toddler years are as real as the ground we walk on, Julie Little.”
I smiled as he dropped his pose and continued to walk along my side.
“So,” he said, watching me coolly with a boyish smirk, “when are you going to let me ask you out again?”
“Derek,” I threw him a sideways glance. “You know I’m not—”
“Right, right,” he bit his lip and shrugged, “You can’t blame a guy for trying; I should’ve known you’d need more time.”
“I’m okay,” I said, and I think that’s all he’d really wanted to hear. I was still fresh off of my argument with Luke, and Derek was much smarter than to think that I’d accept any kind of proposal—no matter how big or little, after everything that had happened the day before. “I’m just still a little shaken by everything. But I’ll be fine. It was just a dumb crush.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but maybe not.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pressed a quick kiss to the side of my head.
As we continued to walk, his arm never left my body. It eventually moved from my shoulder to my waist, and he pulled me closer as we walked along the sidewalk in the cool, autumn breeze.
I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder, remembering the day that Luke had taken me by the hand and led me through the woods to an open field. The way his touch burned my hand with a fiery sensation ignited a feeling deep inside of me, one that still coursed through my veins every time I saw his beautiful face. And then there was the sincerity in his beautiful brown eyes on Saturday when he softly wiped away the make-up that had stained my face.
And though I struggled to admit it out loud, I missed Luke, even the grumpy, arrogant, stubborn Luke. Even the Luke who’d called me kid, and continuously treated me like one. Even the drunken Luke who’d professed his feelings for me.
I didn’t care which Luke I got anymore, because any Luke was better than no Luke.
What I felt for him was unconditional. There was nothing he could say and nothing he could do to change the way my heart ached for him.
With Derek’s arm around me, and his shoulder beneath my head, all I could do was wish that when I opened my eyes, Luke would be there—and everything I’d experienced in the past twenty-four hours would all just be a dream.
But when I opened my eyes, I was still walking with Derek.
And in that moment, I knew for sure no one could ever live up to the way I cared for Luke.
“I’m heading out,” Hannah said to her brother, brushing past me, but not before throwing an evil sneer in my direction.
I sunk lower into the first cushion on their couch as Derek told his sister to be back by curfew, which on a school night was in exactly one hour.
She rolled her eyes and walked out the door, slamming it hard enough to communicate her dislike for my friendship with Derek.
“Alright,” he sat on the opposite side of the couch and stared at his depressing DVD collection, “it looks like tonight’s flick is either Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters, or… yep. Ghostbusters.” He turned back, “Any suggestions?”
“Oh gee,” I teased, “and here I was hoping you’d have Ghostbusters.”
He smiled for a brief moment before getting up to start the DVD. I tucked my feet up under my legs and sank a little lower in the cushion. He returned to the other side of the couch, keeping a reasonable distance, but throwing me an occasional glance.
Halfway through the flick, Derek suggested a popcorn break, so we paused the DVD to make our snack. Before we could retreat to the kitchen, he met my stare and scooted closer on the couch to take my hands.
“Julie,” he kept his voice low, though I couldn’t imagine why. There wasn’t another soul around to hear what he had to say. Still, he seemed serious, so I gave him my full attention. “There’s something important that I need to tell you.”
“Okay,” I looked at our cupped hands and back to him. “what’s up?”
“I want you to know that us moving here to Oakland had nothing to do with you,” he swallowed hard. His palms began to sweat, and he closed his eyes to brace himself for my response.
“Well, obviously,” I squeezed his hands, “you didn’t know me until you moved in.”
“And that’s why we need to have this conversation,” he said. “Because I did know you in some sense. But again,” he said, looking as though he truly needed me to believe what he was saying, “I didn’t move here because of you. Coming here was all Hannah’s idea. I didn’t know you were here until after the fact, until you stood out there on the driveway and told me who you were, but Hannah knew, and she wanted to see you.”
I stared at him open-mouthed, unsure of whether or not he was waiting on a response.
He took a deep breath and let go of my hands. “I have a shoebox of things in my room that I think will help me explain this a little better. Do you mind if I…?”
“No, go,” I urged him to retrieve the box. If it’d help him communicate whatever it was he needed to say, I wanted him to have it.
As I sat on the edge of the couch, I racked my brain for how I could’ve possibly known Derek and Hannah. I couldn’t remember them from my past, but something about his eyes and her grin seemed far too familiar.
A tap on the outside window interrupted my thoughts. I glanced up to see Luke standing in the shadows on the other side of the glass. Perched up on the ledge of the porch, he motioned for me to come closer. I shooed him away and turned back to my thoughts.
He tapped on the window again, this time harder. I finally got up, went across the room, and opened the window.
“Go away.”
“Listen to me, Julie,” Luke said, hastily, “you need to get out of there. Now.”
“Go away, Luke. I’m done with this.”
“Dammit, Julie, listen to me.”
“I’m fine.”
“I just back from the West Bridge PD,” Luke said, irritated that I wouldn’t hear him out. “They’re Miltons. Derek and Hannah Milton.”
“Derek and Hannah Jones,” I corrected him.
“They changed their last name and left town after the trial to ward off the press. It’s like they vanished off the map until now,” he leaned closer to the window screen so I’d hear the enunciation of each syllable. “Derek and Hannah Milton. Son and daughter of Conan Milton—”
“The man who murdered your parents,” Derek said behind me, setting a shoebox down on the end of the couch. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Julie.”
“Back up,” Luke interrupted, pressing his finger against the screen.
“Julie, please,” Derek begged, stealing my attention from Luke, “I don’t mean any harm. Hannah just wanted to see it for herself. She wanted to see that you’d really moved here to Oakland and started over. She’s still having a lot of trouble coming to terms with what our father has done. She’s struggling; she needed this. She needed closure.”
I backed against the window and faced Derek, and the realization of their likeness hit me full-fo
rce. His blue eyes—he had his father’s same, round, ocean-blue eyes. And Hannah bore that same nasty smirk her father had worn in all the press photos and in the mug shot taken after the murders.
The front door opened and Luke let himself in, taking an immediate stride across the room to put himself between me and Derek.
“Derek,” Luke put his hand out to keep him from taking another step closer, “I’m taking Julie with me, and you’re going to stay right where you’re at, and you won’t ever come near her again.”
“Please,” Derek said. He looked past Luke and leaned to the side to meet my stare. “Julie, I’m sorry. I know that words can never undo what my father did, but I want you to know how terribly sorry I am.”
I took a step out from behind Luke, putting my hand on his arm to let him know I was okay facing Derek on my own.
“You’ve known,” I started toward him, and my voice shook. “All of this time, you’ve known who I am, and you couldn’t find just one second to tell me who you are?”
“I wanted to, but—”
“But what?” I asked. “Your father murdered my parents. He put a gun to their heads, put a bullet through their skulls, and you think telling me that you’re sorry is going to make it better?” My eyes filled with tears as I watched Derek drop his arms. He stood defenseless, hurt and broken down. But no matter how defeated he seemed, it didn’t change the fact that he’d blatantly lied to me. “His blood runs through your veins, Derek. His evil courses through your body, and you expect me to accept your apology? How do I know I can even trust you? How do I know you weren’t planning on coming back in here and killing me yourself?”
“You don’t,” he said, “but you have to trust me—”
“I don’t! I don’t have to trust you!”
“Julie,” he begged, “I swear I never wanted to hurt you.”
“That makes one of us.” Hannah’s voice came from the back of the room. None of us had heard her come in, and when I turned to meet her stare, my heart fell to my stomach.
Hannah stood in the doorframe between the kitchen and living room, her eyes never leaving mine. Her red hair was mussed and ratted. Her eyes were dark and sunken; she looked like hell. But as she took a step forward to command the room, she lifted a handgun in the air and pointed it directly at my face. Suddenly, that’s all I could really concentrate on.
SEVEN