“More like his memorabilia room.” She strolls over to a shelf lined with old CDs and starts tracing her fingers along the rows, reading the titles.
I shut the door then stand in the middle of the room, afraid to touch anything. “Maybe we shouldn’t be in here.”
“We’ll be fine as long as we put everything back in its rightful place.” She pulls a CD off the shelf, plucks the disc out, then gently places it into a stereo and presses play. Moments later, a grungy song fills the speakers.
“What band is this?” I ask as I roam around the room, examining all the guitars on the walls.
She shrugs as she plops down in the chair behind the desk and collects a guitar propped against the wall. “The front of the CD cover says The Cranberries. I just randomly picked it. Thought a surprise would be fun.” She strums a few notes. “I’m wondering if it was one of my mother’s CDs, though.” Her lips part as if she’s going to sing, and her eyes drift shut. But instead of belting out the lyrics, she plays the notes while uttering the words under her breath. When she opens her eyes again, she looks nervous, which is strange. Lyric never, ever looks nervous.
“You okay?”
She nods, setting the guitar aside. “Yeah, just seeing if I could do it around you.”
“Do what around me?”
She shrugs as she opens a drawer. “Sing.”
I wish I could help her get over her fear, but unlike what she did for me, I can’t just buy her a nightlight.
“What were you whispering to Aunt Lila about this morning?” she casually asks as she sifts through a stack of papers on the desk.
“Nothing important.” I plop down in a swivel chair in front of the desk and start spinning in circles.
“I heard you say something about your brother and sister.” She reads something on one of the papers, but I can tell she’s pretending, worried she’s crossing a line. “I didn’t know you had a brother and sister.”
“I did … before …” I pick up the pace, whirling the chair around and around until I’m so dizzy I feel like I’m going to hurl. “My brother is a year older than me and my sister is a year younger.”
“And you haven’t seen them since you had to leave your home?”
“No.”
“Does it make you sad, that you all had to leave your home and now you don’t get to see them?”
I dig my heels into the floor and stop the chair before I actually do end up vomiting. She’s watching me intently, waiting for me to answer, with a drop of apprehension in her eyes.
“I don’t miss my old … home at all,” I utter quietly. “It wasn’t even a home … at least, from what I can remember … but I do miss my brother and sister. That’s why I asked Mrs. Gregory if she could find stuff out about them—or at least where they are.”
Her head angles to the side and she looks so lost. “You said from what you can remember.”
“Huh?” My voice is thick with emotion. Just talking about this is surfacing unwanted memories that are supposed to be forgotten.
“Just barely, you said, ‘from what I can remember.’” She shifts in her seat, leaning back. “Can you not remember your old home?”
Seeing no other way out of this than to lie to her—which I won’t do—I nod. “Some of my memories are foggy.”
“Does Mrs. Gregory know about this?”
“Vaguely. I think social services and the therapist I’ve been going to told her some details.” I clench my fists as my chest starts to constrict.
Links of metal wrapped around my wrist and brain.
Driving me insane.
Begging me to cave.
They whispered they knew the truth.
Marked it forever on my flesh.
Told me to give in.
To surrender.
But I couldn’t.
I blink from my thoughts and massage my wrists.
“Maybe I could help you find them,” she says, thrumming her fingers on top of the desk.
“Who?”
“Your brother and sister.”
“And how would we do that”—my fingers curl around the armrest, desperate to hold onto something, because I feel like I’m about to have a panic attack—“when Mrs. Gregory couldn’t even find them?”
She slants forward, crossing her arms on top of the desk. “There’s a little thing called the internet, Ayden. We could do some research on our own.”
“You would help me do that?”
“I would help you do anything.”
Even though the concept doesn’t feel possible, I believe her. “Where would we start?”
Her eyes elevate to the ceiling as she contemplates. “You know their last names, right?”
I nod. “My brother’s name is Felix, and my sister’s name is Sadie. Our last names used to be Stephorson, but I’m not sure now if theirs still is, since mine’s changed.”
“Okay, we can start there. And it’d probably help if they had something distinct about them.”
My fingers travel to the homemade tattoo on my side, put there without my permission. “They have the same tattoo as me.”
Her lips part, but no words come out. I’ve shocked Lyric beyond words, which doesn’t seem natural.
“We didn’t choose to get them,” I mumble, completely clueless why I’m telling her this. “They were put on us, from what I can remember.”
She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, as if she’s trying to physically restrain herself from asking.
“What happened to you?” she finally asks.
I grind my teeth so forcefully it actually hurts my jaw. “When I was younger, we were taken by these … people who had these really strange beliefs. They put the tattoos on us.” My voice quivers almost as intensely as my heart as I speak of the day my mother betrayed her three children. It’s the same day that my memories start to break apart into charred fragments that barely make sense.
Lyric swallows hard. “Ayden … I …”
“Can we please talk about something else now?” I plead in desperation, barely able to breathe. “Please. Something happy.” I need my happy Lyric back. Need my happiness before I fall back into the darkness that I carried around for two years after that day.
Silence stretches between us before Lyric says, “Did you hear about Maggie?”
I exhale, my muscles loosening. “No, but I’m guessing she’s dating someone new now.”
She smiles as she rests back in the chair, making the shift of attitude so breezy. “How’d you guess?”
I give a half shrug. “Because she dates someone new every day.”
Lyric giggles, but her laughter silences as she opens the desk drawer. She squints at something inside it, and a pucker forms at her brow. “What on earth?” She pulls out a bottle of scotch along with a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray. “Dude, I know my parents drink”—she shows me the pack of cigarettes—“but I never knew they smoked.”
“I’m not surprised. I’ve smelled it on your dad before.” I stretch my legs out and slant my head back at the ceiling decorated with hundreds of guitar picks. “It must have been so cool growing up here,” I remark as I spin the chair around, imagining what it was like living here. Probably pretty great since she’s so damn happy all the time.
“Yeah, I guess it was pretty fucking awesome.” Lyric unexpectedly starts hacking.
My gaze darts to her. I have to bite my lip to restrain my laughter. “Did you just take a drink of that?”
She wipes her lips, shuddering as she stares at the bottle of scotch in her hand. “Yeah, so what?”
“Have you ever drank before?”
“No.” She twists the cap back on. “Have you?”
I shrug. “A couple of times.” That’s all I say, not wanting to relive the things I’ve done when I was losing it, like fighting, drinking, and stealing stuff. “You shouldn’t start with scotch. That’s strong shit right there.”
She meticulously eyes me over. “You want a taste?” She extends
her arm across the desk, with her fingers enclosed around the bottle.
Even though I probably shouldn’t, I snatch the bottle from her and swallow a gulp or two as Lyric watches me with inquisitiveness. When I remove the mouth of the bottle from my lips, she grins.
“You didn’t even gag.” She grabs a cigarette, along with a lighter that’s inserted into the pack.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He’ll be able to smell it.”
“I’m just curious.” She relines back in the chair and pops the end of a cigarette into her mouth.
“Well, you shouldn’t be. That stuff is bad for you.”
“I’m not curious about smoking,” she says, cupping her hand around her face as she flicks the lighter and tries to light the end, “but about you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can never figure stuff out about you.”
“Like what? If I know how to light a lighter?”
She shakes her head, still struggling to light the cigarette. “No. Like what you like to do. If you really are a bad boy at heart. If you’ve ever smoked before.”
I elevate my brows at her. “That’s what you want to know about me? Out of all things?” After the conversation we just had?
Giving up on the lighter, she rises from the chair and ambles around the desk toward me with the cigarette still resting between her lips. “Well, I have this theory that this good, obedient guy I know isn’t the guy who pulled up in that sedan a month ago.” She leans over me and taps the hollow of my neck. “I mean, the collar’s gone. You took it off at day three, and I could never figure out why—why it was so easy for you to give up your Goth side.” She slides her hand to my ear and traces her finger across the lobe, moving her body close enough that I get a straight view down the front of her shirt. I try not to look, but my eyes stray more than a few times, my heart rate quickening. “And the gauges, too. All you have now are these tiny scars.” Her hands travel down my arms, causing goose bumps to sprout across my skin as her fingers come to a rest on the tops of my hands. I start to panic, thinking she’s going to ask me about the scars there; instead, she grazes the pad of her thumb over my fingernail. “I really do kind of miss the black nail polish.”
I shiver from her touch. “I don’t.” My voice cracks as her fingers graze my knuckles, and I quickly clear my throat.
It’s just a simple touch.
A lyrical brush of fingers.
Nothing that can hurt you.
Anymore.
All thoughts vanish, when she straddles my lap. My heart slams forcefully against my chest. I can’t figure out what to do with my hands. Definitely not touch her; otherwise, I might lose it. But I look awkward with them out to the side, so I drape them on the armrests and fold my fingers inward.
“How much of that did you drink?” I inspect her face to see if she could possibly be drunk, but I’m feeling a little woozy myself and my vision is a bit hazy.
“A few swallows.” She hands me the lighter, places the cigarette in between her lips again, and waits for me to light it for her.
“This is going to teach you a lesson.” I drag my thumb across the top of the lighter and bring the flame closer to the cigarette.
“And what lesson is that?” she asks as the fire crinkles the paper. Moments later, she begins hacking again. She hurriedly removes the cigarette from her mouth as clouds of smoke puff from her lips.
“That smoking is bad for you.” I pry the cigarette from her fingers and slant over to put it out in the ashtray, fighting back my laughter.
After she finishes coughing up her lungs, she settles into my lap again. “So have you?”
Again, I question how drunk I am when I start to get a little too happy down south about her sitting on my lap. I’ve never really been turned on before, not in a welcomed way anyway.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” I ask, getting squirmy.
She shakes her head, positioning a hand on each side of me. “Nope. Not unless you start freaking out.”
I mentally chant the lyrics of the first song I can think of.
You make me dizzy. You make me ache.
You make me burn, burn, burn.
Your touch is toxic. Poison.
Yet I’ll never learn, learn, learn.
“Fine,” I admit. “Yes, I’ve smoked before, but not since I moved in with the Gregorys. I went through this phase where I did a lot of things, right after I entered the system.”
“I knew it.” She sloppily plays with my hair, running her fingers through it. “You were a bad, bad boy, Ayden. Maybe that’s what I should start calling you. Bad boy instead of shy boy.”
“Is that what you’re into now? Bad boys?” My voice comes out deeper than I planned.
“Maybe.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not one anymore, then, huh?”
Her green eyes sparkle as she taps a finger on her bottom lip. “So, you’re saying you don’t want me to be into you?” I remain silent, feeling as though I might be walking into a trap. Her lips curve upward as she continues, “Because something might suggest otherwise.”
A beat of confusion passes until her insinuating gaze drifts downward. Realization clicks.
“Fuck.” I hop out from under her so quickly she ends up falling onto the floor. I face the door, cursing under my breath, completely fucking mortified. How the hell did we go from talking about my past to her teasing me about getting a hard-on? I shouldn’t be surprised, though. This is Lyric. Make me crazy, ache, trouble breathing, heart-liberating Lyric.
“Don’t worry,” she says with an off pitch giggle. “It happens to most guys. At least, that’s what they taught us in health class.”
I shake my head, telling myself to chill the fuck out. It’s not a big deal. It’s just Lyric. It doesn’t mean anything. Mean that. “You seriously have no boundaries.”
“Yeah, but that’s what you love about me.”
I can hear her moving up behind me. I have no idea what’s about to happen, or what I want to happen. Thankfully, I don’t have to think about it too hard, because a door slams from somewhere in the house.
“Oh shit.” Lyric flies into panic mode, running over to the desk where the scotch, cigarettes, and ashtray are. She tosses the bottle and cigarettes into the drawer then stares wide-eyed at the ashtray. “What do I do with this?”
Part of me wants to keep my lips zipped to pay her back for teasing me, but I care about her too much to let her get in trouble. So I rush over and grab the ashtray while Lyric turns off the music and stuffs the CD back into place. I carefully open the window and pour the ashes out onto the back lawn. After closing the window, I return the ashtray to the drawer where I find a can of air freshener. I douse the air with it and tell Lyric to flip on the ceiling fan. We finish cleaning up the best we can, and then Lyric seizes my hand and jerks me out the door.
“Just play it cool,” she whispers loudly. I can smell the scotch on her breath.
This is a disaster in the making.
“Just let me do the talking,” I tell her as we creep up the hall toward the kitchen. “And don’t breathe on anyone.”
She gives an exaggerated nod. I sigh.
We are so going down.
The situation only worsens when we enter the kitchen. There is cake, ice cream, and plates all over the countertops. Not only are her parents there, but so is every member of the Gregory family, most of them turning to look at us as we enter. I swear to God it’s like they know. Mr. Gregory pauses the longest, his head cocking to the side as he searches both our faces.
Fuck, he knows.
I open my mouth to say something, but Lyric beats me to the punch.
“I think I’m going to throw up.” Her fingers slip from my hand as she bolts out of the kitchen toward the bathroom.
Mrs. Scott glances at Mr. Scott, and then she runs after Lyric. Mrs. Gregory looks at me, the disappointment in her eyes making me want to sink into the earth and
vanish into the dirt. She sighs then whispers something to Mr. Gregory. His eyes widen slightly as she backs away and ushers the kids out of the kitchen with her.
Then it’s just Mr. Gregory, Mr. Scott, and I, in an overly large kitchen that somehow feels overcrowded. The situation is alarmingly uncomfortable. Rarely does Mr. Gregory have to be the disciplinarian, but I have a feeling he’s about to.