Now, I’m standing here, staring at my phone i
n complete bafflement. “He… changed his mind?”
Georgia’s forehead creases. “About the car needing work?” Her voice is dripping with enough doubt that someone else would probably find it insulting. It just makes my chest bounce with a laugh, because it’s not like she’s wrong.
“About the cost,” I elaborate, dropping into the desk chair. “He said he’d work on it for a reduced price, so long as I’m cool with leaving it there for a few weeks. And something about finding a junk yard with older parts that are less expensive? I don’t know, but apparently I can afford it now.”
Georgia’s face lights up. “Sugar, that’s awesome! I know you were worried. That must be such a weight off your shoulders.”
She has no idea.
Georgia isn’t like the girls from back home. I barely know her, but she’s such an expressive person—so damn genuine all the time—that it’s hard to dislike her. She wears every emotion right on her sleeve, right down to the disappointment she’d shown when I turned down her offer to lend me the amount of repair costs I couldn’t cover with my own savings. I’ve never known someone willing to lend a stranger a few hundred dollars, no questions asked.
There’s just no way she could possibly understand my financial situation. I’ve ridden in her car, seen the inside of her closet, the rings on her fingers. Her phone is the latest model, as is her laptop and smart watch. It’s not like I begrudge her or anything. I knew what I’d be getting into by coming to a school like Preston, and it’s not as though she can help coming from wealth. But the economic divide here is palpable. Students here probably blow a thousand bucks without a second thought.
But even though she can’t really relate, she isn’t wrong. Feeling a little more weightless, I give the chair an indulgent spin. “At least I don’t have to worry about it right away. I could really use some time to settle in before looking for a job.” I pick up a shoebox and start sifting through my rolls of film, sorting them by importance. Back home, I’d send these off to be developed the next town over, but Preston Prep has its own arts wing, complete with dark rooms and the necessary materials. “I wonder what made him change his mind?”
Georgia gives me that sunny smile, saying, “Maybe he’s just a nice guy,” and it’s all I can do to not bark a laugh in her face. Kindness without strings or motive? Yikes, that’s some sheltered rich kid bullshit.
More diplomatically, I mutter, “I have a hard time believing that, considering the caliber of asshole he has working for him.”
It’s just my luck that the second I’d begun to really relax—to think I was safe—that I run into the one guy who’s ever come close to hurting me as badly as Doug. The worst part is the feeling of terror. The panic. The sense that I can’t protect myself. The powerlessness.
“Asshole?” Georgia frowns at this. “Did something happen?”
I never told Georgia about my first visit to the garage. She just offered to drive me back there, and after walking six miles that morning, I gladly took her up on it. I drop the box of film onto the desk, sighing down at it. “You know, it’s just the most random fucking thing. Last summer I had this run-in with a guy back home. He was vacationing there for the summer, and we were at the same party, and then...” I trail off. Now that I’m saying it aloud, I think it might be too much to dump on a stranger who’s already seen me at a pretty low point. I’m still burning from the humiliation of her seeing the fingertipbruises Doug had left on my neck yesterday. Luckily, she assumed it was a hickey.
But her eyebrows pull in and she asks, “What happened?”
Reluctantly, I explain, “So… this other guy was messing with me—the son to one of my stepfather’s friends—and all of a sudden, this guy jumps in the middle of it, picking a fight with him.” That’s an understatement, but I’m not sure how to describe it. The way he smiled so amicably, showing his teeth, even though his eyes were hard and frightening. The way his whole demeanor seemed to buzz and crackle like a live wire. The curve of his shoulders, twitching and impatient.
He wasn’t just picking a fight.
He was an addict looking for a fix.
I’d know it anywhere. I’ve seen it in Doug a thousand times—that gleam in his eyes that taught me how much control I didn’t have. That I could be good, quiet, as unobtrusive as possible, and that it would never matter. When Doug got that look, he wanted something to hit.
“He pretended like he was jumping in to defend me or something, but it was obvious he just wanted to get into it. Had a real smart-ass mouth on him, too.” I tug at my sleeves, covering my wrist and the tattoo. “Anyway, look. The thing is, I don’t like fights. Shit’s hard enough, you know?” She doesn’t. She can’t possibly know. But she offers a nod anyway. “I just fucking hate them. And this guy—this total bully—stepped in, making an already unbearable situation even worse. So I just…”
“You just what?” I look up and realize all Georgia needs is a bowl of popcorn. She’s into my drama like I’m describing a CW show.
“I jumped in to stop it.” I reach up to touch my jaw, still feeling a phantom twinge. “And the guy fucking decked me. Hard.”
It fractured my jaw, hurt for weeks, and still aches sometimes. But the worst part wasn’t the blow. It was the fear. It was the touch. I’d been shoving all this vicious terror into the back of my chest for years, piling it up, unknowingly molding it into something lawless and beastlike, but I’d done it. I’d kept it contained. Hidden. Confined.
Until that night.
One savage touch from him, and now I can’t even handle something as simple as a handshake without falling apart. That’s the real crime—something Georgia probably couldn’t understand. How could she, when even I don’t?
Georgia shifts to a sitting position, wrapping her arms around a pillow. “Wait. You’re saying this same guy works at the garage?”
I jerk a shoulder in a tense shrug. “Apparently. I walked in, and there he was. It took him a minute to recognize me, but he figured it out.” It didn’t take me long at all. I knew it the second his face emerged from under that car hood. Handsome—pretty, almost. The Devil in sheep’s clothing. He was exactly the same as I remember, buzzing and crackling, wired and unpredictable. I think I probably even knew it was him before I ever saw his face, the way my body reacted, beyond my control. My teeth clench in frustration at the memory. “Fucking asshole.”
“That sounds pretty terrible.” Georgia’s tone is sympathetic but somehow stilted. She looks a shade paler, so I figure maybe she’s not used to hearing about stuff like this. “But, you know, maybe there was something else going on with him. Or maybe he has his own problems that he’s dealing with.”
I gape at her, beginning to suspect that Georgia is painfully naïve and too optimistic for her own good. Must be a nice world she lives in, where people do kind things for the sake of it and bullies just need, like… what? Understanding?
Give me a break.