No Matter What

Easy answer: Trevor Ward.

“I do not hate Trevor,” Molly said aloud. “I am more adult than that.” She thought.

* * *

“TALK TO ME,” HIS father said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

The anger that filled Trevor 24/7 rose like a storm-driven wave ready to crash on the beach. Trevor didn’t know how to handle these violent impulses, this deep hunger to make everyone else hurt as much as he did. He couldn’t have formed all this hostility and sense of betrayal into words even if he’d wanted to, and he didn’t.

“Nothing’s going on.”

His father sighed. “Have you ever been in a fight before last week?”

He shrugged.

Dad had just slapped dinner on the table—a frozen lasagna nuked in the microwave, salad from a bag and presliced garlic bread, also nuked. He hadn’t said a word during the drive home. When they’d walked in the door, he’d said, “Go to your room and don’t come out until dinner,” and continued toward his home office without looking back. Trevor had hesitated, but Dad hadn’t looked or sounded like himself. There wasn’t anyplace he wanted to be, anyway, he’d told himself, and gone upstairs where he threw himself on the bed and discovered he had enough adrenaline still heating up his bloodstream that he wished Aaron Latter was on his feet again and coming at him.

Now Trevor only wanted his father to get the lecture over so he could sneak out and meet Cait. So far, she was the only good thing to come out of moving to this crappy little town. When he was with her, his anger settled. He felt more normal. Horny, but normal. He grinned. Yeah, okay, that was normal.

“You find this funny?” his father asked coldly.

He kept his head down. “I was thinking about something else.”

“I guess the first thing I need to figure out is how to keep your attention, then, isn’t it?”

His first thought was Oh, shit, and his second— Yeah, big scare, what can he do to me anyway?

Dad held out his hand. “Car keys.”

The legs of Trevor’s chair scraped on the floor as he recoiled. “What?”

“You heard me. Your driving privileges are suspended.”

Rage rose in him. Tide coming in. “That car’s a piece of crap, anyway.” He took pleasure in the slight flinch he detected beside his father’s grimly set mouth. Dad had bought the heap of junk before Trevor had even shown up. He’d been proud that he already had a car for his son.

Trevor dug in his jeans pocket, pulled out the keys and tossed them toward his father. He wasn’t real sorry when they landed on Dad’s lasagna.

Without a word, his father picked them up, took the car key off the ring and handed it back to Trevor. “You might want to wash that,” he commented, in the hard voice that didn’t sound like the dad Trevor knew and had thought he loved. Then he calmly wiped his fingers on his napkin and started to eat.

Trevor stared at his meal.

“The cell phone is next,” Dad remarked, as if he was commenting on something that happened at work that morning. “One more call from the school. You understand?”

“I’m not hungry.” Trevor pushed back from the table.

“Understand?”

“Yes! I understand! Are you happy?” He hated the tremor in his voice. The little boy in awe of his daddy. The wriggling, squirming need to piss on the floor because daddy was mad at him.

“Happy?” For a moment their eyes met, the same espresso color. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“May I be excused?” Trevor asked with mocking courtesy.

“Certainly,” his father said. “Check the refrigerator in the morning. Since you’ll be home, anyway, I’ll post a list of chores for you to do.”

Trevor didn’t say a word. He left the dining room and went upstairs. He’d already perfected the art of leaving the house via his bedroom window and swinging down from the arbor that covered the back patio. He and Cait were meeting at ten. Fortunately, he could walk anyplace in this nowhere town.

Tonight he’d get in her pants. She was dragging her feet. She hadn’t done it before, she said. She wasn’t sure she was ready. Furious, he turned on his music loud enough to shake the walls.

Well, screw that. Screw her. He was ready. Past ready. Desperate. He needed something, and she was it.

CHAPTER TWO

MOLLY DIDN’T DARE go so far as forbidding Cait to see Trevor. That was about the dumbest thing any parent could do, she had always believed. But oh, how she wanted to.

He did not appear chastened when he reappeared in school the following Monday. The black eye had already faded to mustard and lavender. All it succeeded in doing was making him look tougher. He seemed not to have shaved that morning, as if making a statement with the dark stubble. Molly noticed, as she noticed most things in her school. That was one of the mornings she greeted students arriving from the parking lot. His eyes met hers briefly, and she had to work to keep herself from taking a step back. The disquieting thing, she realized, was that there was no spark of rage. Instead, if she hadn’t imagined it, he’d smirked. As if he knew something she didn’t.