Believe

Robin

I spent my sophomore year in college partying. I wasn’t even original about it. Just the totally typical pattern of skipping class and going out every single night. If there was a keg party, I went. If there was a shot, I drank it. If there was a guy, I made out with him. I wore short skirts, showed as much cleavage as I could, and I felt sexy and confident while having the time of my life. I threw up in more than one toilet, made out with a taxidermied deer on a dare, and came home without my shoes, dorm key, or phone on a regular basis.

Later, I tried to look back and figure out why I had slid so easily into party girl, but all I could come up with was maybe I just wanted a louder voice, and drinking gave me that. I wanted some attention, I guess, or maybe just to have a good time where there were no rules. Or maybe there was just no reason at all.

It all seemed normal. What you do in college, right? You party. You make superficial friends. You drink. Do stupid things that you laugh about the next day and take pictures that will prevent you from ever being a senator.

It wasn’t anything I felt bad about. I mean, sure, I could have done without some of those hangovers, and I did end up dodging a few guys who wanted to date after I spent a drunken night telling them they were awesome, but nothing to make me feel ashamed.

Until I hooked up with one of my best friend’s boyfriend when she was out of town.

Then I hated myself and the existence of vodka. Because I wasn’t one of those girls. Or I hadn’t been. Never, under any circumstances at all, would I have come even remotely close to doing anything with a friend’s guy sober, so why would I do that? How could alcohol make me cross a boundary so high and thick and barb-wired? I wasn’t even hot for Nathan. I never had been. I mean, he was cute, whatever, but it wasn’t like I nurtured a secret crush or anything.

So how did I end up waking up next to him on his plaid sheets, his arm thrown carelessly over my naked chest? I came awake with a start, head pounding, mouth dry, for a second wondering where the hell I was and who I had had sex with. When I blinked and took in the face above that arm, I thought I was going to throw up. Getting to the apartment, sex, it was completely a black, yawning hole of nothing. I didn’t remember even leaving the party. No idea how Nathan and I had wound up in bed together. All I had were a few flashes that suddenly came back to me of him biting my nipple, hard, so that I had protested, my legs on his shoulders. Nothing else.

As I lay there, heart racing, wondering how the hell I could live with this, with myself, the horror slicing through me like a sharp knife, Nathan woke up.

He gave me a sleepy, cocky smile, punctuated by a yawn. “Hey, Robin.”

“Hey.” I tried to sink down under the sheet, not wanting him to see me naked, not wanting to be naked.

“Well, that was fun,” he said, his lazy smile expanding into a grin. “We should do that again before we get up.”

The thought made my stomach turn. “But Kylie,” I said weakly, because I wanted to remind him that while his girlfriend was back at her parents’ for the summer, she still very much existed. His girlfriend. My best friend.

“I love Kylie, but she’s not here. And we’re not going to tell her.” He shrugged. “I didn’t expect this to happen, but it did and we’re still naked.” He pulled my hand over his erection. “No reason we shouldn’t enjoy it.”

And he leaned over to kiss me. I scooted backward so fast, I fell off the mattress onto my bare ass. “I’m going to puke,” I told him.

“Bummer.”

Grabbing my clothes off the floor, I stumbled into the hallway, hoping his roommate Bill wasn’t around. In the bathroom, I leaned over the sink, trembling, eyes that stared back at me in the mirror shocked, the skin under them bruised. I didn’t get sick. I wished I would. I wished I could vomit out of myself the horrible realization that I had done something terrible, appalling, unforgiveable, mega disgusting.

I couldn’t use vodka as an excuse. And now I knew Nathan was an asshole on top of it all.

Without asking him if I could use the shower, I turned on the water and stepped in, wanting to wash away the night, the dirty, nasty smell of skank sex off of my skin. I felt like a slut, like a bitch, like someone I didn’t even know, and my tears mixed with the steady stream of water from the shower as I scrubbed and scrubbed.

I spent the rest of the summer sober, far away from parties, guilt nibbling at my insides, making me chronically nauseous, and I avoided everyone. I begged Nathan to stop when he kept sending me sexy texts, and I ignored my friend Jessica, who had stayed in town for the summer and who kept asking what was wrong.

By August I was consumed by anxiety and the fear that someone knew, that someone would tell, that I would be responsible for Kylie having her heart broken.

I slept whole days away and I couldn’t eat. I thought about getting meds from the doctor for sleeping or for anxiety or for depression or for alcoholism or for sluttiness. But what was done was done, and a pill wasn’t going to fix it. Or me.

When Jessica called and said Nathan’s friend Tyler was picking me up whether I liked it or not and we were going to hang out, I tried to say no. But then I decided that I liked to be with myself even less than I liked to be with other people.

Besides, once Kylie got back in a week, I wasn’t going to be able to be friends with any of them anymore, and this might be my last chance to spend time hanging out. I couldn’t be in the same room with Kylie and pretend that I hadn’t betrayed our friendship in the worst way possible. I wasn’t going to be able to sit there and have her and Nathan kissing on each other, knowing that he had spent all summer trying to hook up with me again.

I was going to have to find a new place to live, and disappear from our group of friends.

If only it had been that simple.

If only I had walked away right then and there.

Then I never would have met Phoenix and my life would never have changed in ways I still don’t understand.

***

Tyler was a good person to catch a ride from, because he didn’t need to talk. He just drove and smoked, and I stared out the window, my art supplies in my lap. I had promised to paint a pop art portrait of Tyler’s little brother Easton, and I had to do it tonight because I might never see him again if I had the guts to follow through with my plan to move out of the apartment. I hadn’t painted all summer. I wasn’t inspired. And I didn’t want to now, but I had promised I would back before the morning after with Nathan.

So since I couldn’t explain any of that, I stayed mostly silent. I did say, “Rory gets back tomorrow.”

It was a stupid comment. Of course he knew his girlfriend was coming back to school. But I wanted to make some sort of effort. It was hot, even for August, and the windows were open, air rushing in and swirling his smoke around in front of me.

“Yep. I missed her. A lot.”

I didn’t doubt he had. And I didn’t think for one minute he would have betrayed her the way Nathan had Kylie. Even if he wasn’t living with his brother and Jessica, who were also dating. Tyler just wasn’t that kind of guy. Both Riley and Tyler were loyal, and I wondered why I always seemed to attract the wrong kind of guy. The liars, the cheaters. My boyfriend freshman year had been a douche, flirting with other girls in front of me, laughing it off when I complained. My high school boyfriend had told me he wanted a girl who had her life together, who had goals. What kind of goals was I supposed to have at seventeen? At that point I already knew I was going to college to study graphic design, wasn’t that good enough? So apparently his way to fix my deficiency was to hook up with his ex at a party and humiliate me.

It was hard to believe that someday there would be a guy in my life who would love me the way my friends’ guys loved them.

Of course, I was never going to find that guy at a keg party. Another reason I had stopped going to the frat house all-nighters. I didn’t have the stomach for the so-called living-in-the-moment fun since I had woken up next to Nathan. So maybe I didn’t have my life all mapped out, but I knew that I was done with the superficial crap. I knew that I had crossed a line I never wanted to cross again and if that meant giving up alcohol forever, then that’s what I was going to do because I had gone from being cheated on to the cheater, and I could barely live with myself.

And if I couldn’t live with myself, what guy would want to?

When we went in Tyler’s house, there was someone sleeping on the couch. I couldn’t see his face since he was turned away from the room on his side, but he had black hair and a serious lack of a tan. “Who is that?” I asked Tyler.

“My cousin, Phoenix. He’s crashing here for a while.” Tyler kept walking past him to the kitchen. “Do you want a beer?”

“No, thanks.” I hadn’t had a drink in ten weeks and I didn’t even miss it.

Jessica was in the kitchen, heating up food in the microwave. It was weird to me that she lived there with her boyfriend and his three younger brothers. I had never been to her parents’ house, but I knew she had grown up with a lot of money, and this was no spacious colonial in the suburbs. The house was small and dark and hot and run-down, but truthfully she seemed the happiest she’d been since I’d met her. Riley came in from the patio and kissed the back of her head, looking at her like he thought she was the most beautiful creature the world had ever created.

“Want some?” she asked me, dishing up rice and vegetables onto four plates.

“I’m good.”

She switched out plates in the microwave and said, “Then let’s go in the other room. I want to talk to you alone.” She touched Riley’s elbow. “Can you put these in for the boys?”

“Got it.”

I followed her back into the living room, and she sat on the floor by the coffee table. “Sit. I want to talk to you about what the hell is going on.”

I did want to tell her. I wanted to get the awful truth out and ask her what I was supposed to do about Nathan. But I couldn’t. All I could tell her was a small portion of the truth. I looked nervously at the sleeping cousin. “He can hear us. I feel weird talking in front of him.”

“He’s totally out. He just got out after five months in jail and he’s been sleeping for two days.”

“Jail?” I whispered, a little horrified. “For what?” How could she say that so casually, like it was no big deal?

She scooped rice into her mouth. “Fuck me, that is so good.” She closed her eyes and chewed. “I’m going to have to step up the workouts, but I think carbs are worth it.”

I didn’t say anything, sitting down on the floor next to her, drawing my knees up to my chest. I was wearing a sloppy T-shirt, and I dragged it over my bare knees, making a tent, cocooning myself.

“Okay, so what is going on? Seriously. You won’t drink, you won’t go out. You’ve lost weight. You don’t answer my texts. You’re even dressing differently. I’m totally worried about you.”

I was worried about me, too. I couldn’t seem to drag myself out of the anxiety that had been following me around. “I’m moving out of the house as soon as I find a new place to live.”

“What? Why the hell would you do that?”

Tears came to my eyes before I could stop them. “I just have to. I need to stop drinking.”

“But, it’s not like Rory is a big drinker. And I’m sure Kylie would respect it if you said you wanted to chill with the alcohol.” She looked hurt. “We would never pressure you to party, God, that’s so not us.”

“I know.” It made me feel even worse. “It’s just I feel like I need to be alone for a while. I was even thinking about moving home and being a commuter. It’s not that far to my parents’, only like a forty-five-minute drive to class.”

“You would seriously want to move home? That just blows my mind.” Jessica stared hard at me, tucking her blond hair behind her ear. “Besides, this is going to leave Rory and Kylie with a whole house to pay for since we’ve both bailed on them. I feel really bad about doing that.”

So did I. But I felt worse about screwing Kylie’s boyfriend. What would I do when Nathan came over to hang out? I couldn’t play it cool, like nothing had happened. I wasn’t drawn that way. “Didn’t Tyler say he wouldn’t mind moving in with Rory?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if he can actually afford it.” Jessica frowned, picking up her fork. “I guess I can ask him. I guess maybe Nathan could move in there, too, with Kylie. Bill is moving into the engineering frat house.”

I dropped my knees, alarmed. That was not what I wanted to happen. I didn’t want Kylie to become even more dependent and more in love with Nathan.

“This is so weird,” she said. “This is totally not what we planned. It’s like complete roommate shuffle. What happened?”

Rory fell in love with Tyler. Jessica fell in love with Riley. I blacked out and had sex with Nathan.

Not exactly the same happy ending for me. I wanted to tell her so desperately I swallowed hard and clamped my mouth shut. Telling her would only mean she would have to keep a secret from Kylie. From Riley, too. Telling Kylie would only hurt her to appease my guilt.

I couldn’t do it.

Shrugging, I said, “Things change.”

“Robin.”

“What?”

“If you got attacked or something, you would tell me, right? You know you can tell me.” She reached out and touched my arm, expression filled with concern.

And it went from bad to worse. Now she thought I was a victim. I nodded. “I would tell you. It’s nothing like that, I swear.”

“Because it seems like you started acting strange after the party at the Shit Shack. Something is obviously wrong. So if that Aaron guy did something to you, tell me.”

“No, he didn’t.” I shook my head emphatically. Aaron had just been a guy I had danced with, flirted with, kissed. Before he ditched me and somehow I ended up going home with Nathan.

“Did something freaky happen? Did you do something you regret, like anal?”

Not that I was aware of. I couldn’t prevent a shudder. “No. No anal.” Though I did do something I regretted, more than anything else I’d ever done. The person who said that life was too short for regrets clearly had never done something super shitty.

“Jessica!” Jayden called her name from the kitchen. “Can you come here?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there, buddy.” She set down her fork. “Be right back.”

Jayden was eighteen, but he had Down syndrome, and I knew that Rory and Jessica both cut him a lot of slack. If he asked for attention, they gave it to him, and I was totally grateful for the interruption. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could lie to direct questions.

As Jessica went into the kitchen, the guy on the couch suddenly coughed. I turned and saw dark eyes staring at me. He had rolled onto his back and was sitting up on the arm roll, his hair sticking up in front. My palms got clammy, and I stared back, horrified.

Not only was he completely and totally hot, he had obviously been awake for more than thirty seconds. He looked way too alert to have just opened his eyes.

“Uh, hi. I’m Robin,” I said, my hands starting to shake. What had we said? Nothing incriminating, I didn’t think. I hadn’t admitted anything. Though I had said “anal” out loud and that was awkward enough. All those nasty jokes about prison popped into my head and my cheeks burned.

His expression was inscrutable, but he nodded. “Phoenix.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, because that’s what you say even if there was zero truth to it. It wasn’t nice to meet him. He was a criminal and I was a lying cheat, and I was way too preoccupied with my own self-hatred to have anything interesting to say to him.

“Yeah. Sure.” He sounded about as enthusiastic as I felt.

Agitated, I sat down on the coffee table next to the couch, wiping my hands on my denim shorts. “Sorry if we woke you up.”

He shrugged. “No big deal.”

I wasn’t sure what to say after that. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and like his cousins, he had tattoos covering his chest and arms. The one that caught my attention was the bleeding heart. It looked severed in two, the blood draining down his flesh toward his abdomen. It was beautiful and creepy and bold. Was it a metaphor? It seemed a little poetic for the average guy, but something about his steady stare suggested he was no ordinary guy. His dark hair stuck up then fell over one eye, so it felt like he had an extra advantage, that he could watch me from behind that cascade of hair.

Jessica hadn’t told me why he had been in jail, and I decided I really didn’t want to know. Phoenix was trouble and trouble was exactly what I was trying to avoid.

“I’m not a big fan of anal either,” he said.

Giving or receiving? I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me. He didn’t seem to be trying to lighten the mood with a joke for my benefit since he still looked stone-faced. It made me super uncomfortable.

“We thought you were asleep.”

“What difference does it make? You didn’t confess to a crime.”

Thank God. “I don’t like just anyone hearing my personal business. You don’t even know me.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” He threw back the blanket that had been covering him below the waist and he stood up. He was in his underwear, black boxer briefs that clung to his thighs. “Robin.” He added my name at the end like it was an accusation.

His body was lean and wiry, yet muscular. He looked like he worked out constantly but had been born with a raging high metabolism, so he would never be bulky. Every muscle was obvious, the V of his hips so defined it made my mouth thick with saliva in a totally inappropriate way for the situation. He bent over and picked up a pair of shorts off the floor, stepping into them and drawing them up. But he left them partially unzipped and the belt clanked against his thighs as he moved out of the living room and down the hall into the bathroom without another word to me.

I watched him, unnerved. There was something hard about him, mysterious. His name suited him, unusual and intriguing. Annoyed with myself, I went into the kitchen, where Jessica was clearly laying out the situation for Tyler.

“So what are we going to do? Kylie and I were supposed to share, and Rory and Robin each had their own room, but now there’s an empty room completely.”

“Can you guys just break the lease?” Riley asked. “I mean, what difference does it make? Everyone can move out.”

“My dad and Rory’s dad are the ones who signed the lease. I don’t think either one of us needs to piss our dads off any more.”

Riley frowned. “No. That’s no good.” He looked at me. “I guess you should find a replacement, since you’re the one moving out.”

Hovering in the doorway, I crossed my arms over my chest, miserable. “I’ll just move home and I’ll pay my portion of the rent. I can cover it with my paychecks from waitressing.”

I was trying to be fair. To not stick them with either a bigger rent or with a roommate they didn’t know and may not get along with, but Jessica’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Wait a minute. So you’d rather live at home with your parents who are like sixty years old, and your ancient, evil-eye-giving grandmother, while paying rent on a place you don’t live in, than room with Kylie and Rory? Okay, I call bullshit. What the fuck is going on?”

When she put it like that, it did sound insane. “Nothing is going on. I just need time to . . . reevaluate.”

But Jessica was tenacious. “There is something going on and you need to tell me what it is.”

Phoenix strolled into the kitchen, scratching his chest, and went to the fridge. “I think if she wanted to tell you she would have already,” he commented.

That about summed it up.

“And who asked you?” Jessica said, whirling to glare at him as she yanked Jayden’s empty plate out from in front of him and started scrubbing it aggressively in the sink.

“Just an observation.”

“Well, mind your own business.”

“I think Robin would probably say the same to you.”

They stared at each other, and I felt the tension between them. Phoenix being in the house obviously upset the balance of Jessica being house princess. She was a strong personality, and she enjoyed being the only girl in the house, the one in charge. Somehow Phoenix was challenging her, and it was obvious to Riley, too. He held up his hand.

“Alright, chill out. Both of you.”

“Please don’t fight because of me,” I pleaded, feeling even more horrible with each passing second. “Just please don’t.” And to my horror, I started crying, tears welling up and rushing out of both eyes silently.

Everyone looked at me in shock, and no one seemed to have a clue what to say. I wasn’t known for being particularly emotional. Fortunately, Easton intervened. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to draw me?” He tapped the canvas Tyler had propped on the floor next to the table. “When are you doing that?”

“Now,” I said, taking an empty seat next to him and wiping my face, concentrating on drawing my breath in and out, slowly, evenly. “I just need some space.”

That was definitely a metaphor.

Jessica went into the other room, clearly agitated, and Riley followed her, murmuring in a low voice. Tyler encouraged Jayden to go outside and shoot hoops with him. It left me at the table, methodically squeezing my oils into my paint tray, Easton across from me, bouncing up and down on his chair, and Phoenix leaning on the counter eating rice straight out of the container.

He was watching us, but I ignored him. Yellow, pink, blue. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. If I just focused on one thing at a time, I could function.

And it actually felt good to have my brush in my hand, the smell of the acrylics familiar and soothing. I felt calmer.

There was a knock at the back door, and Easton jumped. “Who is that?”

“It’s probably my girlfriend,” Phoenix said. “Or my ex-girlfriend, if this conversation doesn’t go well. She’s supposed to come over.”

So of course the gorgeous bad boy had a girlfriend, despite his incarceration.

Phoenix opened the back door, and I have to admit, I tried to pretend I was busy working, paintbrush in my hand as I used a bold magenta to do the outline of Easton’s head. But I snuck a glance up at the girl who walked into the kitchen and I tried not to be judgmental. She looked hard. Older than she probably was. Bad dye job, turning naturally brown hair bleach blond, drying out the texture. Lots of eyeliner. Bad skin. Her jeans were too tight in the waist and too big in the butt. Not the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen but maybe she was super sweet. And who was I to judge?

“Hey,” she said, and tried to kiss Phoenix.

He shifted out of the way and rejected her effort. “Why didn’t you come see me when I was locked up?” he demanded with no other greeting. “Not once. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, Angel.”

Oh, God, seriously? Her name was Angel? I threw up a little in my mouth. I couldn’t think of a name less suited to a girl who looked like she could beat the shit out of me if I looked at her wrong. Carefully, I set down my paintbrush and pushed back my chair. Clearly this was a private conversation, and I had enough drama of my own. I didn’t want to be involved in someone else’s.

“Who are you?” she asked angrily, shooting me a glare as the noisy scraping sound of the chair made her aware of my presence.

“I’m just going in the other room,” I said carefully, not wanting to go a round with her. I had no doubt I would lose, especially in my current emotional state. Easton obviously felt the same way. He bolted into the living room without a word.

“Good,” Angel said, playing with the ring in her nose.

“She doesn’t have to leave,” Phoenix said, gesturing for me to stay. “This is only going to take a minute. So what did you want to tell me, Angel?” He crossed his arms and leaned on the kitchen counter.

I stood up anyway, despite his words.

“I’m pregnant.”

I couldn’t prevent a gasp from leaving my mouth. Yeah, I should have left the room. But Phoenix didn’t react at all. His face never revealed any surprise, and the only movement he made was to flick his eyes over her flat stomach.

“You don’t look six months pregnant to me.”

“I’m not. I’m only two.”

He’d been in prison more than five months. Jessica had said that. I knew that. What I didn’t know was why I cared one way or the other about it being his baby, but I felt horrified for him that he’d been cheated on, and a little bit of relief that he wasn’t the father.

“Then I don’t need to know that.” Phoenix went and opened the door. “Bye, Angel.”

“Don’t you even want to know what happened?” She looked disappointed. “Who the father is?”

“No. All I wanted was to know for sure that we’re broken up, and we clearly are, so good luck. Lose my number.”

“You’re an asshole,” she said.

I wasn’t sure how he qualified as the jerk in this situation, but I kept my eyes on the canvas as she stomped out the back door, and he slammed it loudly behind her.

“Well, now I guess we’re even,” he said.

I glanced up, curious to see if he was going to rage or look upset. But he didn’t. He looked . . . neutral. “Even how?” I asked.

“Now we both know each other’s personal business.”

I finished my brushstroke. “True. And I’m going to stay out of it, like you did with me.” I just wanted to paint, to lose myself in the wet sound of sliding paint.

He came over and looked down at my canvas. “You don’t need Easton here to paint? You’re doing it from memory?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

He watched me for a minute, and I didn’t actually mind. I didn’t need quiet or solitude to paint pop art, and it felt good to lose myself in the narrow focus of creating lines on canvas. But while I wanted to respect his privacy, I also knew that it had to have hurt him that his girlfriend hasn’t visited him in prison, that she had cheated on him. I also felt guilty that I was a cheater, that if it ever came out, I would be the one causing pain. I hated that.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, glancing up, hoping he would understand.

“For what?”

I didn’t want to be specific. I didn’t think he would appreciate that. “For what I heard. For what you heard.”

“That you heard it? Or because it happened?”

“Both. But mostly that it happened. It hurts, I know. And I’m sorry.”

Phoenix shrugged. “I’ll live. I’ve survived worse.”

I wanted to say that she wasn’t good enough for him anyway, that she was a liar and a cheat and a shitty girlfriend who didn’t deserve him, but did I really know that? And if I was no better than her, did I have any right to say anything?

“Sometimes we do stupid things.” Very stupid things. Sometimes we needed forgiveness.

“Yeah. Some of us more than others.” Phoenix pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. “I’ve never painted before. I sketch. It must be hard to get the subtlety of the lines and the shading in paint.”

“You sketch?” I asked, amazed, then not sure why.

He nodded. “And I do tattoos. I guess the difference is with oil paint you layer on top, right? With a tattoo you do a little, but mostly it’s about precision and shading.”

“Do you have pictures of your work?” I asked, curious to see it. The idea of tattooing someone with a needle scared me. There was no retracting a mistake.

Sort of like life.

“Nah. But I did the original design for my cousins’ arm tat, the one they all have, and I did Tyler’s dragon on his leg.”

“Cool. That dragon is beautiful.”

“Thanks.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “We’re a fucked-up family, you know. We haven’t always gotten along, depending on whose mom was hooking the other on what drugs.”

“Why aren’t you living with your mom?” I finished the outline of Easton and started shading in his strong features. Even in the brilliance of yellow and magenta, I wanted to capture the deep sensitivity of his eyes.

“I don’t know where she is. She didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

So not only had his girlfriend cheated on him when he was in jail, his mom disappeared and neglected to tell him? I wasn’t sure I could be so casual about it. In fact, I knew I couldn’t. My parents were all about family. They loved me and my older brothers in a way that was almost smothering, and I was grateful for it. “Oh my God, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “She’ll turn up eventually. But Riley and Tyler are being cool and letting me stay here.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. “Family seems important to them.”

Those fingers increased their rhythm, but the rest of him stayed completely still. The only movement seemed to come from those anxious fingers and the intensity of his stare as his eyes raked both over me and the canvas. I was never still. My mom had always commented on that. I fidgeted and shifted and couldn’t stay in a chair longer than ten minutes without creating a reason to get up for a task before sitting down again. I struggled to sit through movies and I hopped up and down off bar stools, going out on the dance floor and outside to smoke cigarettes, which I didn’t even like. Even now I was bouncing my knee up and down rapidly and chewing hard on a piece of gum. His immobility fascinated me.

Which may explain why I said, “Do you want to paint? I have another canvas and brush.”

Again, there was no reaction. I wondered what it would take to draw emotion out of him. “Nah, I don’t want to waste your supplies.”

“It’s a cheap canvas. It was only five bucks.”

But he just shook his head. Then a second later he asked me, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“What?” I almost dropped my paintbrush. “No. Why?”

His phone slid across the table toward me. “Then give me your number.”

“Why?” I said again, which was a totally moronic thing to say. But I didn’t get any vibe he even liked me, let alone was interested in me.

For the first time, I saw the glimmer of a smile on his face. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly before he controlled it again. “Why do you think?”

For a split second, I felt like myself, and I said the first thing that popped into my head. “So you can send me honey badger videos?” I joked, because it seemed like a safer response. He was just out of prison, and he had just broken up with his girlfriend ten minutes earlier. So not a good idea to get involved with him. I wasn’t up for dating anyone, let alone him.

“Yes. And kitten memes.”

“Well, in that case.” I took his phone because I wasn’t exactly sure how to say no. It seemed super rude, and I doubted he was actually going to ask me out. He would probably send me a typical guy text of “hi” or “what’s up?” and I could say “hi” back or “nothing” and we’d be done with it. Guys put no effort at all into communication or pursuing a girl. If you didn’t go into a huge, long text of explanation of what you were doing and dug deep into their text to get an adequate response back, the conversation just died. A big old waste of time, that’s what most texting with guys was.

So I typed my number into his phone with my name. It was an old smartphone, with a cracked screen, like he had dropped it on the pavement. I set it back on the table.

Tyler came back into the kitchen and looked over my shoulder at my work. “Hey, that’s cool so far. You got Easton’s nose just right.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Phoenix palm his phone and put it back into his pocket, tossing back his hair. Then he just stood up and left.

My phone buzzed in my own pocket as Tyler went to the fridge and started rummaging around. I pulled it out and saw it was a text from a number I didn’t recognize. When I opened it, there was a honey badger video. At your request was the message.

I smiled for the first time in what felt like weeks.

Way better than writing “hi.”

Phoenix

When I was in third grade, I realized two things: That the doctors thought something was wrong with me, and that my mother loved drugs more than she loved me.

Because while the doctors kept asking me questions and taking scans of my brain and giving my mother prescriptions for me to take, I never swallowed a single one of those pills. She would take me to the pharmacy, collect the pills, then sell them to a guy behind the gas station who smelled like my grandmother’s basement. Then she would use that money to buy little plastic bags from a different guy, the one I thought looked like a Ninja Turtle because he always wore a bandana around his forehead. Then those bags would open and the needle would come out and she would lie on the couch for hours and hours, scratching her arm and drooling, eyes unfocused.

When she was like that, I could do whatever I wanted, and I didn’t really mind that she was checked out, not exactly. I could watch TV and drink chocolate syrup out of the bottle and go play down the street until way after dark and she wouldn’t notice any of it and there was a cool sense of freedom.

But I didn’t like it when she would forget to buy groceries or make me lie to the doctors and say that even though I took all the pills the way I was supposed to, I still felt angry, I still couldn’t concentrate. Because it wasn’t true. I hadn’t taken those pills, and I didn’t feel angry.

It wasn’t until later that I figured out that my meds had a black market value as appetite suppressants and she could exchange them for heroin.

At eight, I just knew there was something wrong with both of us because I was supposed to have the drugs but she was one who couldn’t go a day without them.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised that she had disappeared during my stint in jail, but I was. I kept waiting for the day when she actually gave a shit about me, and she kept proving over and over that she didn’t.

It wouldn’t have mattered so much except that all my stuff was at her apartment, and the landlord had cleaned it out when she ditched on the rent. There was no question in my mind that she hadn’t bothered to pack up my clothes and the miscellaneous crap from twenty years to take with her. An old yearbook, the only one I’d ever had the money to buy, with the inscription from Heather Newcomb of “Stay Sweet, Phoenix,” which I had thumbed my finger over a thousand times, wondering what it meant. A Little League trophy for Best Pitcher. A watch my grandmother gave me. Nothing of value. Stupid stuff, but mine. All I had. Gone.

Wearing nothing but a pair of shorts I had borrowed from Tyler, I texted the girl painting in the kitchen, Robin. I shouldn’t, I knew that. She was way out of my league, I knew that, too. Girls like her didn’t look twice at guys who didn’t even own the shirt on their back. Or, in my case, the shorts on my ass. But for whatever reason—good manners would be my guess—she had given me her number and I was going to use it, because I needed a distraction. Someone to talk to about nothing.

I thought maybe she did, too. There was something . . . bruised about the way she looked. She kept her head down when talking to Jessica and held her arms across her chest a lot. Jessica, who was fucking bossy in my opinion, kept poking at her, and Robin didn’t protest, but she didn’t answer either. Not really.

There was something about the way she had sat in the living room while she thought I was asleep and hugged her knees to herself, stretching out her shirt to cover them, that made me feel just a little bit sorry for her. I’m a sucker for a sad girl, I can’t help it. It’s fucked-up, but it is what it is. Maybe because for once I feel like I actually have something to offer. Understanding, at least. There’s a difference between sad and depressed, though, and even I know not to go there with a chick who is clinical, but I knew Robin wasn’t because of the way her face changed when she started painting.

It was like her shoulders dropped and her forehead smoothed out. She was content with that brush in her hand or at least not miserable. Pretty, too. She had a tiny nose and cherry red lips and dark hair that spilled over her shoulders and made me want to bury my face in it.

So I got her number and then she left the house and I texted her and she answered me twice and then nothing. That was that.

College Girl wasn’t going to play with me, and hell, who could blame her? It had been an impulsive long shot. Disappointing, but I was used to that feeling.

Shoving the phone back in my pocket, I went into the kitchen to see if I could borrow Riley’s car. I needed to see about getting a job, as fun as that sounded. When I came into the room, conversation between Jessica and Riley came to a stop, making it pretty freakin’ obvious they were talking about me. I didn’t quite understand the new dynamics in my cousins’ house. When I had gone into jail, my aunt Dawn had still been alive, and everyone here walked on eggshells around her. Now she was dead, and Riley’s girlfriend was in the house, and she was possessive and territorial, it seemed. She had done some home improvement shit like pulling up the nasty carpet and putting cookies in the cookie jar and washing dishes.

Weird. That’s what it was. Disorienting. I think maybe she was what you call maternal, but I had such little experience with the concept I couldn’t exactly be sure. All I know is that she was a bitch to me and I wasn’t so crazy about her myself.

“What’s up?” I asked, casual. Friendly. I could kiss ass and be nice. No one had to let me stay there, and Riley and Tyler were being cool about it, so I had to watch what I said. Besides, they were the only family I had, and I didn’t want to lose them.

“You know that Riley just got custody of Easton, right?” Jessica asked, twirling her blond hair around one finger and looking nervous.

I nodded. I had been glad to hear it. The system would chew that kid up and spit him out. I knew Riley had worked hard to get custody and that his girlfriend, even though she and I rubbed each other the wrong way, clearly wanted the best for Easton and Jayden, too. I’d seen the family photos she’d hung in the hallway, like families who weren’t fucked-up did, and I personally appreciated her no smoking in the house rule.

“Well, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that a social worker could drop by at any time unannounced. And Tyler is already living here when he really shouldn’t be.”

That was all she said, clearly waiting for me to volunteer the conclusion.

So I did. No sense in beating around the bush. “So having two convicted felons in the house is maybe one too many?”

She nodded, biting her lip.

Riley looked pained. “Look, bro, you know you can stay here until you get a job and a place, but you probably can’t stay here forever, that’s all we’re saying. I can’t lose custody of Easton, not now.”

“I understand.” I did. I also understood that Easton was lucky, despite his shithole parents. He had his brothers.

Their bond was a steel cable. Mine with them was more like cooked spaghetti. We were family. They cared. They would help. But the loyalty wasn’t the same, and I was jealous of that, I admit it. I felt alone.

My mom had figured out birth control after me, unlike my aunt. My mom made a point of telling me that once was enough for her and she wasn’t taking any chances of making that mistake twice, unlike Aunt Dawn, who got drunk and forgot condoms existed.

So it was just me.

“I’m going to see about getting a job today, actually. Can I borrow your car for an hour?” I didn’t have anywhere to go. No friends I trusted enough to crash with. But I could always go to the shelter if I had to. I didn’t want to be responsible for Easton ending up in foster care. He was a cool kid. In fact, he kind of reminded me of myself at that age. And hey, I was a cool kid, right? Quiet, weird, prone to random outbursts, but whatever. I was comfortable in my own skin now, which was good, because it was about all I owned.