Shift

22

I’m drunk on Ha

I trust her. I give her my entire heart, completely. I never thought I would find anyone who wanted it as wholly and completely as she does.

Ha

Just Ha

I can’t stop smiling, and I don’t even feel the itch to speed down the dark, empty highway as I head home. I’ll sleep in my car tonight, happily, and I’ll find a way to make things right with her parents, to show them I’m worth their daughter’s love and attention. I’ll be her advocate, her pillar—her motherfucking hero.

By the time I pull off the main highway and onto the hidden side road that leads to my trailer, my body is teeming with energy and my heart beats with a will to fight for this. As much as I love the thrill of racing, that’s how it is with Ha

I love her.

I love her, I love her, I love her.

“I love you,” I practice saying out loud, laughing at the ridiculous way I must look and sound. God, if anyone were able to see or hear me now, they’d see a young man so absolutely whipped and owned.

I’m dizzy with her memory, the smell of her—of us and what we did—still clinging to my body. It drives me wild, fills my head with dirty thoughts and my own mental slideshow of how she looked shirtless and lying on top of Tommy’s car, how her legs parted in my lap, how her voice broke with pleasure in my ear.

The fantasy takes over so much of my mind that I don’t register what I’m looking at for the first several minutes I sit, engine off, in the gravel driveway of my parents’ trailer. The front door is askew, the top hinges ripped away from the frame, a direct line of sight to the inside of my family’s home staring me in the face.

I blink.

My pulse picks up, the drumming in my chest so hard its reverb takes over my muscle control. I snap out of my daze enough to check my mirrors and sink down in my seat, aware that anyone could be outside watching, waiting for me—for Colt. This is extreme damage, even for him. He’s not strong enough to cause destruction like this on his own, even in a fit of rage. The porch light is smashed, which makes the stream of light slipping through the open gaps in the doorway that much brighter. It’s a yellow-tone, probably my mom’s lamp.

My mom.

My eyes scan to the right, to Colt’s truck, his windshield blown out, an ax left on the hood, the point dug in to the center where someone stopped digging a ragged valley through the metal.

“Shit,” I mutter, crouching lower in my car, so low I can barely see above the dashboard. I’m legitimately scared. Beads of sweat tickle my forehead and my mouth continuously waters with the need to vomit. I reach to the passenger side, flipping open the box and praying to find a knife inside. There was one there for a while, a weapon I stole from dear old Dad. I never gave it back to him, but I was fairly sure he took it back himself. I never had plans to use it. It mostly gave me comfort when I slept in the car at night. And I figured it was better in my hands than Colt’s. I stare at the insurance papers and registration in my glove box, no knife in sight, and my stomach rolls with an ominous sense of dread.

There’s nothing I need here. Ha

The police.

How does something like this happen without someone hearing? The answer is simple—it doesn’t. Which means . . .

I flip in my seat and peer out my back window in time to catch the glow of red and yellow streaming toward me. I’m going to throw up for real.

I kick open my door and puke the second my head clears the floormats. The Judges’ family di

Stumbling my way out of my car, I spit on the ground a few times to rid myself of the taste. I get on my knees and hold my hands above my head as the beams of headlights illuminate my face, my body, blinding me before my face is smashed to the ground. I’ve been around Colt enough times to know the best way to survive these situations, and I do as I was taught. I remain silent, minus the obedient “yes, sirs” I repeat every time someone gives me an order.

I crawl to a stand when they command.

I pull my hands together behind my back when they insist on cuffing me.

When a heavy palm pushes down on my head, I duck as I’m shoved into the back seat of a squad car.

I’m alone, locked behind bulletproof glass and metal, cuffed between two doors that only open from the outside, and though it’s hot as fuck in this thing, my breathing normalizes for the first time since I drove up to my parents’ home. Somehow, I just know: I’m safer in here, locked away from him.

Minutes pass before it happens, but the moment they drag Colt from the trailer, his face bloodied and body bruised, his eyes find me. His mouth is crimson red, but he smiles through it, his teeth glowing beneath his snarl, like a rabid dog ready to tear into meat. He lurches at me, and though he’s under the tight grip of two very large sheriff’s deputies, I flinch. Even behind my protective shield and under the guard of what I count to be a dozen armed officers. He’s still able to terrorize me, and I hate him so much for it.

My thoughts go to my mom next, and despite my many vows to disown her, my heart still tears in two at the unknown and the many scenarios playing out in my mind. Two officers climb into my squad car, and I try to make sense of everything they’re saying.

“We’re securing the scene. Bring in ATF,” the one in the driver’s seat says.

“What’s happening?” I call out, scooting myself forward as close as I can get to the glass. The officer on the passenger side pounds her fist against the glass, never looking back at me.

The canine handler opens my car door wide and the dog circles one side while another officer with a bright flashlight pulls apart the interior of my passenger door.

“Hey! No! I don’t live here. Or I do, but I just pulled up—”

Her fist crashes against the glass again, and this time when I turn she glares at me.

“Shut the fuck up,” she says.

The familiar heat brews in my chest. Of everyone here tonight, I’m only afraid of one person—Colt. And he’s locked away in a car like mine on the other side of the street.

“I’m just their fucking kid! I’ve got nothing to do with this!” I shout.

She doesn’t blink, simply continues to stare at me, sizing me up, sorting out my words to see which are lies and which are truths.

The car moves and my panic returns. I haven’t seen my mom yet. I twist, jerking my head to see the scene we’re leaving.

“Is my mom okay? Is she inside? Where’s my mom? Mom! Mom!” Sometime in the middle of my terror-strewn pleas, I realize my face is soaked with my own tears.

As the miles tread on, I give up asking for answers. My crying stops too. And in the depth of my conscience, I come to terms with the fact that the two thousand dollars I took from that stack of bills in my closet is at the root of everything that just happened. If my mom is dead, it’s not because she overdosed. It’s because I traded her in for new tires. How the fuck am I supposed to live with that?