Falling to Pieces (5 page)

“Yeah.”

“Nothing else?” He took a step closer and I retreated until my back came against the side of the car.

“No. No, Doug, nothing else.”

“Then what the hell is his problem?”

“I-
I don’t know. I’ll talk to him. Tell him to back off.” I’d never been more grateful for an armload of books, watching Doug grind his teeth as he studied my face through narrowed, accusing eyes.

“Don’t bother.
You’re good for one thing, Jade, and that’s doing what you’re told. Stay the hell away from Kiernan Parks. Now, get out of the way, I’m running late.” Skirting away from the driver’s side door, I reached for the back handle to deposit my books, but Doug’s firm grip on my wrist brought me up short. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Putting my books in the back, the way you like.”

“Not today. You need to walk home.”

Walk?
“But you said you’d give me a ride.”

“That was before I knew about the party, now wasn’t it? I have to get home and change. I don’t have time to chauffer your lazy ass around.”

I sucked in a pained breath and tucked my chin to my chest. He was right, of course. Doug was a busy guy. He had plans, people waiting for him. I was being greedy and
lazy
expecting him to put all of that aside to cater to me

“Sorry. Have fun at the party.” I doubt he even heard my words seeing as he was already behind the wheel and pulling out of the parking spot.

***

The Weather Channel existed for a reason. At least, that’s what I kept reminding myself as I trudged along the side of the road. Not a mile from school, the skies had opened up and decided to dump all over me. The ‘me’ that decided today was a good day not to bring an umbrella, a jacket, or so much as a hood
to school. It wasn’t just some puny drizzle, either. Oh no. In my life when it rained, it
poured.
And pour it did. In a matter of seconds, my clothes were clinging sloppily to my body and my hair kept sticking to my cheeks no matter how many times I peeled it away.

Cloud lightening, typical of fall in the northeast, lit up the sky ahead. The pounding rain and cracks of thunder were so loud that I didn’t even hear the rumbling coming from the road until Kiernan pulled up beside me.

“You’re walking,” he called over the combined roar of his bike and sounds of the storm.

“You’re observant,” I shot back, not entirely sure if it was embarrassment at what he
’d witnessed back at school, or anger that he interfered fueling my flippant attitude.

“Where’s your ride?”

“He had better things to do.” I was wet, cold, tired, and one-hundred percent
not
in the mood to deal with this.

“Get on.”

The last thing I needed was for Kiernan Parks to think he was my knight in shining armor. Doug would just
love
that. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Well, I’m not just leaving you here and we’re both going to get soaked and possibly die
of pneumonia going at this speed all the way back to your place.”

He continued to walk the bike along the side of the
road, keeping pace with me and showing no signs of abandoning the effort. He was persistent, I’d give him that.

“Kiernan.” I stopped and so did he. “You don’t have to—”

“I
want
to.” He climbed off his bike, producing the second helmet and closing the distance between us.

“Why?” I swear I wasn’t fishing for compliments or questioning his motives, though
that’s probably how it sounded. I honestly did not understand why he would go out of his way to stick up for me and help me out. What had I ever done for him but cost him gas money?

“Because . . . I can’t have your plag
ue riddled death on my conscience, now can I?”

“I thought it was pneumonia.
”

“Same dif.” I lost sight of his smile for a moment
as he lowered the helmet into place, carefully buckling it beneath my chin and then shrugged out of his jacket. I tried to refuse, but he dropped the heavy leather over my shoulders and the next thing I knew, had my arms threaded through the sleeves so he could zip it up. “That’s better.”

He dumped the books he’d confiscated from me into the compartment beneath the seat and
I climbed onto the bike behind him, figuring I’d already let him go too far to bother putting up any more of a fight now. But, when he took my hands in his and tucked them underneath his shirt, my entire body felt like it’d been hit by some of that lightening dancing around the clouds.

“Rain this hard can sting bare skin. I don’t have gloves for you, so it’s best to keep them covered.” The explanation made sense enough, but sense didn’t matter one lick to my poor abused heart that had already been through the ringer more than once that day.

The possibility of it beating right out of my chest was all too real when I felt his hard abs bunch beneath my fingers as he jumped the bike into motion. The feather light touch I’d been trying my damndest to maintain turned into something much more familiar as the bike lurched out onto the street, and—though it seemed impossible through the rain, the bike, and the helmets—I swear I heard Kiernan laugh.

We cruised across town, wind and rain pelting us the entire way, but I didn’t feel any of it. The cold nip in the air rushing over us had nothing on the heat coursing through my veins from where my bare skin rested against his. It was nothing more than hands and stomach, but I swear my entire body must have been beet red and I was grateful for the helmet covering my face.

Kiernan twisted on the seat of his bike to face me as I pulled off his jacket outside my apartment. “Do you have a cell phone?”

I did. Not that it meant anything. No one had the number but mom, and she never used it. Not even Doug. I could only imagine what my mother would say if he called in the middle of the night. But after everything he’d done for me, I figured the least I could do was lend Kiernan my cell. Handing it over, I watched him plug away at the buttons for a minute before passing it back without ever removing his helmet.

“You have my number now. You need a ride somewhere, call me. No more walking in the rain, okay?”

I stood there, stunned and nodding like an idiot. Kiernan grinned as he climbed off the bike to help me with my helmet.

“Good. Now, get inside.” He
returned my books to me and patted down some of my hair. I shuddered to think what it must look like. “You look like a drowned rat.”

My foolish heart sank straight through the puddle I was standing in, followed quickly by Kiernan’s smile as I turned to go.

“Hey, Jade.” I stopped but didn’t bother turning around, refusing to expose him to one more glimpse of my horrid appearance. A refusal that meant diddly-squat when he stepped around in front of me, tugging off his own helmet in the process. “You know I was just kidding, right? About the whole rat thing?”

Great, now I’d gone and made him feel bad. Way to go. I plastered on a smile
, attempting to alleviate some of his guilt. He’d been nothing but nice—and honest. He didn’t deserve it. “Of course. Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it.”

Water ran in rivulets down his face as he studied me closely, not quite sure what to believe. I could tell he wanted to call me on my
bullshit, but when a shiver ran through me, he let it go, ushering me to the front door of the building.

I pushed it open to step inside and Kiernan frowned. “It doesn’t lock?”

“Seriously?” I glanced pointedly around the surrounding complex and his frown deepened.

“Be careful. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He tugged up his zipper and turned back in
to the rain.

The polite thing to do would have been to invite him in until the storm passed. I knew that. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Selfish.
The selfish, drowned rat. That was me. And all I could think as I watched him pull away and get swallowed up by the storm was . . . how much I hated to see him go.

Five

Mr.
Walkins was nothing if not efficient. He returned the tests before the end of the week, placing mine face down on my desk with an ominous tap and directions to ‘see him after class.’ That couldn’t be good.

I flipped the paper over and cringed. It wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t. The rest of class was a blur. I was so focused on what he was going to say—what
I
was going to say—that I didn’t even notice when people started vacating their desks. Loitering until I was the only one left in the room besides Mr. Walkins, I gathered up my books, and my courage, and met him at his desk. He didn’t look particularly pleased to see me.

“Jade, I have some concerns about your grade on the exam. As you know, this is an Advanced Placement course.”

Someone clearly put you in the wrong class.

“I know, sir, I—“

“I’m not looking for excuses. The work this year will be difficult. Maybe if you applied yourself a little bit more you wouldn’t have such a hard time with the material.”

Maybe if you weren’t such an idiot I wouldn’t have to waste my time explaining all of this to you.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. “I’ll try harder. I promise. I’m sorry, Mr. Walkins.”

“Don’t apologize, Jade.”

Just grow half a brain.

“I thought perhaps a little one
-on-one with a tutor might benefit you. I’ve spoken with someone who’s willing to help.”

I don’t want to deal with you, so I’m going to pawn you off on some other poor fool.

“Um . . . okay. I guess—”

“Excellent. Tomorrow after school in the library. He’ll be there.”

What could I say to that? “Okay.”

Mr.
Walkins gave me an approving, ‘thank God that’s taken care of’ nod and went back to sorting papers on his desk. Taking that as my cue to go, I scurried out the door before he had any other brilliant ideas for my academic career.

***

“Where are you going?” When I got home, mom was pulling on her teal colored jacket with the matted faux fur collar. I was tempted to tell her the eighties were ancient history, but bit my tongue.

Her lips curled as she flipped the furry hood over her head. It wasn’t even cold out, but with ninety percent of her daily diet being liquid, she was thin and thus always cold.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but it’s payday.” She flashed a wad of greenbacks at me before stuffing them in her pocket. “I’m going to celebrate.”

At the local pub, no doubt.

“We’re out of bread again. Do you think you could pick up a loaf while you’re out?”

“Do I look like I’m made of money?” Mom hefted her two ton purse—stuffed with who knows what—over her shoulder and slammed the door behind her on her way out.

With that much cash to blow, I doubted I’d be seeing her again anytime soon. At least it would be a quiet evening. I stretched out on the couch, a spot usually reserved for mom’s unconscious body and flipped on the TV. We didn’t have a billion and one channels like most people. No record, or fast-forward, or pause for us. But we did have basic cable and that was good enough for me. Anything to take my mind off of life for a while.

I tuned in and out of some ridiculous family drama as I nuked a frozen dinner and ate it in the living room.
Sad, but this was the epitome of relaxing for me. And I was enjoying every second of it.

When eleven o’clock rolled around, I dragged myself to the window and peeked outside at the parking lot. Mom had taken her car. That wasn’t good. Hopefully she was smart enough not to try and drive it home after so many hours spent at the bar.

Part of me wanted to say ‘screw it, she’s the adult in this relationship’ and go to bed, but I couldn’t go through with it. Worrying about her crashed in some ditch somewhere would keep me up all night, anyway. So I settled back on the couch and surfed the ten channels I had to choose from for something worth watching.

At some point during the completely pointless comedy show I’d turned on, I must have passed out. When I woke, I had to blink through bleary vision to read two-forty-five on the wall clock. And there was music playing. Not real music, like the radio. Some kind of metallic sounding tune I didn’t recognize coming from . . . my bedroom? What the—?

Scurrying down the hallway, I found my cell phone bouncing around my nightstand like a cricket on crack. I stood there staring at it like it was something completely foreign to me. I don’t think I’d ever heard the thing ring before.

It took a second for my sleep riddled brain to put that together with the fact that it meant somebody was calling me, and I scooped it up, hitting the talk button on the way to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Do you know a Marilyn Carlson?” The voice on the other end of the line barked.

“That’s my mother.” Oh, God, was it the hospital? The police? Had she tried to drive home? Wrecked? Was she okay? Alive? All of these thoughts passed through my mind in a fraction of a second, sending my pulse racing.

“I’m calling from Dave’s Dive over on Monroe. Your mother’s here and she’s in no shape to drive. I took her keys, but she’s telling me she doesn’t have money for a cab. You need to come get her.”

Come get her? “But . . . she has our only car?”

“Not my problem. Come get her, or I dump her drunk ass on the sidewalk outside when we close in half-an-hour.”

Wow, their customer service certainly left something to be desired. “No. Alright, I’m coming. I’m on my way. Just don’t leave her.”

“Half hour.”
The line went dead.

I was wide awake now and racing down the hallway, pulling on my sneakers as I went. I had thirty minutes to make it to Monroe, and I was going to need every single one of them.

It was that time of year when nature couldn’t seem to make up it’s damned mind. You’d be sweating all day and then night rolled around and you could see your breath puffing in front of you as you jogged out of the complex and up the road. I could feel the cold air in my lungs and just knew I was going to have a chest cold by morning, but what choice did I have? Let mom wander around plastered and freezing all night? Yeah, no.

Headlight
s illuminated the street ahead, forcing me to shield my eyes from the glare on the wet concrete. My worn shoes didn’t provide much cushion for my sore feet as they pounded the pavement in a steady rhythm. The car sped by and I narrowly avoided being sprayed by puddle water. Thanks for nothing, Jerk. Working out more was definitely something that needed to be added to my ‘to do’ list. I was panting like a fat man in cardiac arrest by the end of the second block. She couldn’t have picked a closer bar?

It was almost three-fifteen on the dot when I half stumbled up to Dave’s Dive
, sucking oxygen like a Hoover. At least the place wasn’t guilty of false advertising. It was most definitely a dive. Beer cans littered the entryway and two guys in black leather vests with graying beards that nearly reached their outrageous belt buckles hooted at me from the sidewalk.

Inside, my feet stuck to the wooden flooring. Loud music still played from the overhead speakers, but all the lights were on. A big guy with bulky muscles and a goatee was sweeping
near the back wall. My mother was the only other person in the place. She sat in a booth, slumped forward over the table.

“You the daughter?” The same voice from earlier came from behind me and I turned to find Mr. Goatee had abandoned his broom.

“That’s me.”

His gaze ran over me, causing my arms to cross over my chest instinctively. “You
gonna need help getting her out of here?”

I weighed my options. Either accept help from tall, dark, and terrifying, or try to lift my mother’s dead weight and carry her all by myself out to wherever the hell she parked the car. Option A, it was. “Yeah. Please.”

With an annoyed huff, he led the way over to the booth and lifted one of my mother’s arms over his shoulders. As soon as she was partially standing, I squeezed around her to take her other arm. Together we managed to finagle our way out the front door. Mom shivered and I realized belatedly that she wasn’t wearing her coat. Lord only knew where she might have left it and I sure as hell wasn’t about to go back inside looking for it.

“Hey there, cutie. How old are you?” I could
feel
the two creepers on the corner leering at me and swallowed back the bile climbing up my throat.

“Too young for you. Eyes off
, gentlemen,” Mr. Goatee rumbled.

The two men wilted into the shadows as we rounded into the
side parking lot. It wasn’t difficult to spot our car, given that it was one of only two there. After depositing mom in the backseat and making sure she was safely positioned on her side, I slumped against the driver’s side door.

“Look, kid.” Mr. Goatee’s impressive muscles bunched as he folded his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry to have to call you out in the middle of the night. Yours is the number your mother gave me.”

“It’s okay.”

“
I know this place don’t look like much, but it’s my business. You understand?”

“Dave?”

“That’s me.” A small grin tipped one side of his lips, making him look about a billion times less scary. “And I don’t mean to be an even bigger pain in your ass, but when she comes to,” he tipped his head toward the back window of the car, “you need to let her know she’s not welcome back here. Okay? I can’t be doing this every night.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Nothin’ for you to be apologizing about, kid. Good luck.” Dave headed back to his ‘dive’ as I slid behind the wheel.

Technically
, I didn’t have a driver’s license. And I may not have
actually
driven a car before, but there weren’t a whole lot of other options available to me. Besides, I knew the basics and the roads were all but deserted at this hour. Key, brake, shift, drive. How hard could it be?

Pulling out of the lot, I found out exactly how hard, real fast. I don’t know if I turned too wide or not wide enough, but the back wheel caught on the curb and we bounced over, dragging the rear bumper of the car
across the sidewalk and possible killing a bush or two in the process. Thank God there were no witnesses for that.

Drawing a deep breath, I even
ed out the car and took a quick peek in the rearview mirror to make sure mom was alright. There was no need to worry. It would have taken a nuclear explosion to rouse her.

“Okay. Here we go.” I was talking to no one, but the act of speaking was simple enough that it settled my nerves.

I pressed the gas and the car lurch forward before I eased off and found a good balance. We might have been moving at a snail’s pace, but there was no one to notice. Or care. I took it nice and slow the whole way back. It may have actually taken us longer to drive than it did for me to run, but we made it in one piece, minus the nice sized dent I was fervently praying mom would not notice in the rear bumper.

Dropping the car into park outside
of our building, I’d never felt more relieved in my life. Of course, then I had a whole other problem to deal with.

“Mom?” I leaned over the center console to shake her. “We’re home. We need to get you upstairs. Mom?”

This was going well. Getting out of the car, I opened the back door and squatted to put us at eye level.

“Come on, mom. It
’s cold, and it’s late, and I’m tired. Don’t you just want to go to bed? Please?”

Never. Going. To work. With an aggravated sigh, I sat my butt on the damp, hard ground and dropped my head back against the side of the car.

“Kill me now.” One more look at mom showed absolutely no change. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

I was going to regret this.

***

“Hey. Look who’s finally come calling.”

Why was I not surprised to find DJ still awake at that hour? I stood outside his door, already sorry I was there. “I need your help.”

“My help?” He leaned his shoulder up against the door frame, crossing his ankles and looking every bit as obnoxious as he sounded.

“Please? I need to get my mom upstairs and I can’t do it myself.”

“Trashed?”

“A little.” I hated to admit it out loud—though it was obviously common knowledge—and I
really
hated the stupid smirk on his face.

“And what do I get in return?”

I sighed, far too tired to do this with him. “I’ll owe you a favor.”

“A favor?” His grin turned slimy and I rethought my words.

“Not
that
kind of favor.”

His smile dropped to a frown and he reached for the door.

“No, wait. Please? I really need your help.”

The door stood partly closed between us while DJ examined me
, thoughtfully. “You’ll owe me a favor? Like I call you, and you’ll do whatever I ask?”

Why did I suddenly feel like I was making a deal with the devil? “Within reason.”

The door started to close again and I blocked it with my foot in the jamb. “Wait!”