Saving June (18 page)

I’m wrong—Jake isn’t the idiot, I am. Because somehow these words sting, even though I know they’re true. We aren’t friends. After California, this’ll all be over, and I’ll go back to never thinking about Jacob Tolan and his stupid unkempt hair and his sucky attitude, and my life will be better for it.

Probably.

Maybe.

I can’t quite look him in the eye when I say, “Fine. I’ll have Laney call for a towing service.”

“Wait, don’t. Not yet. Give me a minute to think.”

“We have to do
something.
We’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“If someone comes out, sees the two of you and starts asking questions—”

“You’re being paranoid.”

“That’s easy for you to say! It’s not your ass on the line here, Scott.”

“You chose to come,” I remind him. “Nobody put a gun to your head. If it’s really that bad, why are you even here?”

Jake looks uneasy again, but before I can question him further, his eyes shift to some point over my shoulder. I turn to see a beat-up station wagon painted with black-and-white stripes rumbling up the road in our direction. It passes, then skids to an abrupt halt and zooms back in Reverse, tires squealing. The dust hasn’t yet settled when the engine cuts and the driver’s door opens.

A boy with dyed pink hair sticks out his head. “What up, motherfuckers? Got some car trouble?”

“Um…” Jake hops off the van hood and brushes off his jeans. “Yeah, actually. Flat tire. I’ve got a spare but I’m missing my jack.”

“Oh, we can fix that,” the boy says easily, and Jake and I share a glance. We?

The back doors of the station wagon fly open, and out tumble five more kids: four boys and one girl. The boys are dressed in ratty T-shirts and baggy pants with silver chains, their hair dyed every color of the rainbow (and then some), with all kinds of piercings from noses to eyebrows to lips to ears. The sole girl has tightly coiled red curls and bright eyes and is wearing a pair of knee-high leather boots and a barely there miniskirt. It’s the most surreal thing I’ve
ever seen—a bunch of punk kids in a zebra-striped station wagon in the middle of the desert.

“Am I hallucinating?” I mutter to Jake under my breath as the kids walk toward us. “Is this some mirage brought on by severe dehydration?”

Jake tilts his head to one side as the pink-haired boy pops his trunk. “I’m…really not sure.”

The boy comes back with a car jack and wrench in hand, and he and Jake walk over to the busted rear tire. The rest of the kids crowd around Laney and me and rattle off their names—I don’t remember any of them because it’s too hot to focus, so I decide to call them by what they look like. There’s Redhead Girl, and Goonies T-Shirt Boy, and Boy With So Many Piercings You Can Hardly See His Face, and so on and so on.

Goonies Boy joins the pink-haired boy and Jake, and I follow, standing back to watch them work.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, dude,” Pink-haired Boy says to Jake. “My dad makes me keep the tools, but I am
so
not mechanically inclined.”

Jake seems like he’s done this before; with the other boy’s help, he loosens the nuts with the wrench, jacks up the car and sets to replacing the tire. In a few minutes the spare is snugly in place.

Pink-haired Boy looks at Jake and says, “Holy shit!”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Jake says modestly as he wipes off his hands on his jeans.

“No, not the tire. Your shirt. Holy shit, that is one sick design!”

I look at Jake. His black shirt has the words Robot Suicide Squad splashed across the front in white, and below that a stencil of a square robot holding a gun to its head.

“Classy,” I tell him. “Is that a band?”

“Yeah. They’re heavy grunge, slash numetal, slash hardcore, depending on the album.” He glances down at his shirt and back up at Pink-haired Boy. “So you must be a fan, I take it?”

“Hell yes!” Pink-haired Boy exclaims. “So, you guys are on your way to their show, right?”

“Show? What show?”

“Dude. They’re playing in Flagstaff. We’re all road tripping just for the occasion, man. Seriously, you should come. It’s going to be
legendary.”

Jake hesitates. “I don’t know—”

“We should,” I cut in. “I mean, if you want to, we should. We’re not exactly on a tight schedule here.”

I don’t know why I’m being so nice; Jake’s acting like a jerk, but maybe he needs a break from the driving and the monotony. Yes, he chose to come, but he can’t be having the time of his life carting Laney and me around, and we’ve driven this far, so what’s a few more hours? We could all use the opportunity to blow off some steam before we implode.

“Well…” Jake purses his mouth as he considers. “I guess—”

“So that seals the deal,” Pink-haired Boy crows, pumping one fist in the air. “Next stop, Flagstaff, baby!”

Three and a half hours later and I’m in the middle of a mosh pit.

Being in a mosh pit is what I imagine being packed in a tin of sardines must be like. I’m squeezed in at the very front of the stage, crammed in with the other people crowded there, and as soon as the music starts, it’s basically a free-for-all—dancing, jumping, elbowing, pushing, knocking people down…nothing is sacred. Doing things that would normally get you an aggravated assault charge in real life is not only acceptable, but encouraged.

I’ve never moshed before. I never had the opportunity—the best you can get in Grand Lake is a lame group of white boys playing crap guitar in their parents’ basements on Saturday nights, thinking they’re hot shit, with a few underclassmen jumping around like a bunch of morons and pretending to be drunker than they actually are.

The venue in Flagstaff is totally different. Sure, it’s in a basement, but in the refurbished basement of a nightclub. Also, there are ten times more people present than any local “show” I’ve attended in the past. Even with the crowd, Jake, Laney and I manage to sneak to the front with the help of Pink-haired Boy and his posse.

“R.S.S. are kickass!” Redhead Girl shouts in my ear to be heard over the din. I still don’t know her name, which makes it a little weird since she’s practically on top of me. “You’re going to love them, for fucking serious!”

I decide to take her word for it. I look around and realize that aside from Redhead Girl and Laney, there are no other girls in the pit.

“Hey, where are all the girls?” I yell to Redhead Girl.

She scrunches her face at me and yells, “What? You’re going to hurl?”

It doesn’t really matter that she can’t hear because in five minutes I get my answer: the opening band, who call themselves the Big Fear, roars into their first song, and everyone begins to thrash around, all at once. Some burly guy twice my size slams hard into my shoulder, and then another one does on the other side, and it’s only a matter of seconds before I’m smashed out of the pit and into the outer edges of what seems to be a safety zone, which has a far higher ratio of girls.

I’m still gathering my bearings and my equilibrium when Jake brushes past a few people and comes up to me. I’m afraid he’s going to look concerned. I don’t want to be the kind of girl who needs to be checked on and looked after—and as soon as I think it, I realize it’s because I don’t want to be like my mom.

Thankfully, Jake looks more amused than anything else. He leans in close to my ear, his hand on my waist to pull
me in closer, and says, “You’re not going to let some assholes chase you off, are you?”

I glance down at where his hand is and try not to blush. When I look back up, his face is only centimeters away from mine. God, why does he have to be so pretty in such close proximity, even when he’s all sweaty? Why do I have to get these fluttery feelings when I look at his face and feel his hand on my hip, even though he’s been an utter dick all day?

It was so much easier when all I felt toward him was annoyance.

“Please,” I scoff. “I’m just strategizing on the best way to get back in.”

“Keep your elbows up and you’ll be fine.”

He’s right. I keep my elbows up and don’t hesitate to shove back, and I’m able to hold my own. By the time Robot Suicide Squad takes the stage, plugging in their leads, my shirt is drenched in sweat. The room is almost too hot to breathe in. I don’t care. There’s something exhilarating about being in the pit—knowing that everyone has fought to be here, that we’re all here for the same reason.

We slam-dance all the way through Robot Suicide Squad’s set. People frantically shove, and I receive a few whacks from those behind, but I avoid getting the crap kicked out of me. The band is equally hardcore as the crowd—the bassist throws himself against the wall, against the floor, and the lead singer beats himself over the head
with his mike until he gashes open his forehead. The wound bleeds in a sluggish trail down his face. Every time I glance over at Jake, he’s staring at me with this huge grin, and when I yell “What?” over the music, he just shakes his head and turns his attention back to the band.

As soon as the last riff of the last song fades into screeching guitar feedback, the band members all drop their instruments and abandon the stage. The drummer pauses long enough to hurl his drumsticks into the audience, one after the other. Apparently he isn’t concerned with being responsible for any concussions.

Of course, with the moshers already beating the crap out of each other, they probably don’t care much, either.

I’m hanging outside the bathroom, waiting for Jake, when Laney runs up and pulls me into a sideways hug and says, “That was
amazing!
”

I don’t really like being hugged and she’s pretty sweaty, but then, she’s Laney and so I let her. I lost her halfway into the opening band’s set, so it’s a relief to see she’s all in one piece.

The guy behind her says, “I’ll show you something amazing, babe.” His words come out all slurred. He’s huge and bald and has this crazy spiderweb tattoo on his neck, and there’s this weird piercing in his nose with a silver chain connecting to his ear.

“Don’t bother. I’m sure I’ve seen it before,” she tells him drily.

“Oh, I don’t think you have.” He moves in closer, and I almost gag on the overwhelming stench of liquor. Ew. Someone’s been spending quality time with Jack Daniel’s. “So tell me—your tits. They real?”

“About as real as my interest in you,” she says, turning away.

He laughs too loud, reaches forward and grabs her ass. She gasps and whirls around to face him, and I pull her back so she’s hidden behind me. What the hell? Who does that?

Oh, right. Stupid assholes drunk out of their minds.

I glare at him. “Leave her alone.”

“No one’s talking to you, you dried-up cunt.”

“Is there a problem?” Jake’s suddenly here, stepping between us. Even though he’s taller than me, the other guy still has a few inches on him. Not to mention, like, seventy pounds.

The guy squares his shoulders and says, “I think you need to keep your bitches on a leash.”

“Maybe you need to go die in a fire,” I snap.

The guy’s face twists with anger. He rushes forward, but then Jake pushes me out of the way, and for all his trouble gets welcomed with the guy’s fist flying into his face. It makes a sound, but not as loud as the sound of him tumbling to the floor. The people around us gasp and laugh in shocked surprise.

Oh, it is
so
on.

I lash one hand out and snatch the guy’s silver chain. He cries out in pain as I rip it out of his nose.

“Stupid bitch,” he spits, and that’s when I mentally punch him in the face.

Except it isn’t just mentally—it’s for real, my closed fist is actually moving. It hits him square in the nose with a sickening crunch.

“Oh my God,” Laney breathes from behind me.

“Oh my God,” Jake says from the floor.

My eyes widen. “Oh my God.”

There’s a moment that’s barely even a moment—it can’t be more than a second or two—where everyone around us falls dead silent, collectively holding their breath as the guy staggers back with his hands covering his nose, which is gushing blood like a fountain. But then the moment of stunned silence is over, and someone pushes him to the ground, and all of a sudden people are shoving and fists are flying everywhere.

I’m elbowing some guy in the face when strong arms wrap around my stomach from behind and heft me up high. I kick and struggle and scream at the top of my lungs as the person drags me out from the crowd, and it’s not until I’m unceremoniously dumped in the back alley that I roll over and see that it’s a security officer who grabbed me.

“And stay the fuck out,” he says, right before slamming the door in my face.

I sit up slowly to assess the damage. The elbow I scraped at the protest flares with pain, and I’ll definitely be bruised in a lot of interesting places by tomorrow morning, but I think for the most part I’m okay.

Someone laughs and says, “Having a rough night?”

I twist around, wincing a little at the movement, to see that the disembodied voice belongs to someone standing farther down in the alley. All I can make out is a silhouette and the orange embers glowing from the tip of his clove cigarette, but then he steps into the pool of light emanating from the lamplight above. He’s all jet-black hair and winter pale skin, and he has the widest smile I’ve ever seen. It splits his face and shows all of his shiny and even teeth.

“I’ve had worse.” I stand up a little shakily and inspect my elbow. Not bleeding. So that’s something.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” the guy asks.

“What makes you think that?”

“You don’t look like you fit in this scene.”

I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be an insult. “If that’s how all the guys in this ‘scene’ act, then that’s probably a good thing.”

He waves smoke away from his face and grimaces. “Those stupid horny fucks? Ignore them. Half the guys who come to these shows are just idiots wanting to indiscriminately beat the crap out of each other. Or worse, neo-Nazi assholes co-opting the scene as their own. They
don’t even listen to the lyrics. Otherwise they’d know we’re anti-Nazi. Antisexism, antiracism, anticorporate tools, antiestablishment—”