“I think you should go home, Devin,” she said. “Before my grandmother calls the police. She’s in there, waiting for my sign if she needs to.” She looked back over her shoulder as if affirming that her grandmother was inside her house, watching with her phone at the ready.
Still, she was surprised when Devin hauled himself to his feet. He had blood on his lip and the beginnings of a swollen eye. Micah must’ve gotten in some jabs while they were rolling around. Good for him, she thought.
Devin looked from Micah to Violet, then back again. “I’m never coming back here again,” he said. “This place is cursed.” He waved his arm in the space between Micah’s house and Violet’s. “Bad people live here.” He narrowed his eyes at Violet, and for a moment, she feared he knew her part in what had happened to his sister. She wondered if he could see the guilt on her face. “Buncha whores and murderers are all that lives here,” he said. And then he walked away.
Violet almost ran after him. She almost did the same thing he’d done to Micah and tackled him from behind, used her body as a missile intent on taking him down. But what would she have done with him once she had him down? And what would he have done in retaliation? Better to let him go than to continue the cycle of attack and defend, attack and defend. At some point, someone had to be the one to let it go. She decided it might as well be her. Let him speak ill of her, of her mother. It didn’t make him much different from anyone else. Hell, even her supposed best friend had. She hadn’t punished Nicole for her words, so she might as well let a drunk guy twice her size off the hook, too.
When he was gone, neither she nor Micah moved, both frozen in stunned silence as his footsteps faded into the darkness. Violet wondered vaguely how he’d gotten there. He must’ve walked. She wondered where the Ames family lived. She’d never thought about it before. She’d never considered where the girl who died had lived. All she’d cared about was that Olivia Ames had been Micah’s girlfriend, had held a position she could only dream of.
“Thanks,” he said. From behind her she heard the rustle of grass that told her he was getting to his feet. Still dazed and breathless, it took him a while. She waited silently as he stood, took a deep breath, and moved toward her. She tried not to think about what she was wearing, or how she hadn’t brushed her teeth, or that they were alone together in the dark.
She turned to look at him. “I didn’t really do anything,” she said, because it was true. She’d screamed at them to stop. She’d lied about her grandmother waiting to call the police if needed.
“If you hadn’t come along,” he said. “I’m not sure what would’ve happened. He was out for . . . I don’t know. Blood or something. It’s like it wasn’t even him. I know—knew—the guy, and I’d never seen him like that before.”
“I guess he’s a mean drunk,” she said.
He chuckled. “You speaking from experience?”
He was standing close enough to touch, close enough that she could smell the adrenaline still clinging to him though the fight was over. “What if I was?” She tried to make herself look tough, experienced, like maybe he didn’t know all there was to know about her. She tried to look like an accused madam’s daughter would look, thinking of Devin’s parting words and feeling shame stir in her belly and begin crawling up to her heart. She had no idea what the daughter of a madam should look like. She had no idea what a madam herself looked like, unless it was her mother.
Like he was reading her thoughts, he said, “I’m sorry for what he said about you. About your mom.”
She nodded, then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, ignoring the stupid tears that pricked behind her eyes as a response to his kindness. No one had said “I’m sorry” to her about her mother since Jim Sheridan on that first day.
“You didn’t deserve to get lumped in with me,” he said. He pointed across the street at her house, and she marveled at the fact that neither her grandmother, nor his parents, had woken up through this whole thing. “You should probably keep your distance,” he said, “so that doesn’t keep happening.”
She spun around and gave him a smirk. “You think that’s because of you?” she asked, and laughed. “I guess you haven’t heard what they’ve been saying about me at school.”
He shook his head. “I mostly keep my earbuds in all the time now. Had to drown out their voices.”
“Well, you can probably take them out, because most of the talk is about me now. How I must be like my mom. How I probably work for her after school. It’s . . .” She thought of what some guy—someone who’d never spoken to her before—had said just that day. He’d thrown a dollar at her and said, “Is that the going rate?” as his friends laughed loudly, pushing and shoving each other as they moved en masse down the hall, pleased with themselves. She’d left the dollar on the ground for someone else to find. “It’s pretty bad,” she said.
“Want me to be your bodyguard?” he asked, and pretended to flex his muscles. He held his hands up. “I mean, I would, but I’m honestly just trying to steer clear of everyone, keep my nose clean so I don’t get in any more trouble than I’m already in.”
She nodded. “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine.”
He gave her a look. “Now that’s not really true, is it?”
She rolled her eyes, feeling the tears threatening again and doing everything she could to keep them at bay. “What difference does it make?” she said, and her voice was thick in her throat. “There’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
She felt his arm go around her shoulder and tighten as he gave her a side hug, the kind you’d give a friend. The kind she’d seen him give countless girls through the years. The kind she herself had never imagined being the recipient of. She let him pull her closer, until her head was touching his shoulder. For a second—just one—she let her head rest on his shoulder, then pulled away and gave him her bravest smile.
He looked at her, held her gaze, and for a long moment it was just the two of them breathing. “Why is it that people have the power to make decisions that fuck up other people’s lives?” he asked.
She thought about it, about Olivia and Norah, how their decisions had brought them here, to this yard in the middle of a school night. “I don’t know,” she answered.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” he said.
There were so many things she wanted to say. But something told her not now, not here. So she just said, “It’s not.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back. “What’s not gonna be fair,” she continued, “is when that alarm goes off in the morning.”
His smile widened. “True,” he said. “See you at school?” he asked.
She saw him at school all the time, but he never seemed to see her. She cocked her head, raised her eyebrows. “If you’ll take your earbuds out, I’ll even speak to you.”
He grinned. “Deal.” She started to walk away, knowing enough to take her leave at the right moment, surprised at the instinct kicking in. But his voice stopped her feet from moving. “Hey, Violet?” he called.