“Do you think she knows about the video?” I ask. I haven’t seen it. None of us have, but apparently, when Georgia confronted Sebastian about it, he confirmed it exists.
“I doubt it,” Georgia says. “I didn’t. Not until he leaked it and it went viral all over school.”
Vandy straightens in her seat. “Hey, what if we could get her to go report it to Headmaster Collins? Or maybe even the police? Sharing videos like that’s against the law, right? Revenge porn or something? You’re both minors in those videos. That can’t be legal, can it? And now it’s more than just one person that we know of. You could back each other up.”
Georgia’s already fair skin pales even further. “I can’t do that! I’ve managed to keep this under wraps for this long. I even went to that facility and no one knew about it. Coming out now? Everyone would know it’s me. It’s bad enough when they don’t, but once they do?” She looks like she might be sick, fists pressing hard into her stomach. “I can’t. I don’t want to dredge it all up again.”
Vandy and I share a look. Neither of us want to hurt Georgia. We don’t want to hurt Sydney, either, but what Heston is doing is beyond fucked up. Maybe Vandy’s right. Maybe it’s even illegal.
“None of it matters anyway,” Georgia says. “Emory told me they confronted, uh… him, about it, and he said that even if someone turns his brother in, their dad will just bail Heston out. For all we know, he’s been in trouble for this before and nothing ever came of it.”
A sick taste fills my mouth. I knew rich people sucked. I knew they were privileged and entitled and got away with murder. Sebastian told me that, over and over again, and I still trusted him. Sure, maybe he didn’t force me the way Heston did, but he still carefully manipulated me until I broke down and he got what he wanted. Georgia isn’t the only one that didn’t realize she was being used by a Wilcox until it was too late.
Vandy slows the car and pulls into the garage’s parking lot. My eyes are peeled for the blue of the Shelby, but thankfully, I don’t see it. Most of the bays are empty, in fact.
“Holy shit, Sugar,” Georgia says, pitching forward between our seats to peer out the windshield. “Is that your car?”
I follow her gaze to a car parked right out front. I’d totally overlooked it while making sure Bass wasn’t here. I stare at the vehicle, knowing that’s not my beater. It’s a Mustang, alright. But my Mustang? Obviously not.
“That’s not my car,” I say knowingly, opening my door and climbing out. The girls follow as I explain, “They mentioned some stuff about salvaging and reproduction. Maybe they brought it as, like… an example. For reference.”
While we wait by the bay for Merle to come out, they both keep shooting each other these little glances. They’re a little hard to read, full of nervous energy and trepidation, but I get the sense they know something I don’t.
Just as Georgia meets my gaze to say, “Okay, Sugar, look—” Merle finally walks out, giving me a tight nod.
“Miss Voss?”
I make a passing effort at a responding smile. Truth be told, being here is a little like stabbing myself in the chest, so I’d rather get it over with. “You said I could pick up my car today?”
Sticking a pencil behind his ear, he says, “Sure thing, go take a look,” and gestures to the other Mustang.
I give him a long look. Maybe my car’s around back or something. “Where is it?”
He looks at Georgia and Vandy, and then barks out a laugh. “It’s right there! Can’t miss a beauty like that, can ya?”
I look at the Mustang again. And then again. And then again. I do a quadruple take, because this can’t be my car. My car is a rusted-out piece of shit being held together by little more than duct tape and a firm reluctance to actually drive it.
The car sitting in front of me is a work of art. It bears no resemblance.
“Uh,” I start, reaching up to rub at my neck. “Merle? No offense or anything, but are you, like… you know. Sure?”
He just gives me a wide grin, raising his arm toward the car. “Go take a look for yourself. A car like that never loses itself in the pretty trim. I’m betting there’s still a few tells.”
I approach it slowly as they all look on, eyeing the decals and shiny chrome trim. The car’s painted a sleek, shimmery pewter that’s both elegant and severe at the same time. I walk all the way around it, and I don’t see any rust. There is a little dent—so small, most people would never notice it—right at the bottom of the driver’s side door. It looks an awful lot like the one I made with my neighbor’s skateboard when I was ten.
Disbelieving, I peer in the window. The seats look flawlessly upholstered with nice stitching. There’s clean, black carpet on the floor boards, and the dash is smooth, unblemished, shiny and oiled. Right in the middle of the steering wheel sits a Mustang emblem.
It’s a bright, blazing blue.
“No fucking way.” I yank the door open, and it doesn’t have that awful, screeching creak, but somehow it still sounds similar. There’s a clicking to it, in the way it pulls back a bit when it’s halfway open. A tell.
The interior is thick with the smell of the upholstery and leather. At first, I think the gear shift is new, but the closer I look, I realize it’s just been refinished and buffed.
It has a star-shaped chip in the middle.
It feels like my lungs expand three sizes; a lump wedged into the back of my throat as I stare inside the car. This car that’s been with me my entire life, over mountains and valleys, trunked packed with overflowing bags and bruised boxes as we moved from base to base. This place where my dad used to sit, glancing at me in the rearview with a big grin as he revved the engine, because he knew it’d make me grin back.
I look at it, so different but still the same underneath all the glamour and shine, and realize that, in many ways, I was born here. Maybe my dad is gone. Maybe my mother is gone, too. But this is my childhood—my real childhood—right here beneath this roof.
And it’s still here.
Still standing.
Still beautiful and strong.
It takes me a long time to find my voice. It feels too big to put words to, like just trying might turn me inside out. “How…?”
“She turned out pretty nice, didn’t she?” a voice says, and I turn to find Merle standing a few feet away, wiping grease off his hands with a rag. If he notices my tears, he does me the courtesy of ignoring them.
“This is too much,” I say, running my hand over the roof. “I love it—every part of it is amazing—but I can’t possibly repay you for this. You don’t know how much I wish I could.” The thought of leaving it here physically hurts. “I have eight hundred dollars, well, eighteen hundred dollars, to my name, Merle. I can’t afford it.”
He sighs and takes his rag, buffing out an invisible spot on the hood. “You don’t owe me anything, Miss.”
This isn’t the work of an old dude who works on cars. This is the work of someone who truly loves their craft. This was done with careful attention to detail. “You put so much work into this,” I argue, stomach sinking at the thought.