Dangerous Boys

‘ Can I . . . come?’ I asked, hating that I needed to ask permission, feeling the weight of my future hanging on those few words.

Silence stretched, long enough to chill my blood, but then Oliver’s voice came again, amused.

‘I suppose there’s always room for one more.’

I hung up and stood there in the dark, my breath coming fast, feeling the wide expanse of possibility open up in front of me for the first time in what felt like forever. My world had been shrinking every day, penning me in, but this time, it felt wide open.

Some pieces couldn’t be glued back together. Some people weren’t for fixing.

Sometimes, the only thing to do was burn the whole f**king world down and start again.

Weber finally agrees to let me leave the hospital to pick up fresh clothes and supplies. Still, he’s not so lax as to let me step foot outside alone. He sends Blake along for company. ‘Protection,’ he says, but we both know the truth, it’s for him, not me.

I’m restless, still picking polish off my fingernails as Blake drives me silently through the dark neighbourhood and pulls up outside my house.

‘You need any help?’ he asks, already reaching for his cellphone.

I catch a glimpse of Candy Crush on-screen, and shake my head. ‘No, I won’t be long.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Blake murmurs, already absorbed. I feel the same spike of resentment that I do every time he’s around. He’s moved on from Crystal’s death with barely a backwards glance. Nobody called him wrong or bad, they just sighed over the tragedy, and said how brave he was to keep going.

Would they be so kind to us about Oliver?

I open the door and step inside, my mind already racing. Annette may be backing up my version of events, but until Ethan wakes up, I’m the only one left unscathed to face the questions.

So many questions.

I’ve been in slow-motion for hours now, but suddenly, there’s a panicked itch in my veins; the haze of shock and waiting giving way to something sharp and insistent, crying out for action. I race upstairs and go straight to my closet, pulling down the duffel from the top shelf. It’s already half packed, so I throw it on the bed and go to my dresser, yanking open drawers and hurling things on to the bed in a blind flurry. Underwear, shirts, jeans. I have the money I put aside to leave with Oliver, some of Mom’s credit cards if I need. They won’t get me far, to the West Coast, maybe. A big city, somewhere to lose myself in the crowds. A place nobody knows my name, the way I always wanted.

And then what? And then what?

I sink on to the bed, still clutching a sweater. I look around the room, at my books and trinkets, the framed photos on the dresser and the old stuffed toys on the shelf: a life that feels already like it belongs to someone else.

If I run, there’ll be no coming back. I’ll have nothing, nobody, and although the thought doesn’t chill me like it should, I can’t stop my brain from ticking forwards, playing two moves ahead the way Oliver always taught me.

How do I get out of town?

Blake is oblivious out front. I could be out of the window and away through the back yard before he even makes the next level, but I’d have only a twenty-minute headstart before he thinks to look for me; another thirty at most before it gets back to Weber and they start checking the roads and bus stations.

Weber.

I stop, imagining his face as he hears the news.

If I run now, he’ll know I’m guilty.

If I run now, I won’t make it far.

I take another breath, forcing myself to calm, then I finish packing the duffel with essentials. I stash it back up on the closet shelf, out of sight. It’s there if I need it, I tell myself, still feeling the itch to run.

If everything goes right for me, I won’t need it at all.

I take a shower, standing under the scalding shower jets until the hot water runs out and the dirt and blood are rinsed clean away from my body. Then I wrap a towel around my body and smear the steam from the mirror, assessing my reflection; trying to see myself through somebody else’s eyes. The bruises are still ringed around my neck, and there’s an ugly welt above my right eye. I don’t try to hide them. Instead, I pick a green sweater that brings out the purple in the bruise, and leave the smudged shadows under my eyes. I braid my hair neatly, pull on jeans and winter boots, and pack a different bag for the hospital: a small backpack I fill with text books, a spare sweater and toiletries. I’ll be keeping vigil at the hospital as long as it takes, so I grab a pillow and quilt from my closet too, then head out front to where Blake is still waiting in the car.

‘Good news,’ he tells me, when I pile in the front seat. ‘Boyfriend woke up.’

I freeze.

‘He did? When? Is he OK?’ I demand, panic running like ice through my veins. They said he wouldn’t be awake for hours, maybe even days. It’s the only reason I figured it was safe to leave him, to take one tiny moment away from the hospital.

I was wrong.

‘Who knows?’ Blake shrugs. ‘They just said he’s out of the woods. That’s good news, right?’ He frowns at me, and I manage to smooth my panicked expression into a smile.

‘Uh-huh,’ I murmur, but all the drive back to the hospital, my heart races with fear. He could be talking to them by now, telling him everything. I was supposed to be there, to make my case. To get our stories straight.

The moment we arrive I leap out of the car, sprinting back through the lobby and leaving Blake behind. I’m breathless by the time I reach Ethan’s room, but my footsteps fade to a falter when I see him through the glass, sitting up in bed.

His face is pale, his body still hooked with wires and tubes. Weber is sitting in the chair by the window, taking notes, and there’s another man in there too, someone I’ve never seen in a heavy overcoat, his expression stern.

Ethan meets my eyes through the glass. He stares at me a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he turns away and I know it’s over.

He’s telling them everything. He’s telling them the truth.

I stabbed him. It was me.

We had a plan and I was foolish enough to think it would work. I’d come a long way from that tentative, waiting girl at the end of summer, but I was still naive, expecting everything to fall into place just because I so badly needed it to.

But desperation gives rise to its own kind of hope, and as I set the pieces in motion, it was almost laughable how simple it was: just a long list of tasks to be checked off in turn, small cogs that would wind the machine of my freedom, one by one. My days were full of planning, fevered and drifting; my nights became dreamscapes of skyscrapers and busy, rushing streets. Of kisses I didn’t have to hide in the dark, and a life that would finally – finally – be mine.