Believe

Chapter Five Phoenix

Selfish asshole, that was me. I should have gone home. I should have deleted her number after we ran into Davis in the park, but man, when she looked at me like that—like she thought I was something amazing instead of a piece of shit—I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t leave.

I couldn’t stop myself from touching her either, though I was working damn hard at making sure it was nothing more than holding hands or my arm around her.

So maybe humping her head with my hand wasn’t exactly keeping it cool, but I’d been dying to touch her hair since the minute I’d met her, so fucking sue me for going for it. She didn’t seem to mind, which was insane. Why she wasn’t terrified of me by that point, I couldn’t figure out. No self-preservation at all.

Except since it was working in my favor, I couldn’t exactly fault her.

When she started to doze, pressed against me, I shook her hand a little. “Hey. Let’s go to bed. You’ll have a headache tomorrow if you sleep like this.”

In the glowing light of the TV she glanced up at me, her eyes glassy and wide. She smiled. “Okay.”

The urge to kiss her was so strong I felt my temple pulse as I clenched my free fist, digging nails into the flesh of my palm. I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t drag her down to my level.

“Come on,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, even. I led her down the hallway to her little room and she stumbled along behind me.

The bedroom was small, cell size. When I stepped inside, I felt the tension inside me getting ready to explode. The room surrounded me, trapped me, and I felt guilty for grabbing at her in my sleep that morning, for taking advantage of her niceness, for exposing her to a guy like Davis.

For enjoying spending time with her, for wanting her so bad I could practically taste her on my tongue.

She crawled onto the bed still in her sundress and peeled back the sheet. Once under it, she settled down onto her pillow with a sigh. Her hand reached out for mine. “Aren’t you coming to bed?”

One, two, three small breaths out nice and slow. “In a minute,” I told her, and my voice sounded completely normal. How I had no idea. “I need to take a piss.” I leaned forward and brushed her hair back off her forehead. When my hand started to shake I pulled it back.

“’kay.” Her eyes were already closed.

I retreated slowly, trying not to make too much noise. I eased her door almost all the way shut, then went into the living room. Even though I wanted to punch the shit out of something, there was nothing to punch. Nothing to throw. So I did push-ups, at a grueling pace, three reps of thirty each. Then I went up and down the stairs twenty times, grateful for the old, dingy carpet so Robin couldn’t hear me.

The doctors could take their meds and shove them up their ass. They’d made me take them in jail, and I hadn’t felt any different. Intermittent explosive disorder? Go fuck yourself.

The only thing wrong with me was that my mom was an asshole and I’d been left on my own too much. Nothing else.

Someday I would fall in love like every other idiot did at one time or another. I just couldn’t let it be with Robin.

But I knew how to control my emotions. I always had.

I went back upstairs, peeled off my shirt, and eased myself into bed beside Robin, still breathing hard. She was out cold, and I lay there and let my muscle fatigue become the focus of my thoughts. The way my shoulders burned, the strain in my calves. The pain crowded out the other thoughts, and I finally relaxed.

Careful not to move too much, I turned my head and watched her sleep. I hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to sleep next to a girl. In high school my girlfriend had stayed over a few times when my mother wasn’t home, but her parents had busted her and that had been the end of that. Angel had stayed with me once, but she had gotten pissed at me for taking too much space and had kicked me in the shins hard before stomping off to sleep on the couch.

But Robin seemed to like me in her space. She shifted toward me on the couch when we watched TV, she had turned toward me on the blanket in the park, and in bed she curled her legs up and tucked her hands under her chin, but always facing me.

I studied her face in the dark, wanting to memorize it, to sketch it later.

She was beautiful. She was naive.

She felt like my reward for surviving jail.

I stayed awake for an hour watching her, before drifting into oblivion.

Another nightmare shattered my sleep. In this one I was watching my mother being raped by Iggy, half conscious from the beating he’d given her and from the drugs. Her body moved sluggish with each thrust, his grunts making my stomach roil, but there was a cell wall between me and her, so I couldn’t help her.

Then it wasn’t my mom anymore.

It was Robin, and her eyes were dead of any of the sweetness I’d seen, even void of the sadness she had shown me. They were just empty. Black holes. There was nothing there as that bastard abused her body in the most violating way possible.

I pounded on the cell walls, yelling, shaking the bars until my throat was hoarse and my hands were bleeding. I wanted to explode outside of myself and kill him for hurting her.

I had done this to her. I had killed her soul.

Then suddenly I fell through as the glass wall dissolved into nothing and I was free, but Robin wasn’t there anymore . . .

Waking up with a start as I fell, I half sat up. I must have made a sound because Robin jerked awake, too.

“Shit,” I muttered, heart pounding, sweat all over the back of my neck, the image of her still floating in front of my eyes. “God.”

“Are you okay?” Her hand stroked my arm, then my back, her touch warm and small and caring.

And suddenly I didn’t give a fuck that I was bad for her. She was letting me be there, right? She was offering comfort and I was going to take it, because I couldn’t stand the way she had stared at me in my dream, like I wasn’t there. Like I didn’t exist.

“Yeah,” I whispered, wiping my forehead as I eased myself back down onto the mattress. “I’m fine.”

She touched my cheek and pushed my hair back. “Are you sure?”

Nodding, I shifted closer to her so that our faces were aligned. She was so beautiful, so sweet, so trusting. I ached with want, the need to touch her greater than my self-control. I needed to see her smile, see her willingness to kiss me. Me. Her eyes, still heavy with sleep, darkened as I watched her, running my fingers down her cheek to her lips.

She knew what I was about to do because her mouth drifted open, so that when I kissed her, she kissed me back. And of course, just to torture me, it felt as good as I had imagined. God. Those lips were plump and soft, and nothing had ever felt so simple and good and important. She gave a little sigh that had me pulling her leg up onto my hip so we could be closer, my other hand buried in her thick hair.

Robin was safe, I wasn’t in a cell, and the kiss was perfect, our bodies pressed against each other, my tongue darting in between her lips. She opened for me without hesitation, and her hips started to rock against mine. Her skin, her breath, were warm, and my hands felt big, covering so much territory on her body at once. Our breathing got heavier, and I was inching under her dress, endorphins or whatever the hell they were called shutting down my ability to think rationally.

Which is exactly how we were when her roommate flung open the door and said, “Robin, sweetie, you awake—oh shit, sorry!”

Robin broke off our kiss and yanked her leg off of me, slumberous eyes now full alert. “Kylie?” she breathed, rolling onto her back and gripping her chest. “Oh my God, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know you had, um, a friend here.” The blonde in the doorway eyed me with a naked curiosity that annoyed me. She started twirling her hair around her finger, and her hip came out as she leaned on the doorframe.

Shoving my hair out of my eye, I sat up, giving her a long look that hopefully would send her scurrying away. A little privacy wasn’t too much to ask for, was it? Christ. Since she had just interrupted what was shaping up to be a fucking awesome moment.

Her eyes widened. “We can catch up later.”

“What are you doing?” A guy’s voice came booming down the hall, then a head appeared behind her. “What is going on here?” He took in Robin and me in bed, and he looked appalled. “Phoenix? Phoenix Sullivan?”

Fuck. I knew this guy. It was Nathan, Tyler’s best friend from middle school on. I’d always thought he was a bit of a tool. “Nathan? What’s up, man?” I gave him a casual head nod, reaching for Robin’s hand.

Her cheeks were stained pink with embarrassment, and she had curled up into a ball.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked me.

None of his business. I shrugged. “Hanging out with Robin.”

“She’s not just some chick you can screw around with.” Nathan looked and sounded angry.

Robin made a small sound in the back of her throat, but otherwise she didn’t say a word. She looked like she was fighting the urge to cry. She didn’t seem anything like the girl I’d just spent the last forty-eight hours with. She looked like the girl I’d met in Tyler’s living room, tenting herself inside her T-shirt. She was literally tucking her legs into her body right beside me. What the hell?

“Hey,” I said, getting pissed off right back at him. “Mind your own business. You’re embarrassing Robin. You don’t know a goddamn thing about what is going on here, but I do think you know I’m not someone to fuck with.” I’d mop the goddamn floor with him and his baseball scholarship. Thought he was someone because he was going to college. He could fuck the bat he swung to get there.

Since Robin’s hand was tucked away, I couldn’t squeeze it, but I did touch her hip when I stood up. I figured if I moved toward Nathan, he would back up. Which was exactly what he did.

“Does Tyler know?” he asked.

“Does Tyler know what?” My cousin appeared in the doorway, too, and when he saw me, the smile fell off his face. “Seriously? Phoenix, Jesus.”

I stepped forward, but they all stayed crowded in the doorway. “Back up!” I demanded, irritated. “You’re embarrassing her and it’s really starting to make me angry.”

Tyler knew well enough that angry was never a good look on me, so he tapped Nathan and jerked his head toward the living room. Once they cleared the doorway, I turned back to Robin and said, “It’s all good, don’t worry. Be back in a second.” I pulled the door closed behind me so she could recover or whatever. She was starting to freak me out. She looked so upset, way more than the situation merited. We weren’t even naked or anything. It was just a kiss. Well, kisses. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Other than the fact that I shouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t think she really understood that. This was something else.

“Is there where you’ve been the last two days?” Tyler asked me. A pale redhead put her hand on his arm, like she wanted to calm him down.

“Yeah.”

“What about me saying it was a bad idea did you not understand?”

“The why.”

Tyler clenched his fists. “Dude, it’s like you want to screw yourself over. Why do you do that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just hanging out. It’s not a big deal.” But that was a lie. It was a big deal. I knew it was. It was a big deal in that they all knew just as well as I did that she was above my reach, but more important even than that, it was a big deal because I really, really liked her.

The door opened, and Robin appeared, arms across her chest. “Why do any of you care?” she asked in a small voice. Then she went to the redhead and hugged her. “Hey, Rory, welcome back. I missed you.”

Tyler got a sheepish look, but Nathan was still shooting me looks of instant death.

Then Robin went to the blonde and hugged her, too, hard, though she shifted out of the way when Nathan tried to hug her.

I was getting a bad feeling that I really wanted to ignore. “So is this move-in day?” I asked.

The blonde nodded. “Yeppers. I’m Kylie.”

“Phoenix, Tyler’s cousin. You need help unloading stuff?”

“Oh, God, yes, I have so much crap.”

She wasn’t lying. Her car was crammed with boxes, and we unloaded the car in an uneasy silence except for Kylie, who babbled like she had no clue she was with a group of pissed-off people. When both her and Rory’s stuff was in the apartment, my cousin leveled a look at me. “Can I give you a ride back to the house?”

Since I was on day three of the same clothes, I didn’t mind that he was about to go all paternal on me. Whatever. It was his personality, and I had been dealing with it for twenty years. “Sure.”

Robin was in the kitchen helping Rory unpack some bowls or some shit, and I moved toward her. The look she gave me, man, it was like she was being abandoned in hell, and I felt like the worst jerk-off ever. “I need to go back and change. Want to come with me?” I asked, which hadn’t been my original plan, but those eyes were killing me.

She shook her head. “I want to help here.”

Moving my body so Rory couldn’t see or hear, I bent over Robin and cupped her cheek. “What’s going on?”

But she shook her head again.

There was no point in pressing her. She wasn’t going to talk.

“I’ll call you.”

She nodded.

Puzzled, and not liking the change in her, I hesitated but then Tyler yelled for me to come on, so I stroked her bottom lip with my thumb, remembering that amazing kiss, wanting her to remember it, too, before leaving.

“What the hell?” Tyler asked me in irritation as we went out to his car.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t owe him any explanations.

“She’s going through some shit, I don’t think this is the time for you to be dicking around with her.”

Yanking the car door open I narrowed my eyes at him over the top of the car. “I’m not dicking around. We’re friends.” I could see she was going through some shit, and it seemed to have something to do with their group of friends. She didn’t want to live in the apartment and the minute everyone had shown up, her whole attitude had changed. “And how is me hanging out with her any different than you being with Rory or Riley being with Jessica? From what I hear, Jessica’s parents cut her off for dating Riley and you all seem okay with that even though I think that would fall under the category of dicking around with her life.”

With that I climbed in and slammed the door shut behind me. I was thirsty and hot and annoyed.

“Wow. You really like her, don’t you?” Tyler started the car. “You sound about as rational as I did when I met Rory.”

“Nothing I just said was irrational. And it’s fucking hot as balls in this car. Don’t you have air-conditioning?” I kicked off my shoes and stuck my arm out the window.

“Oh my God, your feet smell horrible, man. Look, if you really like Robin, then I can’t say anything about that. It’s just that something is clearly going down with her, and if you were just looking to hook up, I don’t think I can be okay with that. She’s a nice girl.”

“It’s never been my style to go after a chick. They usually come to me. So the fact that I am should tell you something.”

“Yeah, that you’re an arrogant douche bag.” Tyler scoffed, amused.

It wasn’t meant to be arrogant. But it was the truth, like I said. Girls wanted to get a reaction from me, so they flirted hard-core.

“Just you know, maybe take it slow or something, that’s all I’m saying.” Tyler was fumbling in his dash trying to pull a cigarette out of his pack. “Dude, light a cigarette for me.”

“No.” I wasn’t putting that poison to my mouth even for ten seconds.

He made a sound of exasperation. “I forgot, you’re a purist. I respect that about you, but right now it’s not helping my personal addiction.”

“Robin is the only person I’ve ever met who is as clean as I am,” I told him.

“Yeah, about that. She wasn’t always that way. She was a regular on the party scene last year. So maybe it will last and maybe it won’t. Just FYI.”

“I know. She told me that.” But it had me thinking. What had changed?

When we got back to the house, I showered and borrowed more clothes from Riley. I took all the dirty laundry from his and the boys’ room downstairs and put it in the washing machine. Since I was bumming clothes off everyone, the least I could do was wash them. Though I wasn’t sure who the Sexiest Bearcat tank top belonged to. It came out of Tyler’s room, but I couldn’t picture Rory wearing that, but what did I know?

Apparently not much. I sat out on the back patio where there was a decent breeze and I started doing some poking around on the Internet on my phone, checking out Robin’s social media sites.

Tyler was definitely telling the truth. There were dozens of pictures of Robin posing with friends at parties with a glass in her hand, or sometimes a beer can. It didn’t even really look like the girl I had met. She had big hair and lots of makeup on, and in every picture she was wearing tight and tiny clothes. Jessica and Kylie were with her a lot, and they were smiling and laughing and doing sexy poses. Douchey guys were photobombing half the shots or had their arms around the girls. There was only a picture or two with Rory in it, and she never dressed like her friends. They would be towering in high heels and miniskirts, and she would be wearing a floral dress with a lacy collar, looking out of place.

Robin definitely looked the party girl part in these pictures.

Interesting.

So which one was the real Robin?

I knew which one I liked better. The one I knew. The one who wore easy and loose clothes and who never had a single speck of makeup on her beautiful face. Those fake eyelashes crawling above her eyes in some of the pictures made me want to reach through my phone and yank them off. That wasn’t her. I didn’t think.

Where was the girl who studiously painted and sketched, her face a calm lake of concentration? Where was the girl who laid on the blanket beside me and quoted Thoreau to the sky?

It was disturbing and after half an hour I felt tense. There was only one recent picture of her up and it had a July date and had been posted by Jessica. Robin was wearing some kind of uniform and they were in a restaurant. The description was “We need tips, bitches!” written by Jessica. Robin was sitting down at the bar, bottles behind her, and she was leaning on her hand, like she was exhausted. The smile she gave the camera was lukewarm and forced, and there were circles under her eyes. I knew this face. Not the other ones.

Tossing my phone down on the picnic table, I tried to process what I was feeling. It was weird, but I already missed her.

And now I wanted to know what had changed in her life. What had happened.

When Tyler came and sat next to me to smoke a cigarette, I asked him, “Where’s Jessica?” I knew she didn’t know anything, given the conversation I’d heard between her and Robin, but I was curious what else she might be able to tell me.

“She and Riley took Easton to buy school supplies. Half an hour they’ll be back and Riley will be bitching about how much paper costs and Easton will spend an hour rearranging his pencil case. Mark my words.”

“Things seem good here, cuz.” It did. They looked to have settled down into a life that was working for all of them.

“It is. Sad it couldn’t really happen until after Mom died, but there it is. You know how it goes.”

“I do.” I propped my head with my hand. “I give it a month before my mom comes around looking for me or you to bum money off of. Just be prepared for it.”

“I know.”

“So what happened to Robin?” I asked, straight out. “Because something obviously did.”

Tyler just shook his head. “I don’t know. You said it yourself—if she wants to tell anyone, she will.”

That wasn’t good enough for me. Because I had a sneaking suspicion that despite what she had told Jessica, this was about a guy making her uncomfortable. And I also thought I knew who it was. “Was Nathan at that party? The one Jessica was talking about, back at the beginning of the summer?”

“Yeah.” Tyler blew out a stream of smoke.

“Was Kylie?”

“No, she’s been back home all summer.”

“Who else was there?”

“I don’t know. Bill, Nathan’s roommate. Fifty other people. Robin was hanging around with some guy Jessica knows.”

I didn’t want to know what that meant. I could already feel the beginnings of jealousy. Frustrated, not sure why, I went to send a text to Robin. My first instinct was just to say “hey,” but then I knew that wouldn’t give me the response I wanted. So I started surfing for a kitten picture as Tyler watched me.

“Phoenix.”

“Yeah?”

“If Robin isn’t in a good place, if she isn’t, you know, emotionally healthy or whatever, is that really the best person for you to be involved with? Don’t get pissed. I’m just asking because we’re blood. And I care.”

He looked uncomfortable with what he had just said, and I appreciated the effort. “I don’t know, man. But when has that ever stopped anyone for falling for a girl? Logic’s got nothing to it with it.” I shook my phone. “Hell, I’m searching for kitten pictures for her because she likes them. I mean, what the fuck does that tell you?”

“That you’re whipped.”

I gave my cousin a rueful look, not at all offended. “Exactly. Ty, you know what we did yesterday? We had a picnic in the park. A picnic. Who does that for me? No one.”

“A girl who likes you.” He shot me a grin. “Though God knows why.”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Did you shower?” He made puckering lips at me.

I recoiled. “Dude.”

Tyler laughed so hard he started coughing. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Dick.”

“Pussy.”

Quality family time. That’s what we were having. It felt good.

Jayden came out of the house with an unholy grin on his face. Then we got drenched with water as he let loose with a water gun. It actually knocked Tyler’s cigarette out of his hand. I shook my hair out of my eyes and tried not to laugh.

“I’m going to kill Jessica for buying him that.”

Tyler didn’t really look mad. But he did leap off the picnic table and go after his brother, who screamed and ran into the kitchen, pulling the door shut behind him.

Wiping my now wet phone on my jeans, I sent Robin a picture of a cute and fluffy white kitten. I typed “you” in the message. Then I sent her a grumpy cat image. “Me.”

Having saved two pictures of her off her page, the one of her at work looking so tired and an earlier one of her wearing a clinging red dress, spray tanned and arms up in the air as she danced, I was studying them side by side when she responded.

It was an image of two adult cats leaning shoulder to shoulder on each other. “Us,” was all she had written.

Fuck me. I wanted that.

Despite what everyone seemed to think, I did have emotions other than anger.

I just didn’t know what to do with them.