44. Juliet
44
JULIET
T he time that Gio was supposed to pick me up comes and goes. I send a text to him fifteen minutes later when I still haven’t heard from him. At the half-hour mark, I try to call him. No answer. I send more texts. I call a few more times. Still, there’s no response.
I could just … not go. No one is waiting for me but my dad and it’s not like he deserves my presence. Yet, now that I’ve decided to see him, I’m set on it. I have questions and no one else can answer them.
When it’s over an hour later and Gio still hasn’t bothered to answer my multiple missed calls or text messages, I grit my teeth and walk out the door. I should’ve known better than to rely on him, than to rely on fucking anyone. I don’t bother to lock the front up because, even though I’ve been staying with Nolan for weeks now, I still don’t have a key. I text Nolan, who’s supposed to be working at the garage, but there's no answer from him either.
The phone that Lex had given me is at least good for something. I’d forgotten how hard life was without a phone, but now that I have one again it’s easy enough to find the public transport system website and pinpoint the nearest bus stop. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for the next bus to arrive and I find a spot by a window at the back.
I stew there the entire length of the ride to Hansgard Correctional Facility with Bad Omens and Three Days Grace screaming in my ears thanks to the headphones I’d pilfered from Nolan’s desk. Every passing minute is another sharp slice to my chest. Somehow, I can’t stop myself from checking my phone repeatedly for the several-hour bus ride.
No calls. No texts. Just … nothing. As if they forgot I exist. As if … Gio’s promises never happened. My teeth grind down hard enough that my jaw begins to ache and it takes actual concentrated effort to loosen up. I lean against the bus window and stare at the passing scenery without ever really seeing any of it. I have to wonder if this isn’t how kids in the system feel.
You’re lucky, Miss Donovan. At eighteen, you have a lot more options open to you. Mr. Calloway is offering to provide for you at the very least until you finish your senior year. Other kids would kill for an opportunity such as this. You won’t even have to leave your current school.
I close my eyes, remembering the words of the social services lady who had come to see me after my mom had left that note. Lucky . She’d said the word with no small amount of derision, her obvious distaste for me and my family name evident in everything she did. From her words to the curl of her upper lip, she’d made it clear that she didn’t care to be there. No doubt another Silverwood resident had been fucked over by the whole ordeal.
When the bus slows, my eyes open and I spy the large gray building that makes up the Hansgard Correctional Facility. Before we come to a full stop, I get up and pop the headphones out of my ears before stuffing them into my pocket and heading down the steps.
It’s time to see my dad.
Less than two hours after I entered the doors of Hansgard Correctional Facility, I slam out of them again with burning eyes.
Liars. That’s what they are—that’s what they all are. The Scorpion Kings and my father. They’re the same.
I storm towards the parking lot with my throat tight and my whole body shaking. Stopping halfway down one of the rows of beat-up trucks, cheap Mazdas, and a few minivans, I press my fists into my eye sockets and tip my head back.
“I didn’t do this, sweetie. I’m innocent.” My father’s words sink into my head, spinning around and around.
Why did I even bother coming? Why does he think proclaiming his innocence as he has since he was taken in months ago is going to change anything?
Maybe it’s best they didn’t show. Taking a deep breath, I drop my arms away from my face. A drop of wetness lands on my forehead and my eyes open. Dark clouds hover overhead, the perfect shitty kind of weather to a perfectly shitty day.
“I just need a little money, Jules. Morpheus isn’t answering my calls and your mother hasn’t ? —”
More bits and pieces of the conversation I’d just had with my dad invade as another droplet hits my cheek this time. Dropping my head, I stare at the sneakers I’m wearing, fixating on the scuff marks over the toe as those two drops of rain turn into a light mist.
“I don’t have any money, Dad. The government seized all of our assets—you know that. Mom’s gone. She left.”
“What do you mean she left?” I can still see his shocked face. At least one parent seems rather surprised that the other would abandon their only child. That has to count for something? Wasn’t Morpheus supposed to tell him?
“She’s gone, Dad. She left town. I haven’t seen her in months.”
And I don’t think she’s coming back.
I hadn’t had the heart to tell him my suspicions, not when the news of Mom’s desertion had made him sit back on the rickety plastic stool of the meeting room we’d been allowed to see each other in.
“You must be staying with Morpheus, then…”
I hadn’t corrected that assumption either. Despite how angry I’ve been—how angry I still am—seeing my dad sitting in handcuffs and a garishly bright orange jumpsuit had hit me much harder than I thought it would. He’s aged in the months he’d been incarcerated. The gray at his temples has begun its takeover, moving from his temples to the sides of his head and even a few streaks at the top. His eyes had been heavy with dark circles, and more wrinkles than I’d ever seen on him had lined his lips.
Just for a moment, when I walked into that big room with all of those tables—bolted down for safety purposes, of course—I’d looked at him and wanted to turn back into a scared little girl. I’d wanted to run up to him and throw my arms around him and start sobbing. I wanted to beg him to make it all better.
He hadn’t even opened his arms. How could he have when he hadn’t even been able to stand up from the table? The security guards had handcuffed him to a loop in the metal surface.
Just when it was all starting to get better—just when I thought I might be okay…
My new cell phone rings in my back pocket. Taking it out, I trudge towards the glass overhang for the bus station a block away from the facility. More rain falls, soaking into my hair as I lift it to my face and see the caller.
A spark of resentment crawls up my throat. Nolan . Of course, he calls me now. I’m more surprised it’s not Gio, since he was the one that was supposed to be here. The one that lied. My chest constricts as I swipe the green button and put the phone to my ear.
“Where are you?” he demands.
“Where the fuck do you think I am, asshole,” I snap back. “At the correctional facility.”
“What?” Nolan’s shocked voice slaps me. “Why would you be there? Gio didn’t—” He stops and takes a breath. My lower lip trembles and I bite down hard to stop it. He knows. He knows Gio didn’t pick me up. Had they just pressured me to do this only to take it back not thinking I’d come all this way by myself? Why? To humiliate me? Remind me that no one gives a fuck about me? Why make promises if they had no intention of keeping them? Why even bother to be kind to me when it was only half-assed? I was so much better when I’d been relying on myself. It was easier when it was just me. No stupid Scorpion Kings buying me shit or making me feel like I’m not alone.
Being alone isn’t the hard part—it’s thinking you’re not and then finding out no one gives a shit about you. It’s easier to be in a room by yourself than to stand in a crowd of people without a single one of them reaching out to help when you’re in danger.
“Listen, you need to come back,” he says.
“You’re not surprised that Gio forgot,” I state instead. “Or did he forget?” My damn chest tightens up again, a coil winding around and around until it hurts. “Did he ever intend to actually bring me?”
There’s a brief moment of silence on the other side of the line and I laugh out loud, a broken, achy sound. “The answer’s no, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not,” Nolan says. Then just as quickly, he barks a curse. “Fuck.” That’s it. That’s all he says.
I nod as if he’s right in front of me and hop onto the sidewalk. A streak of water slides down the side of my face.
“Yeah, fuck is right,” I tell him. “Fuck you.”
“Juliet, I didn’t—there was a situation.”
“Let me guess,” I say. “You had to go collect more money from poor business owners and take it to your boss?”
I stomp on each crack in the pavement, breathing heavily as I throw the words out like bullets.
“What we do for work is none of your business.” Nolan’s voice is low, a warning. “Where are you now? Are you done there?”
“It’s none of your business,” I say, throwing his words back in his face.
He growls. “I’m not fucking around, Juliet. Where the fuck—goddamn it. You know what…”
The bus stop is in my line of sight and I spy a couple of people already standing there, waiting, taking up most of the space underneath the minuscule overhang. I’m going to look like a drowned rat by the time I get back to Silverwood.
Nolan says something, the sound of his voice slightly muffled as I assume he turns away from the phone and talks to someone else. When he comes back, it’s with the same frustrated tone. “Did you turn off your fucking location?”
I grin at the question. Yes, I had. I’d been so angry with them that as I’d ridden into Hansgard via the bus, I’d found the location-sharing app on my cell and promptly deleted it.
“I don’t think you should worry about my location anymore,” I say. “In fact, don’t fucking concern yourself with me at all anymore. When I get back to Silverwood, I’m going home—back to my apartment and you can fuck off for all I care.”
“The door still isn’t fixed,” Nolan says. “It’s not livable.”
“I don’t care as long as it’s away from you ,” I seethe even as I start to tremble from the chill burrowing into my bones from the rain. “From all of you.”
Stopping beneath a tree that offers some reprieve from the rain a few yards away from the bus stop, I wrap my arms around myself and clench my teeth to avoid chattering. “I’ll ship Lex’s phone back to him. I don’t need shit from you.”
I never did. I’d just forgotten that.
“ Juliet. ” My fingers clench around the phone in my hand at how he says my name—it’s both a caress and a threat. “You don’t need to stay with me, but you can’t go back to your apartment.”
“Yeah? Who am I going to stay with then? Gio?” I snort in disbelief. “Didn’t you warn me how much Darrio Vargas hates me? What would the slum lord of Silverwood do if he found out that Juliet Donovan was living in his house, huh? Do you think he’d beat me? Rape me? Sell me to the highest bidder?”
Would any of that be any different than how I'm being treated by the town of Silverwood now?
“Maybe it’s a good thing my dad’s locked up,” I mutter. “He didn’t even know my mom had skipped down.”
“ Jules .” This time his tone is softer. I can’t let it get to me. “I’m sorry you had to go there alone. I know we promised?—”
A droplet of water slides down the center of my cheek and I quickly wipe it away, not sure if it’s a tear or rain. “Yeah, well, promises get broken, don’t they?” I snap, my chest squeezing impossibly tight. “Or do you consider them broken promises even when you never intended to keep them?”
“I—we did, Juliet, I swear to you. We’ve had shit going on. We meant to keep our promise. You shouldn’t have gone off on your own; we could have rescheduled.”
“Right, because my entire life is supposed to revolve around you now, is that it? Am I supposed to be your Scorpion Girl ?” I hiss the last two words like the vilest of curses. “There for your beck and call at all times?”
When am I going to learn this lesson? I ask myself. Nobody really wants me, they just want to use me.
“Of course not—you’re coming back from Hansgard, right? Where are you?—”
“No?” I cut him off. “You’ve treated me like a Scorpion Girl. First you and then Lex. Gio’s the only one who hasn’t tried to fuck me—which is a miracle considering he’s the manwhore of your little group. I assumed he would be the first.”
Nolan growls again, a sound of pure animal rage. “I did not try to fuck you, Juliet.” His voice dips deeper with each word. “Believe me, if I’d really been trying—there would be no guessing. I would have fucked you good and hard.”
“Yeah, but now you’ll never get the chance, will you?” Water splashes onto the sidewalk and I look up to see the public bus careen around the corner down the street.
I move out from under the cover of the tree and head towards the bus stop. “Just…” Nolan sighs. “Just come back and let’s talk about this. You don’t have to stay with me if you truly don’t want to. We can figure it out.”
“No,” I tell him, nearing the stop. “Like I said, there’s no need. I’ll figure it out myself. I always do.”
“You are coming back, Juliet,” Nolan growls. “If I have to track you down myself, you are coming back here. You can’t escape us.”
“Yeah?” I feel dead inside. “Watch me.”
“Jul—” I end the call before he can get another word out and when it immediately starts ringing, I turn it off.
Letting an older woman with a cane and a short bulky looking man get on the bus before me, by the time I enter the mildly warm interior and swipe my card, I’m drenched to the bone. My sneakers make squishing noises as I stride down the aisle and find an empty seat towards the back. Thankfully, there aren’t that many passengers at this time of day so even as the bus starts up again and heads off to a new stop, most people decide to stick close to the front.
I recline back against the hard bus seat and turn towards the window. The phone in my pocket is a heavy weight, a reminder of the stupid trust I’d given them. Pointless. Utterly pointless. I bite down on my lower lip as it begins to tremble and then squeeze my eyes shut as those start to burn. I shift around in my seat, turning my head to rest against the cool glass of the window.
Everyone chooses themselves or they always choose someone else.
The Scorpion Kings choose each other, and I thought … maybe … but I’d been wrong. As always, I’d been wrong. I’d misjudged Avery and Brandon and now the Scorpion Kings. A deep, wicked voice in my head points out that between my old friends and the Scorpion Kings, there’s only one common denominator—me.
My eyes reopen. Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I’m just … not worth choosing.
Actual tears fill my eyes turning the whole world into a blurry mess and I lower my head biting down harder until I taste blood. I force my eyes to stay open in the hopes that not blinking will stop the tears from falling, but I fail at that too. More and more come, leaking from my face and falling all over my lap.
To never trust again. Because trusting someone only ever ends in pain—and I’m always on the wrong side of misery.