14 #2
“Don’t kill us.” He rests his chin on my shoulder and his breath warms my ear as he presses his foot on the gas pedal and urges the Civic even faster.
His hand wraps around my stomach, splaying there and his pinky plays with the hem of my tank top as I focus on the road beneath us.
The highway is empty tonight, like it knew we were coming and the faster we move the further we get away from all the problems.
“You ready?” he whispers and I nod, making sure I have a good grip on the wheel as he does it again. The car surges forward and it rattles through my bones, clearing out every single bad thought I’ve had all day. This is why he drives, it resets everything.
Almost everything.
The way he shut me down plays in the back of my mind.
Last year after Koa asked me to be his girlfriend, Riggs changed.
He shut down and retreated back into a dark little shell.
He forces a pretty smile, does the work his Mom needs him to do, does alright in school and protects his siblings.
But… he’s different now. Every glance he gives me is distant.
Unless we’re alone and then I see him again, like he lets himself out of whatever cage he’s locked himself in.
The sting of what Riggs has never said lingers. The question constantly echoes in the back of my mind, the need to know never dulling.
PRESENT DAY
“What did he do that day?” I say to Riggs and his brow furrows.
“What day?” His chest heaves beneath his shirt and I know he wants answers, a reaction but I don’t know what to say to him. My heart’s racing so fast that I can’t even hear myself breathing and for a second I think that this is what it feels like to have a heart attack.
“The last time you took me out,” I remind him and his face drops.
“Shot a kid. He was your age.” He swallows thickly. “We were running our first pick up for Westfall. It was a BMW. It wasn’t worth a life, but the kid got into it with Koa and I can still hear the pop sometimes.”
“What?” My lips part in confusion. Koa had been at the island the morning after eating cereal with a grin on his face as he spun the quarter in his fingers. I was never the wiser.
“We dropped the car off, Koa took off and I came home.”
To you.
He came back to me and Koa ran.
“You…” I lick my bottom lip. Came home.
“Cress, none of that matters anymore. We were kids.” He doesn’t take his eyes off me.
You.
“It obviously matters or you wouldn’t have said that…” My voice lowers and I look to the ground.
“I was angry,” he says, his tone dropping.
“Are you sure?” I ask, unable to look away.
“Yeah.” He huffs. It’s all I get from him because he moves toward his coat, swiping it off the hood of a nearby car and disappears out the front of the garage.
Subconsciously, my body seeks out the comfort and I pull his shirt up around my face as I walk back to the house.
More confused than ever. Birdie is sitting on the counter talking to Jesse as she drinks down her cereal milk.
Both of them go quiet when I wander in but I ignore the awkwardness and make my way upstairs to shower.
You.
It vibrates through my bones and I can’t seem to shake the hollow, lonely expression on his face after he said it. All these years I knew there was resentment. I just didn’t realize that he held it all toward Koa because of me.
Everything hits me at once, we murdered a man tonight and no matter how bad of a man he was…
he died at our hands. Everything is still such a mess and it feels like we’re no closer to figuring out what’s going on than when we started all this.
I just want my life back, I want to go back to being sad in my house alone, far, far away from Riggs.
I can’t tell how long I’ve been here. The heat seems to soothe some of my worries but the water turns frigid and I continue to stare at the tiles until it hurts my skin and shortens my breath.
My stomach yells at me as I dry off and pull on a pair of pajamas.
Just happy to be out of the dress and feeling clean again.
I creep back downstairs, hoping that everyone has gone to bed to find Riggs moving around in the kitchen.
I watch him for a moment as he pulls something from a bag under the soft light of the stove, he’s tense but nothing like he was before.
As much as I want to push the subject I decide it’s better just to leave him alone and turn to retreat back to the safety of my room but the creaky stairs give me away.
“You never were good at being sneaky,” Riggs sighs, looking over his shoulder.
“You and that shitty Civic were the reason we always got caught.” I argue.
“You walk like an elephant,” he stares at me. “Here.”
He points to the counter and I can’t help but smile.
There’s a milkshake from the mom-and-pop diner down the street, but also french fries from a restaurant in town and a burger from Joeys. He went and picked up each one of my favorites, just like when we were kids.
“This trick isn’t supposed to work anymore.” I reach out and take the milkshake into my hand, it’s chocolate-banana and that only hurts more because he remembers everything.
“Mm,” Riggs smirks, stealing a fry to dip into the top of my cup. “But it is working, isn’t it?”
“A little.” I admit. I sip on the milkshake for a second longer before speaking finally, “I had nowhere else to go, if I could have kept you all clear of this I would have.”
“This is exactly what they wanted, whoever is doing this. They want us at each other's throats…” Riggs scowls. “And it’s working.”
“I’m sorry,” I confess. “I never meant to make it worse.”
“It’s the same as it always was, Cress.”