Graveyard Games (17 page)

"I think we have some unfinished business?"
There was a light flutter in Dusty’s stomach when she looked into
Shane’s eyes. He hopped to the ground and Beverly looked at him,
bewildered.

"Can you give Bev a lift home?" Shane asked
Billy. "I have to go. Got some, uh," he looked sideways at Dusty.
"Unfinished business."

"Sure," Billy said. They were all watching
now, and Dusty felt uncomfortable.

"Get off my car," Shane told Jake and Evan,
who were still snorting the laughter of the impossibly high every
once in a while. Dusty followed him and got into the passenger's
side.

"Are you morons going to get off my car or
am I going to have to hurt you?" Shane leaned on the open driver's
side door. Jake and Evan started howling again, doubling over, but
they managed to roll off the hood.

Shane muttered something under his breath as
he ducked into the car and started it up. He put the Mustang into
reverse and, putting his arm across the back of the seat, he
quickly and effortlessly backed the car up onto the gravel running
along the edge of the path. Shane put the car into drive and
accelerated. Dusty twisted around to see Beverly still sitting on
the Mercury's hood, looking stunned.

"That wasn't very nice," Dusty told him,
turning back around.

"I'm not a nice guy, remember?" Shane
glanced back at them in the rearview mirror. Dusty didn’t dispute
this. He guided the car along the gravel. It was little more than a
path outside the ring of grass and inside the ring of trees.

"Where are we going?" Dusty asked as he
turned the car and started up the path leading out to the main
road. Dusty looked out the side window and, in the fading light
from the fire behind them, all she could see were the trunks of the
pine trees. The branches were high above them.

"You'll see." Shane came to the end of the
short path and turned right onto another dirt road, this one made
with two cars in mind. Dusty reached for her seat belt, and found
there wasn’t one.

"Where are your seat belts?"

Shane laughed, flipping on the radio.

"What's so funny?" Dusty demanded.

He looked at her and shook his head.

"You," he replied, still laughing, Robert
Plant on the radio proclaiming he was a soldier of love.

* * * *

"You know." Shane shut the car off. "It's
funny, I never read anything lately about the devil becoming a
Frigidaire salesman."

He clicked the headlights off. They were up
on Shadow Hills Bluff and Dusty was thinking of Tommy. It was the
last place she’d seen him alive.

"Since when do you read?" Dusty asked, but
her mind wasn’t on conversation. She looked across the hood of the
car, at the lights of the city below.

"Dusty," Shane said and she looked at him.
He touched her hair, rubbing a stand of it between his fingers.
"You up to finishing that piece of business?"

She didn’t answer him.

What am I doing? What if
this goes too far? What if it
has
gone too far?

She knew it had. Something fluttered in her
stomach, and a dull ache began to pound in her chest. Looking at
him, she tried to think of Nick, of Tommy, but they both seemed far
away. Everything seemed gone, except Shane, sitting her next to
her, close and getting closer.

He leaned over and kissed her, pulling her
toward him. His hands were eager, insistent, and she let herself
into his arms. Snuggling up to him and exhaling, she rested her
forehead on the soft spot of the side of his neck.

She unzipped his jacket and undid the
buttons of his shirt, running her hand over the hard, planed
muscles of his chest and stomach. There was a line of hair starting
at his navel and disappearing below the waistband of his jeans,
blackly exciting. Dusty touched it, her breath quickening.

"Dusty," he said hoarsely, almost pleading.
She lifted her head to look at him, aware of the power she held. He
put one hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his. She
became soft and pliable in his hold, relaxing against him. He
tasted like beer and it excited her.

She didn’t know how long she was in his
arms. A familiar smell filled the car—heated Old Spice and White
Lilac. She had expected to have to fight him off, but he was slow
and gentle, his hands and mouth expert but tender and caressing.
Her mind rejected this as impossible, but her body responded with a
fervor that frightened her. He was the first to push her away and
she looked at him in the dimness, drawing shaky breaths.

Silent, he looked out across the lights of
the town below. She moved back toward the passenger door, smoothing
back her hair, self-conscious now. Shane closed his eyes and shook
his head, as if to clear it. She sensed an undercurrent of emotion,
but couldn’t decipher it.

"What in the hell are you
doing here?" Shane barked, and Dusty jumped, startled. He laughed,
leaning his elbow on the steering wheel and his forehead in his
palm. "What am
I
doing here?"

He leaned back, running his hands through
his hair. Then he looked over at Dusty. "I don't get it. I could
deal with the flirting and the teasing—that was harmless
enough."

Dusty didn’t say anything.

"But this!” he said, his voice hoarse. “I
never expected you to show up tonight. Not in a million years.”

He laughed again, looking out the
windshield. "When Nick was alive, I wasn’t anything to you…now all
of a sudden you're flirting with me, teasing me, coming onto me,
and then this..."

"I wanted you.” His voice tightened. “And
you knew it. I've wanted you since the first day I saw you. But I
don't want you like this. As some sort of sacrifice? Is that what
this is?"

She was silent, head down, her long, dark
hair a curtain.

"Are you doing this because of Nick? Are
you, like, punishing yourself? Is this some weird, backwards kind
of atonement?" He was greeted by her silence.

"I see him." Shane’s voice was low in the
stillness. "Every time I look at you, I see him."

Shane reached over to push her hair out of
her face, his hand brushing her cheek. The radio radiated a
greenish glow as Pat Benatar sang about a hell for children.

"I miss him," he told her. "I missed him
when he left town, but this is different. This really…hurts."

She closed her eyes, understanding his pain
but not wanting to. It hit her, too, over and over, just little
things, like, “Gee, I guess Nick won’t be driving his Jeep
anymore,” or “Nick won’t care if I borrow his jacket,” and they
were morbid thoughts that slipped in, oh, so casually, their aim
sharply precise and accurate.

"You’re so beautiful," he whispered, running
a finger over her cheek. "I want you more than I've ever wanted
anything. I've wanted you since the day we met. Do you remember
that day, Dusty?"

She didn’t reply, didn’t
look at him, all too aware of his hand on her face, but she
did
remember. As much as
she would have liked to do a shearing job on
that
memory with her mind-scissors,
the stupid thing was made of steel.

"You saved my life..." He paused and looked
at her. "I remember what happened afterward, too, you know. It
was...it was a really nasty thing for me to do to you. I know I've
never told you but…I'm really sorry."

Dusty shook her head, putting her hands to
her head in a silent gesture. He couldn’t do this to her. He wasn’t
supposed to do this!

She had expected the mind
games, the flirting, the usual tough exterior—but not this, not the
genuine feeling suddenly and unexpectedly surfacing between them.
In all the time she’d known him, Shane Curtis had never,
ever
apologized. But now
here it was, hanging between them like a piece of dirty
laundry.

She didn’t want this now. It might have
helped if it had come when they were kids, after he’d hurt her,
humiliated her in front of everyone, but they were useless words
now. They meant nothing.

"I know it's why you hate me." His voice was
closer. "At least, that's a big part of it. It was just stupid kid
stuff, you know? I had a reputation to protect."

Why now? This was a side
of him she’d never seen, never
let
herself see, and she didn’t want to acknowledge
the sincerity in his voice.

"If I could take it back, I would," he said,
his words coming out a little hoarse. Were there tears in his
voice? She couldn’t believe it.

She felt his hand on her
hair and she thought of that bright, hot June day, thought of their
laughter, his snide remarks. She refused to believe he was sorry,
and she hated him,
hated
him...

"I swear to you, I never wanted to hurt
you." He cupped her chin in his palm.

No, no, no, her mind screamed, and she shook
her head, her chest closing up. She tasted the saltiness of tears
in her throat.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," he said
softly. She heard the smile in his voice, but knew he was serious,
too. "Stick a needle in my eye?"

When had she last heard that phrase? When
they were twelve, thirteen? They only used it when they were being
totally honest about something.

"Stop it!" she cried, the tears already
started, and she had to get out, get away from him. He couldn’t see
her cry. She couldn’t let that happen.

"I don't want to hear this," she choked out,
pushing the car door open with a shove. She stumbled toward the
guard rail on the edge of the bluff. She couldn’t stop the memories
or the tears. Her mind-scissors were dull from use, and she
collapsed, her hands gripping the steel railing.

"Dusty?" His voice, behind her.

"Go away!" she screamed through her tears.
"Just go away!"

She opened her eyes and looked down, the
city lights a dull blur. I could jump, she thought. Nothingness
would better than this. Shane took her by the shoulders and helped
her stand. She tried to push him away, but he was insistent.

"I hate you," she insisted, looking into his
eyes, over-bright in the moonlight.

"I..." He hesitated and touched a trembling
hand to her cheek. "I loved him."

He pulled her against him, so tight. She
sobbed, his face and hands buried in her hair, her tears wetting
his jacket, the cold stinging her face.

"Oh, god, I miss him so much, Shane," she
whispered.

"I know," he managed and held her closer.
She clung to him then, and they grieved together, taking what
comfort they could from each other's warmth.

* * * *

"So." Shane looked at her as the radio
played, radiating its eerie glow in the dimness.

The Mustang idled, headlights throwing twin
beams of light across the gravel driveway onto the garage door.
Dusty searched the upstairs windows for a sign of a face but saw
nothing.

"What happens now?" he asked as she shoved
open her door.

She hesitated and looked back over her
shoulder at him. A cold wind invaded the warmth of the car.

"I don't know," she said, getting out and
shutting the door.

She stood on the front porch, watching until
the scarlet of his tail lights were a blur in the distance, until
they disappeared. She unlocked the front door. Ghostly blue-green
filled the kitchen from the digital clock. No one had waited up for
her. Julia had gotten used to Dusty's trashy behavior—coming in at
one, two or even three in the morning.

She paused to kick her shoes off and drape
her coat over a chair before she headed up the steep, narrow steps
to her room. Moonlight threw shadows on the hallway wall, coming
from her bedroom. She had taken to leaving her door open.

She was alone up here.
Always alone. Her parents’ room, downstairs, was quiet. Nick's
room, a constant reminder, was also closed and silent. She hated
that she was the only one who had to go past it every day. No one
else did. There was a bathroom downstairs and
their
bedroom was down there. Julia
left clean laundry at the foot of the stairs, and an empty laundry
basket for dirty clothes. Dusty was the only one who had to go
upstairs during the night—or during the day for that matter, but
somehow, the nights were worse.

Nick was alive in her mind at night, and her
mind-scissors didn’t function as well when the shadows grew dark.
Thoughts seeped in, unwanted and sad, often bitter and
guilt-ridden. Lying on her bed, she could see the moon, bright and
full, peeking out from behind the clouds. Memories came during the
night. Everything came back—things she didn’t have to think about
during the day, things her mind-scissors took care of. She dreaded
coming to her room, passing his.

Tonight, Shane filled her thoughts as well.
It was Shane's face she saw when she closed her eyes, except he was
younger, so much younger—they all were. It was a time when they
were indestructible, when they were going to live forever, and
Larkspur was just one huge playground.

Summer stretched ahead, a shimmering lineal
highway that ended at infinity. Life came and went in gentle,
lapping waves: ups and downs, and most of all, warmth. The sun was
a molten white-hot coin in the sky, summer had begun and they
were...

* * * *

FREE!

Jean cut-offs worn over a black and white
two-piece bathing suit, the sun warm on already tanned shoulders,
Dusty walked the path, her tennis shoes crackling twigs.

Summer, summer,
summer,
it was a little sing-song voice.
Heading down to the pond while Nick was back at the house still
changing, Dusty contemplated freedom. She would get bored and start
wishing school would begin again, but that time was forever away
because summer had finally come, and it was delicious.