Pulled Within (9 page)

“This was the first chance I’ve had to come home,” he said. My neck slowly tilted downward until my vision fixed on him. “I’ve missed it.”

I could tell he was waiting for something. Did he expect me to
fade into his arms? To wrap my mouth around the sweetness of his?
I wasn’t the soft thing he’d left behind all those years ago. I was made
of scars now, of storms and squalls that tossed me about and made
my life unpredictable.

I was hardened.

“I get it,” I said. And I did; I understood his answers, and the
position he’d been in, even though there had been years in between for him to pick up a phone and offer an explanation. As fucked up as
it was, a part of me was grateful for it. I didn’t know what I would
have done if he had come to my house to say good-bye, or if he had called
me from prep school. Because he hadn’t, my life had gone in a
different direction, much darker than I’d expected.

And after all these years, he’d found me again, at what was possibly
my lowest moment. What that meant or what was supposed to
happen, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what either of us wanted. All I knew was
twenty-nine days
.

And he hadn’t even apologized for leaving me behind.

I couldn’t give in to him now.

“Don’t ask for any more minutes,” I said.

A playful look came over his face. I had to stop myself from
smiling.
“I won’t…for today. But this won’t be the last you see of me. You
know
that.” He didn’t make any attempt to back up or drop his hands
from the window.

“Do I? This from the guy who leaves in the middle of the night
without a good-bye and doesn’t ever call.” I knew this kind of
bitterness would come out sooner or later.

I turned, ducked my head and dropped into the seat of my car.
My hands fumbled with the key before getting it to start.

“You’re not going to get very far with the amount of gas I just put in. Unless that’s your plan…” The grin hadn’t left his lips.

It made me angry more than anything. I didn’t need to be
rescued more than once.

Saved from myself, maybe. But that wasn’t something Hart
would be able to do.

“I’m headed to the gas station now.”

He leaned against the open window, not far from my unmarked
cheek. I’d washed off most of my makeup in Brady’s bathroom; I
knew how exposed my scar was. But I hadn’t caught him staring at it. Not
even once. Either he didn’t want to see the way time had ravaged
me, or he couldn’t see it at all.

I didn’t know which would be better.

I broke away from his gaze, trying to settle my stomach and get
rid
of his scent that seemed to have settled in my nose. “See you
around.” I put the car in reverse.

He pushed off the window and took several steps back. “Yes, you will.”

AS I FILLED
my gas tank, I considered the places I could crash. I
really only needed a few weeks before I’d be able to afford something on
my own. Of course, I’d have nothing to fill it with, to sleep on, or sit
on, but it would be mine. In the meantime, Caleb’s house was probably the best spot for me. It was the biggest house and had the most room out of all the places Brady and his boys hung out. And since Caleb’s
parents had given him the house and it was all paid for, there
wouldn’t be a landlord to evict me. For now, that would work.

I got back in my car and texted Caleb and his roommate, Jeremy,
to ask if I could stay for a bit. Their replies welcomed me to, for as
long as I needed. I’d spent enough time there to know there was an empty
bedroom in the back, and that I’d be sharing a bathroom with
Jeremy.
With my work schedule, I’d really only be there to sleep. It didn’t
matter how late or early I arrived; the guys would always be home.

Drug dealers didn’t usually get out much.

Before he’d disappeared, the rumor around town was that Brady
was dealing again. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He did push the occasional ounce of weed or pounds for the guys who liked to buy in larger quantities. But he wasn’t a street-level dealer, and he didn’t do it
every day. And he
definitely hadn’t made it a career. He just had a solid connection
with a guy in northern Maine who grew it, and he liked to snort the profits. The real dealers were Caleb and Jeremy. They were able to get their
hands on anything
—
heroin, meth, even bath salts. But since one of
their
tweakers had flipped out after Caleb ran out of meth, poured gas all
over the front porch, and tried to blow up the house, the guys were
more selective with whom they sold to and what they kept around.

A long dirt road led up to the house. The guys’ cars were parked
on the grass; they were the only ones there besides mine. I was
thankful for that.

I waddled up to the front door with the two bags and my
suitcase.
After my double-knock, Jeremy answered and led me toward the
back of the house. He scratched the top of his scalp as he walked, pulling
his red strands in all different directions. I didn’t know if it was gel
or filth, but the hair stayed where he left it.

On the carpet of the bedroom was a bare mattress that he said I could use. A mound of crumpled clothes sat next to it, and even
more were on
the floor of the closet. There were splatter stains on each wall, and
two
empty condom wrappers in the corner. If I looked hard enough, I’d probably find the filled rubbers somewhere in there, too. The room
reeked of sour milk. It could have been from the clothes, or the cans
of beer that were littered throughout, or from any of the stains that
had hardened on the carpet.

And Hart had wanted to help me move into my new place…

I made a mental list of everything I needed to pick up on my
way to work, things that would make this room clean and livable. Then I joined the guys in the living room. There were pieces of bud all over
the glass table. Some were small enough to be rolled; the rest were
waiting to be bagged. Other empty cans had been tossed on the floor beside the couch. At least every wood-paneled wall had a hole in it,
and they were covered in a blackish film that turned the grain much darker than it was supposed to be. The cleanest thing in there was the flat-screen that hung in front of us, and even that had handprints all over it.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” I said, tucking my feet underneath
me and leaning into the end of the sectional. “I just need a couple
weeks and I’ll be able to afford my own place.”

“Don’t rush out,” Jeremy said. “There’s way too much cock and
takeout boxes and unused bottles of bleach up in here. We need a
girl
roommate.” He put a glass bowl up to his lips and took a hit,
holding
the smoke in for a while before he finally coughed it into the air.
Then
he passed the bowl to Caleb. “The place is starting to fucking smell.
Keep telling Caleb that, but he says he doesn’t smell shit.”

Maybe that was because Caleb couldn’t smell
anything
past his hair. Since we’d graduated, I’d been telling him to cut it. He hadn’t
listened. The dreads made everyone think he was a hippie; his patchy beard
and Birkenstocks only added to the image. He never dressed in
anything
other than a hoodie, jeans and wool socks—even in the summer. His
teeth were starting to turn the color of resin. The truth was, he
wasn’t a
hippie at all. He was just lazy, and grime—whether it was around
him or actually on him—didn’t bother him.

“How’s my boy?” Caleb asked, smoke drifting from his lips as he spoke. He banged the bowl against his palm to empty it,
collecting the ash and wiping it on his jeans. They were already so dirty, the streak was hardly noticeable. Scooping up a few buds, he packed the bowl again and handed it to me.

Smoke began to fill my mouth. I blew it out and said, “He’s still in detox. At least that’s what Shane told me in his last text. Brady hasn’t called me since he left.”

There was a knock at the door, and Jeremy got up to answer it.
The living room was in the back of the house so I wasn’t able to see who
it was. Not that it mattered. Unless they were friends, the guys
usually didn’t let anyone in past the kitchen.

“When I heard Brady had been in Bangor,” Caleb said, taking the bowl from my hand, “I called some of my boys up there. No one
had seen him around. Whoever he was with is way deeper than the
connections I have.”

Jeremy returned to the living room, taking the same spot on the
couch, reaching for the pipe as soon as he sat. “They wanted a
dime,” he said to Caleb.

I thought about Brady’s face, and how beaten it had been when
I’d picked him up. “Do you think he’s in trouble?” I didn’t know
anyone in Bangor, so there was no one I could check with or call.

Caleb shrugged. “If he is, I’ve got his back. He knows that.”

“Me too,” Jeremy said. The whites of his eyes were now the
same color as his hair.

Brady had helped out these guys so much over the years,
especially
when the cops had been tipped off and told that they were all
dealing. When Caleb had a hard time moving the rest of his supply, Brady
took care of it. The cops hadn’t found anything in Caleb’s house
when they’d searched it.

“Hope Brady doesn’t think he’ll be getting any drugs from me
when he gets out,” Jeremy said. It was strange hearing those words come from someone who had a beer in his hand and probably more than a few pills up his nose.

Caleb laughed while he tied an elastic around his knots. “You
said
the same thing about Tiff when she went to rehab, and Evan, and
they were just here buying shit from us last night.”

“Brady’s different,” Jeremy said. He reached for one of the cigars
on the table and sliced it open with a razor blade, emptying out all
the tobacco. Then he wetted the leaves in his mouth and filled the center
with weed. “We’ve known him since we were kids. Guy’s got a
chance to do something good, you know?”

“Whatever,” Caleb said. He wiped his hands on his jeans again. “If Brady wants something, Brady’s going to get something. I’m not denying my boy.”

This was just another thing that would have to change once
Brady got out of rehab. He couldn’t come here anymore. I wasn’t even sure
if he could still be friends with these guys. I wondered if he’d
considered
any of that, since almost everyone he hung out with either used or
sold. Most did both.

Pot and alcohol were the hardest things I’d touched. And I didn’t consider weed to be all that bad, since it would soon be legal
to buy it in Maine. Still, I’d give it up for Brady because Jeremy was right: he
did have a chance to do something good with his life. More of a
chance than the rest of us did. Shane was going to eventually give him the business. I wouldn’t let him screw that up.

“Rae, you won’t believe who I saw at the store the other day,” Caleb said.

I knew exactly who he had seen. He’d directed the question at
me, after all. “Who’s that?” I asked, playing dumb.

“Hart Booker,” he continued.

“No shit?” Jeremy said. He was holding the blunt against his
lips, licking the inside flap before he finished the roll. “Haven’t seen that kid since…damn, I can’t even remember the last time.”

Neither of them had hung out with Hart the summer before he
left,
which would have made it the end of our freshman year when
they’d
last seen him. He was an athlete; people in our crew were already
stoners
at that point. We partied in different crowds, which was why I was surprised Hart had even been interested in me. But we went to a
small
school where everyone knew everyone. And there was just
something between us, regardless of who surrounded us.

Our paths had diverged, and though we’d ended up with very
different lives, we were both in Bar Harbor once again. That was a strange thought.

“He bought that old B&B off Main Street,” I said. “Shane’s
helping him convert it into a spa.”

Caleb’s brows rose, looking like he’d actually gotten a whiff of himself. “Sounds like I’m not the only one that ran into him.”

 I nodded. “I saw him today.”

And yesterday, which was something they didn’t need to know. Not because I was trying to hide it, but because it just didn’t matter.

And yet…he was still on my mind.

I didn’t want this.

“Maybe he can get one of his girls to cut that fucking bush on
top of your head,” Jeremy said, looking right at Caleb. He stuck the end of
the blunt into his mouth and lit the tip, taking long, deep drags to
really get it puffing. “It looks like a nasty pussy, don’t it, Rae?”

“I’ve got to get ready for work,” I said, standing from the couch.

“Pass the blunt, Jeremy, and shut the hell up,” Caleb said.

I reached the entrance of the hallway and turned around. “I
won’t be back until around four in the morning. Will you guys be up, or do you want to give me a key or something?”

“We’ll be up,” Jeremy said. “Just text us on your way home.”