Twenty-Eight

Jasper

I must be a glutton for punishment because I climb through the hole in the fence and walk past Winnie’s trailer on my way to The Whip. I have no idea if she’s planning on working tonight or not. If I had to guess, she won’t be back. Not after the way we left things.

Her neighbor’s bike isn’t in the driveway, and his trailer’s completely dark. There’s a light shining through the front window at Winnie’s, but I don’t think it’s from her room. If her place is set up like Ace’s, it’s the living room, and I don’t think Winnie ever hangs out there.

Like a creeper, I check the bedroom windows. There’s a tall figure in one and darkness in the other. I figure it’s Jax, and that means Tess is there, too. The chances of Winnie being home are slim, so I keep walking toward the playground.

Glancing over my shoulder, I look at the neighbor’s one more time, praying the lights aren’t off because they’re in his bed. The image of her wrapped around him gets me so pissed, I kick an empty soda can lying in the gutter. It bounces off a mailbox and lands in the grass.

Why him and not me? Is it because he has his own place? His own bike? He’s the easier choice when she needs to escape?

Winnie’s the only one who knows why she chose him. Until I talk to her—or at least try to have a rational conversation with her without losing my shit—I won’t have a clue as to why she wants him. Maybe it’s none of my business, but I feel like, the second we connected at work, I made Winnie my business. And what gets me so worked is that she let me. Little by little, her walls were crumbling, and she was opening up to me. I wasn’t imagining it. Ace saw it, too.

As I walk by the playground, I check the tube slide, just in case she’s inside. It’s empty, and that should bring me some relief. I just get more annoyed that I don’t know where she is. Finding her wouldn’t change her feelings though. It’s not like she would give him up and decide she wanted me.

I’m early, but it’s too late to hang out outside at the picnic tables. The back door to The Whip is propped open, and one of the distributors is unloading cases of beer. I’ve seen him here plenty of times, but I still check him out, wondering if he could be the guy who lives across the street. Winnie never told me his name or what he did for a living. All I know is what I saw. And what I saw isn’t much. He keeps himself closed off, and that makes their connection more puzzling.

Ace’s office door is closed, which isn’t out of the ordinary, and I open it without knocking. I stop dead in my tracks, not expecting Winnie to be standing next to Ace’s desk. She has her uniform polos in her hands and sets them on Ace’s desk. She’s quitting.

“What’s up, Jasper?” he asks and then hands Winnie an envelope. It’s probably the rest of the money he owes her.

I hate that she’s quitting because of me. I can be cool about things. We can be in the same room without touching or kissing.

But I’ll still want Winnie, no matter what. Her blue eyes and dark hair splayed across my pillow are all I can think about. She wasn’t even mine, and I want her back.

Ace waits for me to say something, but I can’t. If I open my mouth, I’ll beg Winnie to stay at The Whip, so I can still see her. Because, if she quits, I know she’ll disappear from my life completely. It’s not like I can go to her house, and she’ll let me in. The Whip is the only place we had in common this summer, and she’s taking that away from me.

Winnie stuffs the envelope she’s holding in her pocket. “Thanks, Ace,” she says. Then, she walks past me without so much as a hello or a good-bye.

We both watch her close the door, and then Ace leans back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I thought I’d have to pull you two out of the shower one of these days, and now, you’re awkward as hell. What happened?”

It’s always my fault. He’d never ask Winnie that question because I’m the screwup. I’m the one who has his shit together way more than he ever did, but I still always manage to mess up the good things in my life.

“Nothing happened. We were good, and now, we’re not.”

Ace laughs, and I want to punch him. If we weren’t at work, I probably would.

“You were attached at the hip, and now, she can barely even look at you. You either suck with girls or you found someone else, and she’s upset about it.”

“Other way around,” I stress.

God, that hurts to say out loud. There’s no way around it though. Winnie’s in love with someone else, a guy who lives in a beat-up trailer and rides in and out as he pleases, probably seeing three other girls on the side. She’ll stay devoted to him because Winnie wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s the kind of girl who falls once in a lifetime, and nothing will compare to her first love. If they don’t work out, every guy after him will have to climb a mountain and jump off the top to compete with the memories. Everyone else will spend the rest of their lives trying to catch up to him.

Ace looks surprised, shocked even. “You two seemed good. I saw her climbing out of your window and thought you’d finally bagged a chick.”

“Don’t talk about her like that.”

“Ah, still defending her. She breaks your heart, and you can’t let go. You’ll learn, little brother. Never fall first.” He laughs again and spins around in his stupid desk chair.

I’m glad this is amusing him. You’d think the guy who was walked out on would have a little more sympathy.

“You’re an asshole.”

“I might be an asshole, but I’m not the reason she quit,” he tells me.

“She said that?”

“Didn’t have to. It was written all over her face. When I brought your name up, she clammed up and couldn’t look at me. She’s watching Lydia though. Figured she still needed money, and it’ll give Mom a break. So, I’m not a total asshole, Jasper. I do have a heart.”

I guess I should be thankful that he didn’t let her walk out of here with no money coming in. Ace was just as scared as I was when she passed out. At least he thought of another way to help her.

“Good, I’m glad.”

He kicks his feet up onto the desk and relaxes. “I might take a beach day if you want to go with me.”

The beach. I could be there right now, soaking up some sun, maybe even hooking up with some girls. But, when I think about kissing someone, the only lips I want belong to Winnie. She’s the one I want to be with.

I need to talk to her.

“I’ll be back,” I tell him.

“Don’t piss her off. I need her to babysit!” he yells as I jog back toward the parking lot. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where I’m going.

I expect Winnie’s halfway home by now, but as soon as I round the corner, I see her kicking around the mulch on the playground, and I wonder if she’s waiting for me. Why else would she be lingering around The Whip after she quit?

But, the closer I get, I see the smile on her face and the phone in her hand. I didn’t think she had a phone, but whomever she’s talking to has put a huge grin on that gorgeous face of hers.

I wait until she hangs up, and then I catch up to her.

She jumps when I fall into stride next to her, matching her footsteps. “You scared me.”

I skip the apologies this time. I’m sorry she’s with someone else, but I’m not sorry I followed her. “Why’d you quit, Winnie?”

“It was time.”

“You just started. The Whip was our thing. You look out for me, and I look out for you while we’re there.”

“Things change. I shouldn’t have been working there anyway. I’m not old enough to be in a place like that.”

“Neither am I.”

Her excuse is lame and not the reason she quit. I want her to admit that I’m the reason, and then maybe I’ll let it go.

“Don’t make this harder, Jasper. I had to quit. We both know it would have been weird.”

It’s weird because she quit. It’s weird because she was in bed with me and then kissing someone else. She did this; I didn’t.

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Winnie. Let me back in, and we’ll go back to being friends.”

“It’s not that simple,” she says. “We both know there’s more to it than that.”

Does that mean she feels something, too? Because, if she does, I definitely won’t give up on her. I’ll stick around until she realizes she made the wrong choice.

“Who is he? Did he give you the phone?”

She nods and then chews on her fingernail. It’s not like I can’t find out who’s living in the trailer. All I have to do is look up the address or make a couple of calls, and I’ll have the information.

“Does he go to our school?”

“No,” she whispers. “He’s not from around here.”

“Where does he work?”

“Why are you asking me so many questions? It doesn’t matter where he works or how much money he makes. I don’t care about those things.”

For someone who doesn’t care, she sure is defensive about him. I want to keep pressing her for answers, but pissing her off will only push her further away. I go for honesty instead.

“I’m just making sure you’re okay, Winnie.”

A little smile peeks out. She tries to keep it hidden, but it seems like she appreciates the fact that I still care. I care. She might not want my attention anymore, but I can’t magically unlike the girl. She’s ingrained in my brain like a bad habit, a habit I don’t see myself kicking anytime soon.

“I’m okay, Jasper.”

“You always say that, even when you’re hurting.”

She doesn’t disagree. Then, she surprises me and starts talking, “He’s taking classes, so he has to go back and forth between work and school a lot. Sometimes, he stays there and doesn’t come home. He’ll be gone for a couple of weeks actually.”

A couple of weeks.

“So, you’re free to hang out while he’s away?”

“Jasper, I can’t,” she says.

Then, she gets distracted by a text on her phone. Obviously, it’s from him because her eyes light up as she reads it. I’d do anything to be the one to put that look on her face.

She never finishes her sentence because a couple of cop cars fly by us so fast, she almost drops the phone. We both watch them drive down the road and then come to a stop in the trailer park. Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about it, but Winnie’s eyes grow wide.

“What?” I ask her.

“I can’t tell from here, but I think they might have stopped in front of my house.”

I grab her hand because it’s shaking, and she’s so scared, she lets me hold it. But that’s been our thing, so I try not to read into it.

We jog, hand in hand, down the street, toward the flashing lights. The closer we get, the tighter her grip is.

“It’s okay, Winnie. I promise.”

“You don’t know that,” she says. “The police don’t show up for no reason. If they bust Tess and Jax, I’ll have to leave, too.”

She shouldn’t have said that. Now that she’s laid the truth on the line, my nonchalant attitude disappears, and I want to heave into the bushes. They can’t take Winnie away. She needs people who will watch out for her. She has Ace and me and whoever the guy is across the street. Without us, she’ll be all alone.

I pull on her arm and slow her down. “Hang back a second.”

Two cop cars are lined up out front, and there’s an ambulance in the driveway. Jax is on the stairs, talking with an officer.

“I have to go inside and see what’s going on.”

“You can’t. It might not be safe.”

She leans against my side, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders. An officer notices us standing there and walks over.

Winnie looks up at me and then back down. “Jasper, I can’t. The last time I talked to the cops, my dad was dead.”

“I’ve got this,” I tell her. “Let me handle it.”

I’ve never been face-to-face with an officer. I haven’t been pulled over for speeding or been in any accidents. When we’re little, we’re told to trust law enforcement and that they’re here for our own good. Right now, all I see is a threat. They could take Winnie away from me.

The officer asks some simple questions, and I tell him who Winnie is and that she lives there. He doesn’t make her talk, only notes where she is and what she’s doing. He jots a few things down on some paper and then delivers news that lets the air back into my lungs.

Tess didn’t overdose, and she’s going to be okay.

When I walk back over to Winnie, she says, “What is it, Jasper? Just say it.”

“She fell and knocked her head on the side of the tub. They’re taking her to the hospital for some stitches and observation because she passed out.”

“Do they know about the drugs?”

I shrug because I have no idea. That’s not the kind of thing you bring up to a cop. Considering Tess was getting ready for a shift at The Whip, there’s a chance she might have been fairly sober. Sometimes, she waits until she’s there to get lit even though Ace tells all the girls to keep their shit out of his dressing room.

“I thought she was dead,” she says.

There’s no chance she’s gone. Even with a concussion, Tess’s heart is still beating. The stretcher makes its way out of the house, and the medics load her in the back of the ambulance. Other than the IV in her arm and the bandage around her head, she seems okay.

Winnie watches the whole thing play out, and then Jax walks across the yard, toward us. She grabs my hand again, and I step in front of her, shielding her body from him. He won’t do anything stupid as long as the cops are here, but that doesn’t mean he won’t say a bunch of shit he shouldn’t.

She cowers behind me, and Jax looks angry enough to break her in half. He gets so close, I can smell the alcohol on his breath.

“You say one word, little girl, and you’ll pay.”

He’s high and drunk.

“Back the fuck up,” I tell him.

Jax laughs and takes one more step. “Say one word about me or Tess. I dare you.”

“Where are they taking Tess?” Winnie asks.

“The hospital.”

There’s more than one within a half hour from here. I didn’t expect him to give me any useful information though. Jax is a dick, and we’ll figure it out on our own. I don’t want to talk to anyone else, but I lead Winnie toward the officer I spoke with, and he tells me where to go.

Then, he grabs a couple of cards from his breast pocket and gives us each one. “My name and number,” he says. “Call me anytime. And I’ll be in touch.”

Winnie seems uneasy about that. She knows how dangerous it is for them to come around. She hates her life, the trailer, and the people inside of it, but take it all away, and her life won’t be much better. It’s a lose-lose situation.

“He knows, Jasper. They’re going to take me.”

“Nobody’s taking you anywhere.”

She sniffles and says, “I need to go to the hospital.”

“Why?”

“Because, if I’m there, maybe it’ll look like I love her. They might let me stay if I pretend like everything’s okay.”

“But it’s not, Winnie. You’re not okay.”

“I will be. I’m better, Jasper. I swear.”

Is she better because of him? Or is she better because she’s another day closer to turning eighteen?

Going to the hospital is the last thing I want to do. I’m not even sure it’s the best idea, but if that’s where she wants to be, I’ll go with her.

“I’ll see if I can borrow the car. If not, I’ll take Ace’s.”

The ambulance doors slam shut, and Jax stands at the end of the driveway with his hands in his hair. He looks wrecked. I wish this were the wake-up call he and Tess needed, but nothing will change. The doctors will fix Tess up and send her home, and life will go on as usual.