CHAPTER THREE
Seth
Eighteen Years Old – Three Years Later
Over the years, I’d grown to love going to Miami for the summer. Most of it was because Joss was there. She’d become my best friend. She had a shitty mother who we nicknamed Cruella. I didn’t even know her mom’s real name because we’d always used her nickname. Joss always had a smile on her face because she was strong and funny and beautiful inside and out, unlike her mother. I didn’t know how she did it. If Cruella were my mom, I’d be a horrible person. I wouldn’t go to school, I would sneak out of the house, and I’d probably be drinking and doing drugs. I just wouldn’t give a fuck. Every time I talked to Grandma on the phone (which was multiple times a week), I made sure to chat with Joss. If anything were to ever happen to her, I’d lose my shit.
Then there was Cat. I met her three years ago. Joss and I were like brother and sister, but Cat and I were something else entirely. Something I couldn’t describe.
“Seth, this is my best friend, Cat.”
I tore my gaze from the hot pursuit going on during the episode of Cops. All morning Joss had been talking about her friend Cat, and honestly, it was annoying.
“Hello, Kitty Cat,” I teased.
Cat didn’t say a word.
“Cat got your tongue?” God, I cracked myself up. But as I looked her up and down and got a good view of the girl who couldn’t speak, my heart did something in my chest. Something I’d never felt before. It was almost as though it swelled and wanted to beat for the two of us. I felt like I was under this girl’s spell, and she was only twelve. How could I think a twelve-year-old was pretty? I was fifteen. I would be driving as soon as school started. I didn’t want this girl, but my heart was trying to tell me something different.
“Why are you being so mean?” Joss whined and slapped my arm.
“Well, does she talk?”
“Yes, she talks,” Joss answered.
I stared at Cat, her big chocolate eyes staring back at me, until she finally spoke. “Yes … Yes, I talk.”
“Aw, the kitty cat speaks,” I teased some more. I felt like a little boy with his first crush who, instead of being nice to the girl he wanted to hold hands with, was being mean to her.
Joss took a seat next to me on the couch. “Don’t call her that.”
“What? Kitty Cat?”
“Yeah.”
I glanced up at Cat. She looked happy. She was biting her lower lip, trying not to smile. She totally liked me calling her kitty cat.
“Sorry,” I apologized, though I didn’t mean it, and then I changed the subject. “You wanna go swimming?”
Cat shrugged. “Sure.”
We had to wait until Joss’s mom went to work before we were able to go to the pool. Cruella was a royal bitch. She wouldn’t let Joss do anything away from her trailer except go to school, and now that there was no school, Joss took care of her two-year-old brother, Bryce. Of course, Grandma was the real person watching the kid. Joss was responsible, but she was only a child herself. This was her summer, and Joss needed to have fun. That’s why I made sure to tell my parents I wanted to come to Florida for the summer each year. Joss needed me. My parents had worked their stuff out and were happy to get rid of me. Dad got a detective job and wasn’t always in the line of fire. It helped my mother sleep at night. Before leaving for Miami this year, I’d overheard Dad telling Mom that when he got back from dropping me off at the airport, he wanted her naked. I didn’t want to think about my parents naked!
After Joss’s mom went to work, we finally made it swimming.
“Marco!” Joss called out at the other end of the pool.
“Polo!” Cat and I yelled back. We were side by side, our shoulders pressing together when the motion of the water moved us. “So, you like me calling you kitty cat or what?” I whispered, not wanting Joss to hear where we were.
Cat’s brown eyes snapped to me, and she grinned. “I don’t mind.”
“Good.”
“Marco!”
“Polo!” we both said back.
“What’s your nickname for Joss?” Cat whispered. We moved away from the approaching Joss with her eyes closed, the water rippling around us.
I shrugged. “I don’t have one. Joss is her nickname.” Her name was Joselyn, but everyone called her Joss.
“Oh. Well, I like the nickname.” Cat smiled, and I smiled back.
I liked the nickname too.
Over the last few years, we’d all became best friends. It sucked that I only got to see them during the summer, but during the school year, we’d keep in touch with phone calls after school or even chat on AOL. I was going to miss them. Now that I’d graduated from high school, this would be my last summer to spend time with them. I was going to start community college, get my prereqs for the academy, and then become a cop. I’d probably still come down for a week or two in the summer, but I had to get a job too. Money, freedom, and chicks (at least my current girlfriend back in D.C.) while I passed the time until I needed to hit it hard to become a police officer.
That was the plan.
But now as I watched Cat walk in the door of my grandma’s trailer, she was no longer a little girl. I was eighteen, and she was fifteen. The little girl I left last fall didn’t seem to exist anymore. Her beautiful brown eyes stood out with blackened lashes. Lips I wanted to taste shined with a shimmery pink gloss. God, her tanned legs went on for miles in her short shorts, and I was staring at her like she was the first girl I’d ever seen. She was, for sure, the most beautiful.
Snap out of it, dipshit! Fucking perv.
“Why are you staring at me?” Cat frowned.
My green eyes flicked up to her chocolate ones. “I’m not staring at you,” I lied.
“Whatever. Are you going to give me a hello hug or are you too good for that since you’re an adult now?”
And then there was that little fact. Since I was legally an adult, I couldn’t even kiss—
Wait.
I wanted to kiss Cat? No! I only had that thought because I was missing my girlfriend back home. Yeah, that was it. I mean, how would it look for a guy who was going to be a cop, to be charged with statutory rape? It wouldn’t look good at all. In fact, I would be fucked. I had to wait three years until I was twenty-one before I could even apply to become a cop in D.C. and that wait was going to be torture. No way was I going to mess up my fate by kissing some girl.
Except Cat wasn’t some girl. She was Cat. My Kitty Cat.
“I’m waiting for you to walk over here and give me one,” I teased.
Cat walked toward where I sat on the velvet couch with burnt orange roses and went to punch me in the arm. I caught her fist in my hand. “Why are you trying to hit me?”
“You deserve it.”
“Joss-a-lyn,” Bryce called from down the hall. “I got poop on my hand.”
“Doody calls.” I laughed.
Joss groaned and went to wipe her brother’s shit. It was then that I realized I was still holding Cat’s fist in my hand as she stood in front of me. I looked down at our joined hands and then up to her eyes. She didn’t pull away, and neither did I. Instead, I pulled her on top of me and gave her the hug we both wanted.
What I needed.
“I’ve missed you, Kitty Cat,” I spoke into her hair that smelled like flowers.
“I’ve missed you too, 5-0.” She’d given me that nickname the first time she learned I was going to be a cop.
“You kids going to the movies?”
Cat pulled off of me, standing while I still sat on the couch. My gaze moved to Grandma to answer her.
“Yeah. Just waiting on Bryce to finish shitting.”
Grandma tsked. “Seth! Watch your mouth.”
“Is that not what he was screaming about?” I turned and looked at Cat for confirmation.
“Yeah, Mrs. McKenna. Joss is wiping his butt now.”
Grandma took a seat in her olive green recliner. “Good. That means while y’all are at the movies, I won’t have any accidents to clean up.”
Can I just say that my grandma is the best? I mean, Cruella gets knocked up and then pawns her baby on the neighbor? Grandma and Joss have been taking care of that boy ever since he was born.
Joss and Bryce walked down the hall from the bathroom, and Bryce immediately ran to the controller of the PlayStation 2 I’d brought with me from home. He had no idea what he was doing while he drove around a city in a car that he’d stolen. I, on the other hand, knew that he could pick up hookers if he wanted to. Grand Theft Auto III was everything I couldn’t be. The premise of the game was to complete missions, but really it was fun to steal cars, beat some fuckers up, and run over hookers.
I knew Bryce was too young for the game, but he enjoyed it, and it wasn’t as though a video game was going to shape his future. He was five or some shit, and I was certain he had no idea what he was doing besides running shit over with the car. I felt bad for the kid. Joss and Grandma were trying their hardest to raise him, but that wasn’t supposed to be their job.
“Ready?” I asked Joss.
Just then we heard banging on the door. “Are you in there, Joselyn?” Cruella shouted through the closed metal door.
Joss groaned as she opened the door. “Yes, of course, I’m here.”
Cruella’s dark eyes turned to look in all of our direction. “It’s time to come home.”
“Why?” Joss whined.
Cruella had never done this. She was usually happy her kids were out of her hair.
“Because I said so,” she snapped.
“But we’re going to the movies,” Joss whined. As Joss got older, Cruella let her do more than just go to school. Since having Bryce, it was as though Cruella didn’t care about Joss much. Though Joss still walked on eggshells around her and tried to stay home as much as possible to take care of her brother.
“Not today. Let’s go.” Joss’s mom turned and went back to her trailer.
Joss turned and moved to Bryce. Kneeling beside him, she took the controller out of his hands. “Time to go, buddy.”
“But I don’t wanna.” He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.
“Mommy said so.”
Bryce turned his head and looked at the door. “I don’t wanna.”
“I said now!” Cruella snapped, causing Bryce to start to cry tears.
Joss reached for his hand. “It’s okay, B. We’ll watch 101 Dalmatians.”
Bryce sniffed. “I want to play the game.”
Joss pulled him up. “See you guys tomorrow?” she asked Cat and me.
I gave a thumbs up while Cat said, “Yeah.”
And then they were gone.
“God, I hate that woman,” Grandma groaned and went to the kitchen.
Cat and I both looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Joss had four more years and then she could leave that bitch. Cat and Joss had plans to get their own place once they graduated. I wanted Joss out of that trailer so bad because she needed to be Joss and not a mother figure to Bryce. Bryce had fourteen long years before he could leave. He was a boy, and I didn’t worry that much about him because the older he got, the stronger he’d become.
I looked over at Cat as she sat next to me, our thighs pressed together. “You still wanna go to the movies?” Cat and I had never really hung out together. There were times Joss had to tend to Bryce, and we were left alone, but Cat and I had never gone anywhere just the two of us.
She grinned. “You payin’?”
“I guess I am unless you got a job you didn’t tell me about.”
“Don’t need a job when I have you.” She smirked.
I narrowed my eyes and moved, tickling her as she squealed. “Is that why you hang out with me? Because I pay?”
Cat giggled. “No, it’s because I loooooove you.” She drew out the word love as though she was being sarcastic.
My hands stopped tickling her, and I looked down into her eyes, smiling as I teased, “What a coincidence. I love me too!”
She pushed at my chest, and I moved up and off of her. “What I’d really love is for you to get the newspaper and find out what time The Bourne Identity starts so we can go.”
“Lord you’re bossy, Kitty Cat.”
“Get used to it. Your wife will be the same way.”
I laughed as I stood. “I don’t need to worry about that. I’m never getting married.”
“Well, I am. I’m gonna make a really good wife.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “You know I have to approve him, right?”
Cat rolled her eyes. “You’re not my brother.”
“No,” I agreed as I rounded the corner to the kitchen. “I’m better. I’m gonna be a cop and can do background checks on them.”
“You will do no such thing!” I heard her respond from the other side of the wall.
When I came back into the room, holding the paper, I said, “Kitty Cat, I love you, and Joss. I will approve all y’all’s boyfriends.”
“Whatever, 5-0. Let’s go. I want some popcorn.”
Grandma let me take her Oldsmobile to the theater.
Crankin’ the stereo up, Cat and I jammed to some local station while I drove us to the theater. She was singing the crap out of every single song that came on, and when the current hit, You and Me by Lifehouse came on, my future was what I heard. The summers were the best times of my life, and it was only a few months out of the year. I was losing so much time with my best friends.
When Cat sang the chorus about it being her and I, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. “I love this song,” she said as the guitar strummed.
I smiled. “Me too, Kitty Cat. Me too.”
My head was spinning. In just a few short weeks, I was going back to Washington, and I didn’t know when I’d be back. And that made my heart hurt.
“When I hear this song now, I’ll always think of you singing it.” The words came from my mouth before I’d realized what I’d said. It was as though she was a siren singing to me and I was being pulled into her trance. And I fucking didn’t care. What I cared about—wished for—was that she was older so I could tell her how I really felt.
Cat turned to me and smiled. “This can be like our song.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, Kitty Cat. I like the sound of that.”
I parked at the theater, and we got out. My palm itched to grab hers, but I didn’t. Sure we’d touched before, but this was different. If I were to grab her hand, I wouldn’t want to let it go.
And I had to let her go.
As we were walking up to the ticket counter, I heard a whistle and then, “Damn, baby. You lookin’ fine.”
I stopped walking and looked in the direction of the kid’s voice. Some punk dressed in baggy jeans that hung low on his hips was looking at Cat like he wanted to hump her leg right there in the open.
“Is something wrong with your mouth?” I felt Cat grab my arm, but I ignored her.
The kid tsked. “I wasn’t talkin’ to you, man. I was talkin’ to your girl.”
I stepped up to him, coming within inches. I didn’t care that he was with a group of guys. This was my girl. “Exactly, bro. You’re talking to my girl.”
“Seth.” Cat tugged on my arm, but I still didn’t budge.
The punk and I stared at each other, and I felt his friends move in closer. I wasn’t going to throw the first punch, but I didn’t like how this kid was talking to my Cat.
“Seth. Come on,” she said again, pulling on my T-shirt.
“You heard your bitch. Get to steppin’.”
Here’s the thing: I’m not stupid. I know when I’m outnumbered, and I was outnumbered five to one. There was no doubt that if I threw a blow, I’d get my ass beat causing our afternoon to turn to shit, and I didn’t want it to turn to shit. My time with Cat was on a countdown, and no punk was going to mess it up for me.
I took a step back and grinned. “You should think twice before wearing your pants like that. Guys in prison created that look to signal they were open for business. But hey, if you like it in the ass, then by all means, keep wearing them like that for easy access for your friends here.”
Before he or his friends could respond, I took Cat’s hand and we walked away.
The movie was awesome.
I mean, the CIA, the ass kicking, the combat. Damn, it was great.
“I wonder what your grandma is making for dinner?” Cat asked as I drove us back to the trailer park.
“Something delicious.” Everything my grandma cooked was delicious.
“Think Joss and Bryce are coming back over?”
I shrugged. “Probably since it’s already passed the time for Cruella to go to work.”
Joss’s mom went to work every day around four. She probably worked at some Truck Stop or an all-night diner. What else could she do when everyone slept? Wasn’t as though she was a janitor who cleaned office buildings at night. Joss did all the cleaning in her trailer, so I assumed her mother didn’t clean.
We pulled up to Grandma’s trailer, and I parked under the carport. When we rounded the corner to walk through the walkway in between Grandma’s trailer and Joss’s, I noticed the door was open, and Cruella was sitting on the couch. She wasn’t at work. Instead, she was smoking a cigarette with a bottle of gin on the table in front of her.
“Don’t think they’re coming.” I motioned to the opened door.
“Poor Joss,” Cat muttered.
I bobbed my head in agreement, and we walked up the two steps to Grandma’s trailer. Immediately, the smell of garlic hit my nose. “Spaghetti,” I sighed with delight. I didn’t know what it was, but Grandma made a mean spaghetti sauce from scratch.
“You kids are just in time. Go wash your hands.”
“Joss comin’?” I asked though I knew the answer.
“Not tonight, Sethie,” she answered, and I sighed again.
I followed Cat down the narrow hall to the one bathroom. Even though the trailer was smaller than my house at home, the bathroom had two sinks. Was that weird? I thought it was weird. Cat went to one sink, and I the other. As we were washing our hands, I took a small handful of water and tossed it at her.
Cat’s mouth dropped open as she looked down at her damp shirt. “You did not just do that!”
I grinned. “But I did, Kitty Cat.”
She cupped water in her hand and tossed it at my face. Water trickled from my dark brown hair and into my eyes.
“Oh! It’s on now!”
Cat smiled, and just as water filled both of our hands, I heard the cries from the little boy that would pierce my soul forever.
“Mrs. McKenna! Mrs. McKenna!” Joss screamed.
I could hear Grandma respond as I stepped into the hall. “What is it?”
“Mom took her cigarette and burned Bryce’s hand.”