“I’m going out. Bus money is on the counter,” Ryan shouts from the kitchen as I trying to mentally talk myself into getting out of bed. For the past couple of weeks, he’s been leaving me money for lunch and the bus whenever Christian doesn’t stay over and take me. “Figured you wouldn’t want me or my bike anywhere near your school.”
Not only has he been taking care of lunch and bus money, but he’s even working on fixing the old Firebird up so I can have it. I don’t think Ryan is doing better financially. In fact, he claims to have given up slanging drugs and guns—and pissed more than a few people off in the process—so he’s probably hurting for cash. I think he gives up his own stuff to make sure I have everything I need. And it makes me feel even worse.
“Thanks, Ry,” I call out, burying my face deeper into my pillow.
“Love you, Rem.”
“Love you, too.” And I do. Even though a big part of my heart is broken from Pierce, the other half that belongs to Ryan is starting to flicker back to life and fill with hope for the first time in a long time. Seeing him like this reminds me of one of my favorite memories of him.
“You ready, Rem?” Ry asks, grabbing his board out of the back of his Firebird. I grab mine, too, a hand-me-down from Ryan, and we walk toward the skate park.
“Why do you always gotta bring her? I thought we were going to pick up some skate park sluts,” Ryan’s friend, Ethan, complains from inside the chain-link fence. I roll my eyes and flip him off.
“Because I fucking want to. I’m teaching her how to ollie today. Ain’t that right, Rem?” Ryan says with a wink in my direction, his blond hair shining in the sun.
“Yeah.” I shrug, trying to play it cool, like I don’t care either way. But I’m excited. I’ve been working on my ollie for weeks. And I love when Ryan lets me come to the skate park with him.
Ry grabs my hand and pulls me into the concrete park, past the half-pipe and the handrail, and leads me to a flat area to practice. I see a group of freshmen girls who went to my school last year sitting on the bleachers, snickering to each other when we pass, and a few boys from my school giving us curious glances. But, I don’t care. No one will try anything with Ryan here.
“All right, Rem. Show me your stance.”
I do.
“Lead with your right. You’re goofy-footed, remember? That can get tricky, but we’re just doing stationary ollies for now.”
I shift my feet.
“Like this?” I ask, tucking my long hair behind my ear.
“Good. Okay, now pop the tail back, then slide your front foot up the board and push forward.”
I try, but I barely make it off the ground.
“Close. Try again. This time scoot your front foot away from the bolts a little so you have more room to slide. Pop, slide, push.”
I try again, but this time I almost fall on my butt.
“Ugh!” I groan, frustrated.
“Here. Hold on to me. You’re scared of falling, and that’s half the problem,” Ry says, grabbing both of my hands. “I won’t let you fall, Rem. Try again.”
I take a deep breath. Ryan’s right, because this time, when I don’t have to worry about falling, I land it. I don’t get much, if any, air, but I freaking land it.
“Good job.” Ryan smiles, and I squeal, throwing my arms around his neck.
“I wanna do it again. This time on my own.”
“Let’s see it.” He smirks, his arms crossed over his chest.
I land it again.
“Fuck yeah, Rem!” He laughs proudly.
“Yo! Ryan!” Ethan yells from his place next to the freshmen girls, waving him over.
“Be right back. Keep practicing,” he says, pointing a finger at me as he walks away.
I try a few more times and get a little better with each attempt. I’m feeling brave, like a badass, and I decide to try to ollie over the little rail a few feet away.
The first time, I bail because I don’t have enough speed. The second time, I bail because I don’t have enough courage. The third time, I almost make it over the rail. The fourth time, I’m feeling good, and just when I’m about to slide my front foot, I feel something warm trickle down my leg. It distracts me, and I miss my jump. My board hits the rail and sends me flying forward. I land at the feet of one of the older boys I don’t recognize.
“Sick!” he yells, nudging me away from him with his foot. “This is why we shouldn’t let bitches in the skate park.” His friends laugh, and I’m more confused than anything. They’re all laughing and pointing now, and when I look down, I’m horrified to see blood between my legs. But I don’t feel hurt. Not there, anyway.
A couple of the girls from my school make their way over to see what’s going on, iced coffees in hand.
“Fucking gross, Remington! Plug that shit up,” one of them says with a scrunched nose. I think her name is Sydney.
Sydney is an asshole.
My ankle is screaming in pain, and I’m trying to keep from crying, but my bottom lip starts to tremble, and my vision blurs with tears.
“Somebody come get their girl! She’s bleeding all over the park,” the guy from earlier yells. I reach for my board, embarrassed and in pain. I struggle to get up, and no one offers to help me. Suddenly, the boy in front of me looks terrified. Straight up, about to piss his pants afraid. And then I know why.
As usual, Ryan shoots first and asks questions later. He charges the kid, landing one solid punch to the face and he’s out cold. He hits the pavement like a sack of potatoes, and everyone gasps.
“Rem! What the fuck happened? Are you okay?” he asks, frantic.
I nod shakily.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Ryan yells at the nosy assholes surrounding us. They’re smart enough to listen.
“Can you help me up? I can’t move my ankle, and I think I’m hurt,” I say, gesturing toward the blood coating my legs.
Ryan sighs and scratches the back of his neck, uncomfortable.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re not hurt, Rem. You, uh, started your period.” He coughs.
“I’m eleven!” I screech. I feel blindsided. I mean, I guess I knew it was coming. But, I thought I had another year or two. I bet if I had a mom, I’d be more prepared. God knows my dad would rather hang himself than have this conversation with me. And now poor Ryan is stuck with the job.
“It is what it is.” He shrugs. He stands and pulls off his black tee, his chest bare except for the cross tattoo on his right peck that one of his friends gave him at a party. He tugs the shirt on over my head, then lifts me into his arms like a baby. Ryan makes sure the shirt covers my backside and walks out of the skate park, just as the kid he knocked out starts to stir.
“Ethan! Grab our boards,” he snaps. Ethan scrambles to do as he says.
Ryan takes me home, fills the bath for me, and then goes to the store. He comes back with two different boxes of tampons, three types of pads, panty liners, ibuprofen, a couple of DVDs, and chocolate. Lots of chocolate.
“What’s all this?” Surely, I don’t need all of these.
“The lady at the store said these ones,” he picks up a box of tampons that look different from the others, “are easier for beginners. I guess they don’t have the applicator or some shit.” He shrugs.
“These ones are normal,” he says, flipping another box over. “And if you don’t want to try those, you can just stick with pads. But don’t ask me the difference, because fuck if I know.”
I can’t help but crack a smile.
“And the rest?” I ask, amused.
“The ibuprofen is for the cramping. The chocolate, well, I’m not really sure,” he says, itching his head. “She just said it’s a must. The movies are because there’s not shit on TV, and I’m bored.”
“You’re staying with me?” I ask, surprised. “You can go back to the skate park, Ry. I’m fine here.”
“Nah. Rem and Ry for life, remember?” he says, bumping my fist with his and finishing the secret handshake we made up a few years back.
“Thank you. For everything.”
“It’s no big deal.”
But it was to me. That’s the real Ryan. Fiercely loyal and scary as hell. Ironically, a couple of weeks after that incident, I broke my ankle for real, and it wasn’t anywhere near as traumatic.
I walk out of my room, trying to find an excuse not to go to school today. No one is going to stop me. I don’t have any rules in this house. I kind of made up my own as I grew up, but I think I did a pretty good job because I’m not a drug addict, pregnant, or dead in a ditch. The house looks relatively okay. Not clean by any stretch of the imagination, but Ryan hasn’t thrown a party in two weeks in here, and it shows. I text Christian.
Me: How did it go yesterday?
Christian: Fine, I think? I’ll tell you all about it today.
Me: I’m not coming to school today.
Christian: Y?
Me: I don’t know.
I do. Because I don’t want to face Pierce. But I don’t want to admit it either.
Christian: I’ll come see you after school then.
Me: Please do.
He doesn’t answer to that. I drop my phone onto the counter and look around me. I’ve never felt so alone.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“What’s up is that I can’t get anywhere near your street!” Christian sounds exasperated, huffing loudly. I hear honks from different cars, and Christian shouting, “Yeah, yeah, we know! We’ve been stuck here for twenty minutes now, assholes.”
“Was there an accident?” I plop down on my couch and munch on the tip of my hair. It is legit the best thing to eat around here. I need to go to the supermarket before my dad arrives next week. Ryan is fine grabbing something from Wendy’s at the end of every day, but when my dad comes back home from being on the road for weeks, I like to make sure he gets some home-cooked meals in.
“I don’t know. Maybe? I mean, it looks a lot more serious than that. There are like five police cars here.”
“Hmm.” I roll my eyes. “Probably a burglary, knowing my neighborhood.”
“And three ambulances? And yellow tape. Never a dull moment in your hood. No wonder you’re bored with our preppy school.”
I lie on the sofa and start flipping through the very few channels that my TV has to offer.
“I’m bored right now,” I whine. “Tell me what you see.”
“Well.” He sighs. “I see six…no, seven different police officers. At least one of them is hot.”
“Yeah.” My eyes become droopy and lazy. Perhaps because I haven’t eaten anything all day. I kind of forget to function properly sometimes. Especially since everything with Pierce has happened. “And?”
“Caution. Ambulances. A motorcycle on the side of the road…”
My heart stops in my chest. “What?” I ask. “Repeat that, please.”
“I said ambulances, a motorcycle…”
This time Christian doesn’t even finish his sentence before I hang up. I’m putting on my white Chucks and flying out the door in a second. My heart is in my throat.
Ambulances. Motorcycle. Police. Ryan.
I run toward the main road. My legs are a separate entity from the rest of my body. I never knew I could be so fast. I arrive at the scene. It’s already dark outside, and the red and blue lights are blinding me. I see the ambulances.
I don’t see Ryan.
There’s a cluster of people standing by, whispering and taking pictures. I slice through the crowd and run to one of the officers who is standing on the other side of the yellow tape, his arms folded over his chest. He looks somber and serious.
“What is this? What happened?” I ask him breathlessly. He barely even shakes his head to show me that he heard me. I’m not going to get shit from him, I know then and there. I look around. People are crying. Some women cup their mouths in disbelief. I’m not sure what’s happening. I walk around trying to find a gap in the crowd, but there are too many people around the scene so I can’t see what’s actually going on in the road.
It’s not until I get a text message from Christian that I remember I hung up on him.
Think we got disconnected. I’m gonna take off. Try again tomorrow?
I don’t even respond.
“Remington?! Remington, is that you?” My neighbor, Janice, rushes toward me. She lives across the street and has like eighteen children from a bunch of different dads, and a little too nosy, but she is a good person. Hard working. She sometimes bakes stuff for Dad on his birthday. I don’t even want to begin to think why they’re tight or why she remembers his birthday.
“Hey.” I try to smile, moving some of my hair from my face. “What’s going on?”
“Did you see?” She jerks her thumb behind her shoulder, her eyes full of sadness. I shake my head.
“It’s too crowded. I’m really worried. Ryan went to get us something to eat, and he isn’t back…” I trail off. “I hope it’s not an accident.”
Her face melts in horror, and she grabs me and hugs me to her chest. She smells of cigarettes and vanilla. “It’s not, honey. Not an accident.”
I sigh in relief.
“He’s been shot.”
My veins fill with ice instantly, and I freeze.
“Ryan…someone shot your brother.”
I tear myself away from her, and this time I don’t try to sneak between the crowds. I shove people left and right, my eyes on the yellow tape. I kick, push, and deliberately step over other people’s toes.
I only stop when I see Ryan’s figure on the ground.
His eyes are still open. He is staring at the sky. He looks surprised more than anything else. More than scared. More than sad. More than anything.
He is lying on the road, and blood trickles from his white wifebeater. Wisps of his blond hair still dancing in the air. He can’t be dead. Paramedics are rushing around him, but they don’t try to save him.
“Why aren’t you saving him?!” I scream, pushing my way through the horde of people in my way. I feel people pulling at my arms, trying to keep me back, but I can’t be stopped.
“He’s my brother! Let me go. He’s my brother!” I manage to get to Ryan, and then I’m falling to my knees, lifting his head to my lap, and hugging him for dear life.
“Please no, please no, please no.” It’s all I can say, over and over. “Please don’t let this be real. Please don’t let this be real.” I hear officers yelling about not touching “the body”, and I want to fucking kill them for reducing him to just the body. He’s my brother. My best friend.
“I love you, Ryan. And I’m proud of you. So proud. Rem and Ry forever.” I sob into his hair. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye!” It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.
I feel two strong arms lifting me away, so I kiss his face one, two, three times. And then they’re covering his body and taking him away while I stay frozen in place, oblivious of my surroundings.
I watch the local news in the background as I make dinner. I’m chopping potatoes and onions when I raise my head to look at the dancing image on TV.
“The victim died of his injuries before arriving at St. John’s Hospital. His family has been informed. Police are looking at the suspects as we speak.”
“Drug connections.”
“Dealing weapons.”
“Four prior incidents.”
“Rich criminal history.”
This could describe most people in Las Vegas, but I don’t need to see his mug shot on the screen to know that it’s him. I just know. I grab my jacket and leave.
An hour later, the police show up at my doorstep. By then, I’ve already informed Dad, who cut his drive short and is coming back home immediately. By then, I’ve already packed a bag. I agreed with Christian to meet him on the corner of Main Street so he wouldn’t have to wait in another traffic jam caused by the incident. We don’t even know if his parents will let me stay.
“Yes?” I ask. Janice is holding me. She helped me into the house earlier.
The two police officers clutch their hats in their fists as they talk to me. I don’t let a word seep into my brain. The words just kind of float around me in the air, almost visible.
Janice nods a lot.
Christian’s car appears at the end of the street.
I walk over there after I’m done with the police, watching Pierce James standing on the other side of the street, saying so many things with one look.
I get into Christian’s car and leave.