Twenty-One
Kyle
Twelve Years Ago
Garin had kicked me out. He hadn’t escorted me to his front steps and slammed the door in my face. But he’d pulled away from me when we were in his bedroom and made me leave because he wanted to take things slow.
“I’m out of self-control. I’ve been trying real hard, but I want you so bad, it hurts. If I don’t stop now, I’m going to take things much further, and you don’t want that yet.”
But I did want that. I wanted further. I wanted more.
I knew the girls he’d been with in the past. He hadn’t pulled away from them, and he definitely hadn’t taken things slow. So, why was I different?
Maybe he was trying to be a gentleman even though I knew he wasn’t one. Sending me home before I was naked and stripped of my virginity—before his sheets could be covered in my blood and who-knew-what kind of words would have been flying out of my mouth—was the respectable thing to do.
But so many years had built up to that moment.
I expected more, and…he’d just pulled away.
My feelings weren’t going to change. They hadn’t changed in the years since I realized what I really wanted from him. But I wasn’t going to fight with him tonight, and I didn’t want to beg.
Tomorrow night though?
Tomorrow night would be different. I wasn’t going to leave so easily. In fact, I wasn’t going to leave at all. I was going to sleep in his bed. With him…for the whole night.
Go slowly? Screw that. We’d gone slowly enough.
As I walked down Garin’s front steps, I opened the package of sugary doughnuts that he’d given me. He was always so worried about what I ate and how much. He knew these doughnuts were my favorite. He gave them to me for breakfast every morning; he would never let me go to school on an empty stomach. He just didn’t understand that I required less food than him. Over the years, my body had gotten used to the emptiness, the cramps, and the growling. There had been plenty of both tonight, but I was too worked up to be hungry. I was only going to eat these because he wanted me to.
I reached the sidewalk just as Paulie was walking out of his apartment. It was dark out. The light from his phone, held so close to his face, showed that he was scowling. His movements were exaggerated and as dramatic as mine.
“You okay, Paulie?” I asked.
When he saw me, he shoved his phone into his pocket and dug around until he finally found his keys. “Yeah, I’m good.”
I waved. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”
I walked past his front steps on the way to my place and bit into a doughnut. The powder soaked into my tongue and tickled the back of my throat. I almost coughed. I loved when it did that—when clouds of white came out of my mouth because something tasted so good.
The clouds always made me and Garin laugh.
“Hey, Kyle?”
I turned around.
Paulie was standing at his car door. “Has your brother been around?”
Paulie and Anthony were best friends. They talked to each other as much as I spoke to Garin and Billy, which was certainly more than I chatted with my brother. If Anthony was around, Paulie would have already known.
“No,” I said. “I haven’t seen him.” I scanned the cars that were parked in front of my apartment.
Anthony hadn’t been home when I’d left for Garin’s, and even though it was hard to see, it didn’t look like he had returned.
“You talked to him though?”
I tried to think of the last time.
“Nope. Not today.”
I watched as a car took a left onto our street and started driving toward us. It was hard to see the make and color; The Heart wasn’t well lit. Most of the streetlamps were out along with the lights outside our front doors. When the city replaced one of the bulbs, it would be stolen within a few hours. Lights showed faces; they showed dealings, they showed illegal things being exchanged between hands… they showed evidence. The Heart didn’t like that. The things that happened here needed to stay in the dark.
“Have you tried calling him?” I asked. “Maybe he just lost his phone or something.”
“He didn’t lose his phone. He…” His voice trailed off as the car got closer, and Paulie started walking toward the road.
The parked cars were blocking most of my view. But I was able to see Paulie’s profile and how the headlights were lighting up his legs and jacket and face.
I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from him.
Something felt off—in the scowl on his mouth, in the questions he’d asked, in the way he moved farther into the street. In the way the car was coming toward him, driving so slowly.
Whatever that something was, it told me not to move. It told me to keep watching Paulie. It made everything inside me shake.
I’d lived in The Heart all my life. I knew how dangerous it could be. I’d learned at an early age to trust my gut. So, why the hell wasn’t I listening to it? Why were my feet moving me toward Paulie?
I felt the packet of doughnuts fall out of my hand just before I jumped over the curb. “Hey!” I yelled to get his attention. It didn’t work; he stayed facing the car. “Paulie, come here!”
Didn’t he see how slowly the car was moving? Didn’t he feel what I felt?
I had to reach him. Warn him. Grab his hand and pull him back inside his apartment.
The headlights turned off. The light was suddenly gone.
Another warning.
I was running out of time.
“Paulie,” I gasped, trying to find my footing, my legs not wanting to move as fast as the rest of me. My breath came out in huffs. “Come back here. Come back—”
There was noise. More than just the sound of the engine. This was a grinding, like the window was rolling down and the tracks needed to be greased.
Oh God.
Something poked out of the open window. It was thin. Circular. Dark. It got longer and longer.
The barrel of a gun.
“Paulie…no!”
Why wasn’t I moving faster? Why couldn’t I find his hand?
“Kyle, get back.”
I heard him so clearly. I knew how close I was to him.
Just a few more steps.
I finally saw his hand, close enough to reach. I clasped my fingers around his thumb. “Come on, we have to go.”
He turned a bit and then pushed me back with both hands. “Get out of here, Kyle.”
I stumbled. I tried to catch my balance, but I slammed into one of the cars along the curb. “Paulie—”
The car with the gun had almost reached him.
“Paulie, get down!” My shoulder ricocheted off the door, and I fell to the ground.
Paulie didn’t listen. He stayed right where he was, his body facing the car. The gun was pointed directly at him.
He didn’t say another word. He didn’t duck; he didn’t try to hide. He didn’t reach for his own gun, the one I knew was tucked in the back of his jeans. He just walked toward the car. And then he went completely still.
He knew.
Somehow, Paulie knew…and he did nothing.
My arms wrapped around my stomach as I cowered against the side of the tire. My whole body tightened. I held my breath, and I waited for the sound. I waited for the explosion. Whoever was about to hurt Paulie was going to come for me next.
No witnesses. Not ever.
Not in The Heart.
This was the end…for both of us.
BANG.
Paulie fell to the ground. It felt like the pavement vibrated underneath me, but I knew it hadn’t. I covered my head with my arms. No breath. No air. Through the small space between my forearms, I saw the blood start to pool out of the side of his body.
Where was the second shot? Where was the pain in my chest?
“Paulie,” I cried. “No.” It came out as a whisper. “Paulie. Paulie, stand up. Paulie…”
He didn’t move. Didn’t twitch. Didn’t cry out. There was silence, except for the sound of the engine idling, and stillness, other than the growing puddle of blood.
“Get up, and get in this car, Kyle.”
That voice…I knew it.
Why wasn’t I dead? I should have been. I should have been slumped against the car that I was leaning against, my blood flowing into the street to meet Paulie’s.
The window rolled down even more, and the set of eyes that stared back…
No. This wasn’t happening.
Not with that voice…not with those eyes.
“Kyle, get in this car right fucking now.”
“I…can’t. I ca-can’t mo-move.”
I couldn’t leave. Paulie needed me. He needed me to call the police. No one else around here would do it. If they had heard the sound of the gun, they would back away from their windows. They wouldn’t come outside. They wouldn’t check to see who’d been shot. And if they happened to see something, they wouldn’t tell the police. They wouldn’t tell anyone. That was how it worked around here. So, I needed to stay. I needed to pound my hands on his chest and breathe into his mouth and do something to get him moving.
“I’m not going to ask you again. Get in the goddamn car.”
“No—”
“Don’t make me come out there and get you.”
I’d heard his threats before. I’d seen the results of the people who didn’t listen to him. But until now, I didn’t know that The Heart had sliced open his chest, ripped his heart out, and left him soulless.
It sounded like, if I didn’t get off this pavement and get into his car, I’d be joining Paulie.
I pushed myself off the ground, my knees wobbly, my feet unsteady, as I ran to the passenger door. He opened it from the inside, and as soon as I reached the doorway, he pulled me in. My shoulder smashed into the console; my head banged into the middle armrest. He didn’t wait for me to be seated before he shut the door and took off.
“Stop fucking crying,” he snapped. “Paulie doesn’t deserve your tears. He deserves to be dead, so wipe your goddamn face, and get it together.”
Get it together?
I still hadn’t processed that I hadn’t been shot, too, and I definitely hadn’t processed Paulie’s murder. But every second of it, every bit of detail, was flashing in my head.
Paulie was practically family. I’d seen him almost every day since I was a kid. He’d walked me to the bus stop whenever Garin and Billy skipped school. He’d given me rides, gotten me food. He’d even kicked a kid’s ass when the kid had tried to rob me on my front steps.
Paulie was nicer to me than my own brother.
And I was supposed to stop crying and get it together and act like it had never happened?
Impossible.
This was so deep, deeper than I could even wrap my head around.
Billy. Oh God, what was this going to do to Billy? And to Garin?
And to all of us?
It hurt. It hurt and it stung and it made my stomach churn, and whatever was inside of it was now rising to the back of my throat.
“I have to get out of this car,” I moaned, wrapping my arms around my belly.
“Not a fucking chance.”
“Pull over, or I’m going to puke on your floor.”
“You’re kidding.”
I rocked back and forth, my mouth watering more as each second passed. “No, I’m definitely not.”
He weaved between lanes, already several blocks outside The Heart. “You can puke out the window. I’m not pulling over.”
I hit the button, waiting for the glass to roll down.
There was grinding. This side made the same noise.
Grinding…window…gun…BANG.
It all came back so quickly.
I leaned my face out the window and opened my mouth. Vodka poured out. I’d taken a few sips before I had gone to Garin’s. It was supposed to help take the edge off, so I’d finally have the courage to tell him how I felt.
But nothing could take the edge off of this.
“Don’t get any puke on the fucking car!” he yelled.
I hardly heard him.
All I could think about was that Paulie was dead.