Thirteen

Winnie

Mr. Fox doesn’t make us sit in alphabetical order, like most of the other teachers. He uses the sit-where-you’re-happy approach to keep us interested in his lecture. I choose the seat by the window, so I can look outside when I’m bored, which will probably be in five minutes. Dray high-fives one of the guys from the team, but he doesn’t follow him to the same row. He walks to the other side of the room, where I’m sitting, and chooses to sit directly behind me. It’s a strange enough choice that he gets a couple of strange looks from his friends.

“Turn around,” he whispers.

I grab the syllabus from the kid in front of me, take one, and then turn around to hand the rest to Dray. When I do, the girl next to me stares. She stares so hard, I think she’d pass out if I told her I lived under the same roof as Dray. But I’ve learned that living with Dray is exhausting.

The others in the house have kept their distance, and I’m okay with that. I’m not looking to make friends or get involved in their lives any more than they want to be in mine. It’s safer that way, easier to hide behind my hair and pretend I feel nothing.

For some reason, Dray’s always interested in what I’m doing. He knocks on my door after dinner each night and asks for a rundown of my day even though he was around for most of it. The first day or two, I struggled to look him in the eye. He knew who I was, and I was certain he had ulterior motives. Why else would he suddenly care?

It was odd though. The more he pried, the more I talked. That’s never happened before. Usually, if someone got too close, I’d shut down and have a panic attack. The only way to stop the embarrassment was to lock myself in the bathroom and close the door. I’d come out after I marked the shame on my body, so I’d never forget what a failure I was. Anxiety is a bitch, and so is the depression that follows.

Dray didn’t let me look away though. He forced the eye contact with his jokes and stupid one-liners. I was sure they worked on most girls at school, making him a gifted jock genius, but with me, I wasn’t sure where it left us. Acquaintances? Friends? Probably just housemates.

I’ve tried talking to Raven a couple of times, but she’s always with Matty, and he creeps me out. I’m pretty sure the two of them were humping like bunnies in the laundry room this morning before Cindy and Doug made it downstairs for breakfast. It’s no wonder they got caught on the kitchen table; they don’t even try to be quiet.

Hannah and Chance are the youngest in the house, and they stick together. Dray said they were actually twins and came from some fancy private school I’d never heard of. It surprised me a little, mostly because their parents have money. I can’t imagine what was so bad that they couldn’t stay. In my world, money is happiness, and with a little bit of it, anything is possible.

Then, there’s Melody. She’s just like her name—constantly creating new songs and perfecting them on her piano. I found some earplugs, so I can get a break at night when she wakes up, inspired, at three in the morning. But I get it. That’s how I used to be about my design stuff—before I had to worry about money for supplies and keeping my projects hidden in the back of my closet.

So, that leaves me with Dray. The one person I thought I’d never speak to won’t leave me alone.

“What do you want?” I ask him.

“That’s a loaded question, Winnie. You sure you want me to answer?”

“Don’t try that flirty shit with me,” I tell him as I turn back around. “I didn’t want to talk to you in the first place.”

Laughing, he leans forward until I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. “I know you don’t mean that, Sunshine.”

The nickname’s just a stupid reference to where we live, a little secret we share that nobody else knows.

But I still turn around and act pissed off, so nobody gets suspicious. “Don’t call me Sunshine, Alex.”

It’s a low blow, and I immediately regret saying it. Dray hates being called Alex because he was named after his dad. Nobody here knows the disgust he feels though. They all think he has the perfect life of privilege, being full of talent, and not having a care in the world. He’s living a total lie, just like me.

“Why do you go by Dray?” I asked him on my second night in the home.

We were sitting on the deck, drinking lemonade out of fancy glasses, and I felt like a queen in her castle because there were ice cubes in my glass.

“Because I hate my first name.”

“Why?”

“It’s my dad’s name. He’s the reason I’m here.”

I hesitated, unsure if I should ask any more questions. If it were me, I’d want him to shut up and pretend like everything was fine. But, for some reason, I wanted to know the truth. I needed to hear Dray’s story for what it was—awful and real. Maybe so mine wouldn’t feel as shameful.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shrugged his shoulders and then scooted a little closer to me. I wasn’t sure why he had done it, but I let him.

Normally, I’d cringe if someone got too close, but I didn’t that night. My heart didn’t thump in my chest, and my palms didn’t get sweaty. I could swallow normally and keep drinking my lemonade like I was actually normal. It felt really strange, like I didn’t know my own body anymore.

Then, Dray started talking—like he wanted to, not because he had to. “My dad’s an alcoholic. He drinks every night until he blacks out. Each morning, he wakes up and has no idea how a hole got punched in the wall or why I had a black eye and wouldn’t look at him. He thought I was out on the streets, causing trouble and being disrespectful. I’d get grounded for things I didn’t do, like the holes in the drywall and the broken windows. One time, he thought I’d stolen his car and wrecked it. He didn’t even remember driving it into the tree next to the garage. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so it’s always my word against his.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“Dead,” he said with little emotion. “I never knew her, and Dad wouldn’t talk about her. I used to ask a ton of questions, but they just made him get drunker faster, so I stopped trying. He found me looking through boxes in the attic one night, and I think I found pictures of her. He burned everything in the boxes that night.”

“That’s intense.”

“It gets worse. I’d confronted him and tried to stop him. He pulled a knife on me and chased me around the kitchen until I pushed him through the sliding glass door. He was bleeding pretty badly, and I was afraid he’d die. So, I picked up the phone, and I called for help. I knew that call would change things. How could I hide the fact that he was drunk and bleeding, and there was a huge pile of ash burning in the backyard? But I swear, I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

“I believe you, Dray.”

He was quiet while he finished his lemonade, and I thought the conversation was over.

Then, he chucked the glass into the yard and smashed it. “I think I wanted to kill him, Winnie. I’ve never said that out loud, but I’ve thought about it. All those times I walked around, bruised and sore, I wanted him to hurt as much as I did. I wanted him to suffer.”

“What happened after the ambulance came?”

“It was either jail or rehab. He chose rehab. He wanted nothing to do with me, so I came here. I haven’t spoken to him since.”

Dray had been at the home for only six months. His wounds were still fresh.

I wanted to tell him I understood, that I’d wished someone dead, too. But I couldn’t get the words out. Especially when he looked at me and saw me. He saw my truths all hidden beneath my skin. But he didn’t know what they were or how deep they cut, and I knew I had to keep it that way—for now.

I’m sorry was the absolute worst thing I could say to him, so I avoided that, too. I sucked in a deep breath and told him the truth, “I hope he’s miserable, sweating his ass off and throwing up.”

Dray laughed so hard, he knocked over my glass and sent it rolling across the deck. I thought he had expected the usual cookie-cutter response his therapists had given him. Nothing about me was cookie cutter. I didn’t fit in any mold, and I probably never would.

“I knew I liked you,” he said once he could speak.

Dray and I became friends that day because we understood what it was like to fight your way through hell. I had Jasper, and he was the most supportive friend I’d ever had. Trey knew everything about me, and I loved him with my whole heart. But Dray understood my pain. He knew what it was like to lose a parent and be treated like shit by someone who was supposed to love you. He knew how terribly that walk through hell burned and that no amount of water could ever douse the flames or camouflage the scars it’d left behind.

I waited for Dray to ask for my story. You know, since we were sharing and all. He didn’t, and I thought that made me like him even more. But he’d never know just how much I respected him. I couldn’t get that close.

“You’re extra feisty today, Winnie. Does it have anything to do with Jasper?”

From the second I stepped off the bus, I knew Jasper would have all kinds of questions about where I’d been, what I’d been doing, and why I hadn’t called him or texted him. I knew he’d want to know why Alex was paying attention to me and why I didn’t seem to mind. I didn’t talk to the other kids, especially not the popular ones. I kept to myself, my head was always down, and I hid behind a curtain of my hair.

Until today.

“Jasper’s been with me through some ugly shit. Don’t give him a hard time, okay?”

He shakes his head and says, “I’m not like that, Winnie. I don’t hate anyone.” His voice trails off as he focuses on the syllabus lying on the desk. It might as well be written in German because he doesn’t comprehend a single word of it.

His mind’s racing, and he’s trying to keep his shit together. I can tell because his knee’s bouncing, and he’s starting to sweat.

“Nobody hates you either, Dray.”

Not even his dad. Mr. Drayden didn’t drink because he hated his son. He drank because he loved him, and he didn’t know what to do with that. Love can be taken away in the blink of an eye. It happened with his mom, and it could happen with Dray, so staying mad at God is easier. Hate’s always easier than love.

“Thanks, Sunshine.”

“You’re the shit around here. How about you start acting like it, so I can go back to thinking you’re an asshole?”

He laughs at my sarcasm, and I turn back around, satisfied that he’ll make it through the period without an anxiety attack.

“Just so you know, Winnie, I saw your schedule on the kitchen table. It’s the same as mine. I think Cindy had something to do with it, so her little soldiers wouldn’t be alone.”

Mr. Fox takes his place at the podium, and I stare out the window.

What the hell am I going to do with Dray up my ass all day long? Jasper will assume the worst because nobody ever pays attention to me, and I don’t pay attention to them. A single smile or laugh toward Dray could ruin everything—exposing Dray and messing things up for me with Trey.

I try to convince myself that everything’s okay until a motorcycle pulls up outside the window, and Trey’s staring toward the classroom. He catches the attention of the entire row, and my stomach flip-flops a dozen times.

Bending to unzip my backpack, I nudge Dray’s desk, and he stops doodling on his folder.

What? he mouths.

“I need your help,” I whisper.

“Anything,” he says.

Anything.

I’m not sure he’s ready to lie to Cindy and Doug for me, and it’s wrong of me to even ask, but I have to see Trey. Today.

I type out a quick text to Trey and send it. My heart races as I toss the phone back to the bottom of my bag. I have no idea if he’ll show up or if he can see me today. But I’m going to try anyway.