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Mr. Sanders isn’t smiling anymore. “Nokosi hit you?”
“No. It was a misunderstanding.”
“You’re defending him?”
“Loki, please, your voice is pissing me off.” I pull out my wallet and start counting bills. “How much are the tires costing him?”
Sanders doesn’t know what to do, he looks torn but when I ask again and explain that I need rest, he shows me the invoice and I pay it in full.
“Now we can go.”
“I can’t believe you just did that.”
I stop and look at Loki. “I’m grateful for what you’ve done today but stop. What I do and why I do it is none of your business. I know you don’t understand, and I know you never will, but it’s done. Now drop it.”
He looks like he wants to argue some more but then his eyes drift to my temple and he resigns himself to the silence I’ve asked for. We make the journey back to my house and I leave a hundred on the seat before he walks me to my door.
“Thanks for being there today.”
“It’s no problem. Truth be told it’s not even because I like you. It’s because I’m nosy.”
I laugh at that despite the pain it causes me. I need to lie down.
He drops me off and my sister for once takes care of me while I slowly die in bed.
I go to school on Monday, wearing my sister’s lumpy-ass foundation and other makeup that she helped me apply. I need to buy her some new ones, although she’s perfectly capable of shopping online. I need to find a wheelchair and take her out. I keep saying I’m going to but I never get around to it. Truth be told she’s become a bit of a hermit. She doesn’t want anybody to see her looking so frail and I don’t blame her. So she only goes out on days she’s feeling good and looking good. Which these days isn’t often enough.
I wear sunglasses and keep my hair around my face. People look at me as I enter. No, they don’t just look, they fucking stare.
Loki.
I bet he’s told everybody. I never should have trusted him. Though a niggling voice in my head is reminding me I never told him to keep it quiet. He’s obviously the type that loves to gossip and feed the drama.
Plus the bruise is pretty fucking obvious.
I get to the door, say, “Fuck it.” Then turn around and head back to my car.
I’m not doing this.
Why am I still trying with Nok? Why? He’s a lost fucking cause.
Why do I care?
Or maybe I’m being paranoid, and they don’t know anything.
I yank open the silver door and sit inside, pulling off my glasses and dumping my bag on the back seat. My forehead rolls along the steering wheel as I try to gather my thoughts and shut my eyes for a moment. The passenger door opens, I smell who it is before I see who it is.
“Get out of my car, Nok,” I demand tiredly.
“Drive,” he clips, his eyes front and center.
“Are you kidding?”
He levels me with a flat gaze, one void of happiness and full of frustration. His acorn-colored eyes hold the reality that he wants to be anywhere but here. “I’m not getting out of this car until you drive us to where we need to be.”
“And where’s that exactly?” He snatches my bag off the back seat and rummages through it. “Hey. Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Just checking you don’t have a knife, or a gun stashed away.”
“Oh, I do,” I respond, raising a brow at him, not that he can see it beyond my large glasses.
“Course you do. You’re a fucking psychopath, you know that?”
“Yep.”
He sighs and rests his head back. We both look at the students watching us, or making it look like they’re not when really, they are.
“Where are we going?” I ask quietly.
“Back out. I’ll guide you.”
“Okay, Sacagawea.”
He starts shaking, first it’s small, but then it gets more prominent, and then he’s laughing so hard he starts choking for breath.
I smile with him, he has a nice laugh. It’s gentle, not booming, almost cute. It makes him seem less harsh than his eyes constantly emit.
“That’s probably racist,” he comments, still grinning from ear to ear. “Next right.”
“So is calling me a white whore.” We keep smiling, neither offended because even though we have beef, we also understand each other.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“No, you’re not.”
He laughs again and shrugs. “You’re right, I’m not.”
We don’t talk as he guides me around a winding path, past trees and around rocks and down a steep hill. In my dad’s fucking Prius no less. Not a 4x4 like his truck.
If we get stuck here, I’ll hurt him as payback.
“Stop here,” he instructs, and I do so, grabbing my bag and hooking it over my shoulder.
“Is this where you kill me and bury my body?” I follow him down another path on foot but have to stop when I get dizzy. I grip a tree trunk for support as he goes on ahead, only noticing I’m not there when he says something I can’t make out from back where I’m at.
