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“We haven’t colored in that picture. I’d remember, I’m pretty sure.” When she laughed again, he turned over her hand and traced a circle on the inside of her palm. His touch buzzed like an electric toothbrush, setting off tingles under her skin. “You grew up together. You and Gray.”
Some families adopted stray dogs, Gray’s just preferred stray kids. They’d washed her up, brushed her hair, put her in pretty clothes. She still carried the grime deep down, where fancy soap and shampoo couldn’t reach. Wild hair dye and smoky makeup made her grin when she looked in the mirror, but they didn’t alter anything beneath the surface. She was still that clown pretending to be happy. Doing a damn good job of it too.
“Since we were teenagers, yeah. His parents took in fosters, and I was one of them.”
“So you guys got close?”
“Yeah. Gray was different back then. Not the way he seems now. He used to crack jokes constantly. No one could make me laugh like he did.” She wrapped her free arm around the knee she pulled up to her chest. She couldn’t stay still. “We used to sit in the backyard and play together for hours.”
“With or without clothes?” Nick’s teasing question barely reached her ears.
Now that she’d summoned the past, the reality of Nick and his living room dissolved like smoke. The memory materialized in her mind, so vividly she could hear the birds chirping in the trees and the flutter of palm trees. Grass as soft as a baby’s blanket stretched out for miles under her bare legs, and she sat next to her beautiful best friend, the guy all the girls wanted to date. His long dark hair fell down his back, tangled in loose waves from the salty ocean water they’d swam in that afternoon. Eyes as gray as the fog in San Francisco she’d always wanted to see beamed into hers, filled with a happiness she’d only found in music.
And him.
“When are you going to take me to San Fran?” she asked suddenly, sliding her guitar between her knees so she could scoot closer to Gray. She laid her head on his bony shoulder, breathing in his cologne of teenage boy sweat and sunshine more greedily than the summer breeze. Oxygen didn’t make her giddy. He did.
But that was her own little secret, one she wouldn’t even tell her diary. She’d found the closest thing to happiness she’d ever known with Gray’s family. No way would she mess it up because of the stupid, pointless thing she had for the guy who was kind enough to be nice to her. She was sure he wouldn’t appreciate his foster sister bothering him with a dumb crush.
Gray was a year older than her, sixteen to her fifteen, and those three-hundred-sixty-five days could’ve been a lifetime. He drove around in his sexy convertible with his guitar in the back while she waited to borrow his mom’s sedan to take her oh-so-exciting learner’s permit out for a spin with Gray’s mom securely at her side. He also took out girls in that car and brought them home when his parents were away. Girls with long blonde hair that touched their perfect bubble butts and puffy lips that looked like they’d been pumped up with air. He brought them inside, laughing with them like he laughed with her.
She didn’t do that with anyone else but him. Nothing was that funny, except when she was with Gray.
Every Friday night, she took up her station in the hall closet, waiting for her chance to learn about a world far removed from hers of band practice and math homework. She pressed her ear to the door and listened as he made the pretty blonde girls moan, whispering things in their ears she so desperately wanted to hear.
She’d bet he wasn’t kidding around about the Bourne movies like he’d done with her last night.
“When do you want to go?” Gray asked, tickling her ear with his warm, sickly sweet breath. They’d shared a hot fudge sundae at the beach, then tossed around the Frisbee and chased Kizer, Gray’s golden retriever, until she’d felt sick from laughing and running and eating so much. Even hours later her stomach still wasn’t quite right.
But that might’ve had something to do with the firm, rock-hard body she was leaning against. Did her best friend have to be that hot?
“I don’t know. Next summer, maybe?” She remembered Gray would be getting ready for college then and shook her head. “Never mind. You’ll be too busy with Berkeley prep.”
“What prep? I pack my bags and throw them in the car. It’s a couple hours away. No sweat.” He flicked her nose. “Let’s do it.”
“Really?” She knew she squealed like a little kid but she couldn’t help it. “Oh my God, it’ll be so awesome. We’ll be like real adults, out on our own—” She broke off and sighed. Dumbass, shut up already. Please? “Of course, you already will be, since you’re going to college and everything. Getting into Berkeley’s as good as it gets. Living your dream, all day every day.”
“My dream’s right here,” he said quietly, and she smiled as he nudged her guitar back into her hand. “Now stop fantasizing about traveling the world and try that chord again.”
Blinking her way back into the present day physically hurt. What hurt more? Looking down at Nick’s hand cradling hers and wishing like hell it was someone else’s. That the boy she’d loved so much still existed.
God, what kind of person was she?
“Him on his guitar, me on mine,” she whispered, pushing the words out. Every moment she’d shared with Gray stayed in the vault of her mind, away from the reality that had destroyed them. “I played that and the keyboards before I moved on to the drums. His mom got me my Sonor. I couldn’t believe she’d bought me something so kickass.” She smiled. “He’s the one who encouraged me. I hated going to class, so he helped me study. When I didn’t have a date for the dances at our fancy prep school because everyone thought I was weird with my lime green Kool-Aid-dyed hair and my obsession with band, Gray took me. He was my best friend.” Hearing herself, she shook her head. “Is.”
“What happened?” Nick asked gently as she clamped her hand around his. If she didn’t hold on tight, he would slip away too. “Why did he change?”
“There were a couple reasons, I think. Maybe more than I know. It’s not like he’ll tell me.” Restlessly, she rubbed their joined hands over her thigh. “Things were different when we were in Montecito. I lasted at Gray’s place a couple of years, longer than I’d managed to anywhere else. I always was that kid with behavioral problems, you know?”
“Yeah.”
From the flatness of Nick’s tone, maybe he really did understand. “No one gave a shit about my past, how it had messed with my head. And Gray’s family seemed so great. They cared about me. Or at least that’s what I thought. They’re mondo rich and stable, but there were…other issues.”
“Like what?”
She pulled her leg underneath her and stared at some spot on the floor. “Gray’s older brother tried to rape me,” she said in a monotone, focusing on the spot. What was it? Alcohol? Food? Some gross bodily fluid?
Knowing the boys of Oblivion, she’d go with the bodily fluid. Probably Simon’s. Gag.
