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“My friend on the Outside. That’s what us kids called the nearest town to the Hamlet. The Outside.”
I’ve never heard of a kid having a friend outside the Hamlet. Another reason that place creeps me out. No outsiders in, no insiders out. “How’d you two meet?”
Tears immediately spring to her eyes, and I regret my question.
I put a steady hand on her back. “You know what? Never mind.”
“That’s why I agreed to the arranged marriage. Her death—” She looks away, whispering, “Why should I get to choose who I get married to, when she doesn’t even get to get married.” She whips away the tear that’s rolled down her cheek, wiping with the edge of her sleeve. “Enough about me,” she says, closing the subject. “Pain for a pain. What happened to you?”
“Let me make us some tea.” I get up, stretching my legs. I go to the kitchen, lost in the past, wondering how much I should share. If anything. I locate teabags. Heat the kettle. Make two cups with milk and sugar in hers.
“Here you go.” I hand her a mug before I sit down beside her. I take a deep breath. “I came from a crappy town. Forget the opioid crisis, meth was the drug of choice. I lived with my dad, an angry alcoholic who thought the world owed him something, and it made him angry that he wasn’t getting it.” And he took that anger out on me. “The only bright spot in my life was my best friend. Quinn.”
“That’s a unique name. Quinn.”
“That’s how we became friends. Me kicking people’s asses who wanted to make fun of him. He was shy, quiet, but I liked the kid. He was smart, funny. Could have an actual adult conversation. Not just talk about video games all the time.”
“I get that. What’s a video game?” she laughs.
“Anyway, I stayed at his house as much as I could. His mom and dad were cool. Didn’t seem to mind me hanging around.” As per usual for those times in that town, they minded their own business, ignoring the fresh bruises I’d show up with time and time again. And I was grateful for that. I’d heard terrible things about foster farms, as they called them where I came from—adults way more unfit than my own father, bringing in heaps of troubled kids they totally neglect while they collect their paychecks. At least my dad put food on the table.
“Our junior year of high school, Quinn and I were making plans to get jobs and share an apartment when we both turned eighteen. Then, just when I was feeling hopeful that I was going to get out, Quinn and his family left town. Overnight.”
“What happened?” She stares at me, completely absorbed in the story.
“His dad worked in toy research. Didn’t pay much. Until he discovered the next big thing. He took these little magnet things and created pieces you could stick together like a puzzle, only you could make multiple puzzles out of the same set.”
“Clicky Sticks! Thomas and I were obsessed with those things. There was this one really cold winter, it seemed like it never stopped snowing. We played with those things for hours.”
“Yup. That’s them. Made his dad a fortune. They were overnight millionaires.”
“Did you ever see him again after that?” She purses her lips, blowing on her tea to cool it.
I bite back bile. I loved Quinn. As much as I love the brothers in the Brotherhood. But I think about this often. I do wish I’d never seen him that day because of what happened afterward. It brings me back to the present, though. I look into her eyes. If everything that happened hadn’t happened, would I be a Bachman? Would I be sitting here with her? I don’t know.
“Yeah. Once they got settled, he reached out. Invited me up to his new mansion. I couldn’t believe it. A massive three-story white house in a circle of identical homes called The Circle, a big iron gate with a code at the front of their street.” A code that was meant to keep people like me out. “Everyone went to expensive private schools. His parents followed suit, enrolling him in one.”
She wraps her hands tighter around her mug. “That’s a big change.”
“Yeah. Huge. Especially when they decided that the money meant early retirement and now the two of them had all the time and money in the world to travel.”
“Only without their teen son tagging along?”
“Right. Luckily, he was able to talk them out of boarding school. He went to Huntington Day, came home, and played video games in all his spare time. Just like the kids we used to make fun of. I felt bad for him, being all alone, and I didn’t have any desire to go home. His parents were thrilled when I moved in, offloading their guilt at never being around.”
“Wow. So, you—what were you guys? Sixteen? Seventeen? Just living in a mansion in the city with tons of money?”
“He had money, not me. I lived there, sure, ate their food, used their electricity, but that’s where I had to draw the line.” I had too much self-respect to use Quinn to benefit myself. “I got a job, working at a car place. I learned fast, was willing to put in the hours. I was saving up for first and last month’s rent for that shitty apartment on Broadway I told you about.”
The one I didn’t get to rent for almost another decade because of her.
“And on the weekends? What kind of stuff did you guys do?” She gives a light laugh. “You know what my weekends were like in high school.”
“Parties. We went to parties.”
Huge, waterfront mansion parties with lines of cocaine, bottles of Dom Perignon and more privileged white kids than I had ever seen in one place, their cars lined up out front. Lambos and Porsches. All paid for by their daddies. No work. No stress. Just filling their time and black Amexes with whatever they wanted.
Kind of like Paisley.
