“I’m sure,” Carissa said coldly. “He’s also really smart. He’s always getting picked for the Beat the Brains Team when Mr. Robinson does games in his class. He knows everything about history, so no one ever beats him. And he might not have a lot, but he’s also got a job so he doesn’t get given everything, which isn’t a bad thing. At least that’s what my dad says. And Theo and his jerk friends were being mean to that kid with all that awful acne and Carson just walked over to them crossed his arms on his chest, and they scattered. Didn’t say a word and they took off. That was cool, and it was a cool thing to do. And Theo and his friends don’t do that kind of thing anymore, not if Carson is around.”
“Does Aaron know you have the hots for Carson Steele?” Brittney asked bitchily.
“I don’t have the hots for him,” Carissa returned sharply, and Carson felt his gut lurch. “I just think he’s a nice guy. And he doesn’t deserve some girl pretending she’s into him just to get in his pants. He’s a person. He has feelings. And if you did that, Britt, that wouldn’t be cool.”
“Goody-two-shoes,” Brittney muttered.
“Maybe, but I’d rather be that than be mean,” Carissa fired back immediately.
“All right, calm down, I won’t play with Carson Steele,” Brittney replied.
Carissa didn’t say anything. She looked back to the field.
“I need a Coke,” Theresa decreed into the tense silence. “Does anyone else need a Coke?”
“Coke? Are you crazy? There are more calories in a Coke than there are in a piece of chocolate cake,” Marley stated.
“That’s not true,” Theresa returned.
“I’ll go. Get a diet. Anyone?” Brittney asked, rising from the bleacher.
“I could get a diet,” Marley said.
They all rose, except Carissa.
“Riss? You wanna come?” Theresa asked.
“I’ll stay here, save our seats.”
Carson looked to the rest of bleachers. They weren’t even half full, and there was no one anywhere near the bitch girl crew.
“Okay,” Theresa said quietly.
“Whatever,” Marley muttered.
They took off.
Carissa remained.
He watched her lean further forward and put her jaw in her hand, her eyes to the field.
He wondered if she was thinking about him.
He figured she wasn’t. She was cool, she’d had his back, but he would be the last thing on her mind.
He studied her, wishing he knew what she was thinking.
And as he studied her, knowing she had her eyes to the field but her thoughts somewhere else and they didn’t look happy, suddenly he remembered about her sister.
Everyone knew about Carissa Teodoro’s sister. It was a long time ago, but what happened was so ugly, no one forgot.
Freak accident. Tragic. Even his dad flipped out about it.
She’d been a little girl, riding around on her tricycle in the driveway. Folks were over at her parents’ house. Not a big party but enough people a little girl got lost. A couple left, no one knew she was behind the car. They couldn’t see her in their rearview, ran right over her. Crushed her to death. Right in her own driveway.
If that hadn’t happened, the sister would be a freshman. If she followed in Carissa’s footsteps, she’d be a freshman cheerleader.
He remembered his dad going on about it. Remembered it even if he’d only been about six at the time.
It wasn’t something you forgot.
Looking at her from below, her face soft, her thoughts somewhere else, he figured she hadn’t forgotten either, and he wondered if she sat at a freshman football game thinking her sister should be cheerleading. He wondered if it crushed her to think those things.
And he hoped she didn’t because he didn’t like the idea of her feeling crushed.
His eyes never leaving her, Carson wanted to call to her.
No, he wanted to go sit with her. Put his arm around her shoulders. Tell her how he felt that she took his back with the bitches who were so bitchy he didn’t get why she called them friends.
He didn’t do that.
He heard gravel shifting and looked from Carissa.
Julie Baum was headed his way under the bleachers, a smile on her face.
They were meeting there. A date.
Or the kind of dates Carson Steele got.
She wasn’t going to introduce him to her parents either. Her folks thought she was at the game with her girls. Carson would buy her a burger, find someplace to fuck her, return her to her friends, and they’d take her home.
He’d get off.
She’d get off too.
Then she probably wouldn’t think about him, except when she could arrange another meet where she could use him to get off and still do what she could to catch that football player’s eye. The one with no neck that had a dad who was a surgeon.
Which was okay with him.
It was because, not including the no-neck football player, he would do the same.
*
Carson’s boot connected with his dad’s face and the man didn’t even groan when his head snapped around.
Out cold.
Carson stared down at him, lifting a hand to wipe the blood pouring out of his nose from his mouth.
Then he spat on him.
He was two months away from eighteen. More than that from graduating.
But fuck it.
It was time to leave.
He’d never laid a hand on his father, but tonight was bad. The man had been in a rage. A frigging rage about a new oil stain on the floor of the garage.
Their house was old. There were so many stains on the garage floor, it was a wonder his old man noticed a new one.
But he did and he lost it.
And for the first time, Carson did too.
So he was done.
Carson was going to disappear.
So he didn’t get his degree.
Shit happened.
He went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Then he went to his bedroom, changed out of his bloody tee into a clean one, and grabbed his bag. He stuffed everything he could get into it. After that, he went to the AC register, pulled off the face, and tagged the money he’d saved and the letters he’d written, preparing, getting ready for the day he would be free. He took that and anything that meant anything from his room (there wasn’t much).
Done with that, he moved through the house and nabbed whatever he could that was worth something, including the jug of change his father was always filling. He even emptied his dad’s wallet.
He put everything in the car he’d bought for five hundred dollars and Linus had helped him fix up. He then strode to Linus’s mailbox and shoved in his letter. Across the street and down to Mrs. Heely’s, he shoved her letter in hers.
Ready, he got in his car.
One more thing to do before he went and he was going to do it.
So he drove to Swedish Medical Center.