Shine - Lauren Myracle [75]
Then he moaned. That sick bastard moaned, and Aunt Tildy snapped out of her trance.
“Cat,” she snapped. Her face went hard like stone. “I said I need your help with the berries.” She whipped around, went back into the kitchen, and turned the radio up way loud.
“I gotta go,” I said through my tears and snot. I squirmed, but that just made it worse. It hurt. I could feel his fingernails, which I knew to be grimy with oil, and I squeezed shut my eyes, wanting to make everything disappear.
There was a bang outside, explosively loud, and Tommy jerked away. He jumped to his feet and said, “Fuck,” as panicked as I’d ever heard him. He straightened his jeans as best he could over the bulge of his crotch, but already he was striding for the door and out of the house.
“Shit, man,” I heard Beef say.
“Fucking hell, get it outta there! Help me drag it outta there!” Tommy yelled.
“Bro, it’s over,” Beef said. He barked a laugh of stunned amazement. “That baby’s one gone motherfucker.”
Male voices washed over me: Tommy’s furious; Beef’s sympathetic, but not overly so; my brother’s just plain flat.
Shaking, I stood and buttoned my shorts. I moved silently to the edge of the window, where I crossed my arms tight and took it in. Pieces of chrome. A fender blown several feet away when the gas tank exploded. The rubber grip of the accelerator. The smoldering remains of the smokehouse blanketing the bones of Tommy’s BMW.
“Told you not to park there,” Christian said.
Tommy lunged at him, and Aunt Tildy, whom I hadn’t yet noticed, cried, “Boys!”
My head turned toward her voice, and there Aunt Tildy was. The boys were on one side of what was now a bonfire—thanks to the dousing of motorcycle fuel—and Aunt Tildy was on the other side. Her cheeks were flushed, and her bunned-up hair was coming down in sweaty tendrils. Her eyes were so wide I could see the whites, even as far away as I was.
But how had she gotten there so quickly? If she’d gone out the back door, which opened out of the kitchen, why hadn’t I heard the screen slam?
Because of her country music, cranked up so loud. And she was sweaty because of being so close to the flames, and also because she’d exerted herself. The shed was going to collapse one way or another. Aunt Tildy just kicked a particular burning plank, maybe. The plank that would make the shed topple in the right direction.
Aunt Tildy had been incapable of coming right out and saying to her boss’s son, “Tommy Lawson, you leave my niece alone,” so she figured out another way to make him stop. That’s what I assumed. No, that’s what I knew.
And she didn’t own up to saving me because she just . . . couldn’t. Ruining Tommy’s motorcycle used up every ounce of courage she had, and there wasn’t any left over for talking about it. I told myself I was selfish to want more than what she’d already given me.
As for Christian, all I knew was that he saw me and Tommy through the window and walked away. Did it kill him inside to see his friend going after his baby sister? Probably. After all, he was a kid, too. Older than me, but still a kid, and he must have felt almost as helpless as I did.
In the months to come, in moments of loneliness so deep it hurt to breathe, I tried to put aside my fury and betrayal and humiliation and forgive him. That’s how much I missed him.
But Christian was my hero, and he let me down when it mattered most. I couldn’t forgive him. I couldn’t, no more than Aunt Tildy could untie the knots inside of herself so that we could talk about what happened. So that I could heal.
Daddy, for the record, didn’t even come out of the garage. A motorcycle blew up in his yard, and he downed his liquor and thought, Lookit that. Them boys got a real good fire going. Ooh boy, sure do like a good fire.
Two weeks later, Tommy got himself a new motorcycle, a bright yellow one, and he bragged about it more than his first.
As for Christian and Aunt