Mia

Eleven

Mia

We sat back on his tailgate for a while, watching the stars rather than the city lights that I loathed. I wished I hadn’t chucked my ice cream; it would have been nice to have it then. 

            The previous week had been the worst of my life thus far. Constantly looking over my shoulder when Kenny upped my load every day. But I kept my mouth shut, didn’t complain once. That alone wore me down into this shell of a person who was always paranoid someone was watching her. 

            The many texts Pierce sent me throughout the week reassured me that he was there if I needed, even if I was stubborn as hell and ignored him. When he texted that night, I wanted nothing more than to see him again, since I hadn’t all week. With the hope of clearing my head, I gave in, and it actually worked out in the end. 

            But the moment he mentioned his stupid job, I wanted to close up. Him being a cop wasn’t a bad thing, but me being a drug dealer, in turn making him risk his career simply by hanging out with said drug dealer, was no good. Alas, I was such a selfish, bad person all around. Letting this friendship go wasn’t an option for me. 

            I glanced sideways when he lay back in the bed of the truck with his dark, muscly arms resting behind his head. “You’re so hot,” I blurted, caring little about niceties. He snorted, but his gaze raked over my body, making me shiver. I lay back next to him, putting my arms behind my head too, wishing that I hadn’t stuck with the drab clothing I had worn that whole week at school. “Why would someone like you give two shits about someone like me?”

            Seriously. I didn’t deserve someone good like him in my life. 

            He glared at the sky before turning it on me. “First off, it has nothing to do with looks—not that you aren’t hot—but it’s you. Just you.” With a deep breath, his gaze returned to the stars. “And second, we don’t all make the right choices all the time. That doesn’t make us 100 percent bad. You just got yourself caught up in some s**t. You’re still Mia, and I still care about you. I’ll always care about you.” 

            My heart wrenched for this amazing man, who I wanted to know everything about, who I wanted to tell everything about myself to; wasn’t that what best friends were supposed to do?

            “What did she do to you?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking while staring at that scar I wanted to trace for days on end. 

            His gaze snapped to mine, the moon illuminating the scar, making it stark white against his face. He just stared for a long minute before looking back at the sky and drawing in another deep breath. “She had this thin metal stick, almost like a car antenna, or a metal switch, that she would whip me with. Whenever I pissed her off by spilling milk or waking her up too damn early, she would whip my back with it. My dad…” He paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing while my heart pounded, my stomach churning. I had asked. He shook his head. “My dad had no idea. She took care of me all day, she bathed me if the mood struck. He worked all day so she could stay home. I always thought he knew and didn’t give two shits, so I never thought to tell him.

            “One day, I tried putting a bunch of glasses away, all of them at the same time. They all slipped out of my arms, every single one shattering. She went insane on me, completely out of control. Whipped my arms and legs until I was covered in blood.” He held his arms out in front of us, and I saw then what I had never seen before—faint, thin lines covered his forearms. “When I couldn’t cover my face anymore, she got that too. Split my cheek wide open, almost destroyed my eye. I don’t know what made her stop—the blood, the place she hit—I don’t know, but she took off. Left me there. Bleeding. I was only nine and had broken a few glasses. 

            “I blacked out. When my dad got home, he found me bleeding on the floor by the shattered glasses. He saw then what had been happening, what he had missed.” Another head shake. My entire body trembled with sorrow and anger and love for him. Love. I loved him. “They never found her, and I couldn’t care less now. I can only hope she never had more children. Something was wrong with her.” He tapped on his forehead “Dad took me to the hospital and got me fixed up. He worked in construction, so he took me with him after he picked me up from school every day or the days I didn’t have school. That ended up being my first job.” 

            He fell silent, breathing heavily. I moved closer to him, letting my fingers touch his. We were such an odd pair… and I was such a shitty person. Him from a terrible home and becoming a cop. Me from an amazing home and becoming a drug dealer. And yet, I still wanted to be by him, wanted to be my selfish self. Twining his fingers with mine, we sat like that, in silence, for a long time while a slow-burning fire lit at our joined hands and slowly crept through to the depths of my soul.