"I don't need you protecting me."
"Maybe not, but I need to do the protecting."
He circled me in his arms, holding me to him, and I could feel his heart beating in his chest, strong and regular, safe.
"Why?"
It took him a long few seconds before he answered. Around us the night went on as it always had, as it always would. The owls and crickets made on with their noisy business, as the wind swept cool relief through the leaves around us. I stopped worrying about Andres and whether he'd be coming after me. Just then, everything went away, my thoughts, my worry, even the breath in my lungs until I heard Dempsey's answer.
"Because, sweet Sookie. I love you something fierce." And right then, the world stopped spinning. The axis of life became uneven and slow as Dempsey Simoneaux, a boy who'd been my friend, bent close to me, breath hot and sweet against my face and kissed me so slow, so soft just enough that my body felt electrified. Just enough that I knew that at that moment, my world slowly began to unravel.
Nash
On any given Thursday night at four a.m., I relive the accident.
The skyline is different. The noises of sirens and the low howl of dogs, and animals skirting along the tree lines, they're different too. There are no coyotes in Brooklyn and few moments that are quiet enough to hear the damn things if there were. But sometimes on a Thursday morning at four, my body shakes me awake and there I am, twelve years old, holding my sister's hand, listening from the hallway as the cops explain to the sitter about the accident.
"He was drunk. He's been arrested. She didn't make it."
There wasn't anything I remember more clearly from my childhood in Atlanta than those words.
It took a village, literally to keep me and Nat out of the system, even though the village was full of blood sucking mercenaries. There were enough Aunts and Uncles, enough cousins, that took pity on us after our grandfather died four years later-or, to be honest, took more to wanting the government payouts supposing watching over us gave them-to let us stick together until we could get the hell out of Atlanta as soon as we finished high school. Most of the time, I manage to keep all that past low down, hidden someplace where I keep all the things I don't want to remember-like the memory of being fired for the first time, or the first girl who told me I wasn't good enough for her. Those things got locked away with the memory of a parentless childhood. It stayed there and I never touched it. Until it comes on its own at four a.m. on any random Thursday.
"He was drunk."
That bastard lived in the low down.
Four-fifteen and I watched from the roof deck of my building as two kids argued on the sidewalk outside of my building. A guy and girl, Latin from the look of them. The yelling sounded like Spanish anyway. I caught puta, understood what that meant, and shook my head when the guy started in with excuses his chica wasn't feeling. The sky was dark, cloudy. Despite the noise and overhead fog, I could still catch a scent of rain peppering the air, kind of bitter and it set something cold and weary in my bones. The yelling got louder, pulling my gaze away from the dotted cityscape and small stars lighting up night. He was on his knees now, voice high and pathetic, reminding me why I didn't mess around with anyone for too long. There was always drama. There was always stupidity that weighed you down and I'd never met anyone worth all that drama. This poor jackass was begging for her to stay, begging for the drama to slip around him like a noose.
Four-seventeen and suddenly I realized I wasn't alone.
"You following me?" I asked her, itching for something to do with my hands as Willow came close. She wore colors I'd never seen on her; neutral, boring, surprising. Wasn't like her to wear beige or keep her hair neat and braided so tight. But I wasn't going to care about her or what she did, convinced myself of it, didn't I? The hell did it matter, her wearing boring ass clothes?
"No," she said stepping closer to the edge of the roof. She held her arms crossed and I wondered why she looked so sad, her who was usually always smiling. "I just wanted some air." She moved back, stepping behind me to sit in the wicker chairs set in a semi-circle around the Home Depot fire pit Mickey had bought last fall. It had cost him thirty bucks. Discounted for being a display. That was a little shopping tidbit I'd floated his way when he talked about charging us an extra fifty a month for "maintenance" on the roof deck.
But the pit and the chairs, even the bickering couple five stories below faded from my attention as Willow rested against the chair, feet propped on the arm of another one, her head tilted as she watched the black sky above us, and sighed.