Chapter 28

The phone buzzed on Poe’s nightstand, and I saw his body tense, though he didn’t look over at it. Like it would have given the object power if he gave in. He didn’t say who kept calling and texting, but I guessed that on my own. Since Poe only knew a handful of people, it hadn’t been all that hard. Cathy had to keep her mother from exploding at the police, so it couldn’t be her. And I’d been sitting in his bed all morning, spending my Saturday trying to help him ignore the phone.

Poe had a movie on, but we didn’t really watch it. He mostly stared at the TV blankly, and I stared at him. Poe hardly moved, but I’d see his fingers twitch every time the phone started to go off. Like he wanted to answer it and forgot for a moment that he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t…

“Sweetheart,” I started when the phone quit buzzing. “Do you want me to answer it? I can tell Brent to leave you the hell alone.”

“It won’t work,” Poe answered. His voice had been sullen all day, and I didn’t like the helpless feeling it gave me. “I’ve been trying for years, and it does nothing. In the end, he gets upset, and then takes off. It’ll happen again if I just wait it out.”

The problem being that Brent liked to come back sometimes, spinning Poe into misery every time. The guy made him feel guilty, even though Poe did nothing wrong. He still took on the responsibility but didn’t know how to deal with it. He didn’t want to hurt Brent. I however, wasn’t as kind, and would be more than willing to do it for him. I kept that to myself, because Poe had enough to deal with.

I laid my head on his shoulder, comforting myself as much as it probably comforted him. “I’ll wait it out with you then. I don’t want you all alone here if he shows up.”

“It makes me feel better, at least knowing that you’re not home alone. Tammy could probably sneak through your window.”

I sighed. “Thanks…”

“Sorry, that came out wrong.”

“Even so, you have a point.” I turned to my side, putting my arm around his middle. “Too bad we can’t get away with sleepovers…”

Poe agreed. “My parents would notice a tiny orange haired girl sneaking out of my room to go shower in the morning, so you have a point. We might be able to pull it off if we go about it right.”

“Not likely.”

“They take Malon to her guitar classes three times a week. They won’t be back until almost nine. You can hide in the closet.”

I smiled. “Tempting.”

“I’ll make it temping,” he said, quite suggestively.

I laid back when Poe started to roll on top of me. I happily took the distraction that worked on the both of us. If I could get Poe to stop worrying for a little while, then I’d done my job. Maybe he had a point. If we waited out the stuff with Brent, then he would leave again. He might actually get the hint this time. Poe wasn’t alone anymore, and I thought it would change things for his terrible former friend.

Poe nudged my legs apart with his knee and settled between them. His mouth found mine, and it all felt effortless. Nothing awkward or tense. I didn’t feel obligated to let anything happen. Now wasn’t the time to be having more realizations about how awful my last relationship had been, but that stuff kept coming out randomly. Pieces would suddenly be clear, making me feel all the more foolish for falling for it as long as I had. I comforted myself by remembering that it wouldn’t happen again.

Poe must have sensed that I’d been distracted, because he deliberately pressed himself between my legs. A great way to get my attention, I decided. I responded, moving my hips along with Poe as I pulled him closer to me.

“If we keep this up,” Poe said when he moved his lips from mine, and to my throat. “I might think you kinda like me.”

“Hmm.” I ran my fingers through his hair, smiling to myself. “I don’t know why you would assume that.” My hands left his hair to travel down his sides. I loved the weight on me, and the gentle rhythm Poe kept as he worked his hips against mine. I would have been panting his name in a few minutes if I kept lying like that.

I pushed him up by his sides, and Poe didn’t question me. Nor did he question it when I unbuttoned his jeans, and my hand slipped into his boxers. He paused kissing me, but only for a couple seconds. I took it as approval, which made me feel nice. I didn’t have much idea what I was doing…ever, but Poe made me think I got it right. He did help though, moving against my hand at the proper pace.

“Yeah,” Poe said quietly. “Doesn’t at all feel like you have a thing for me.”

I scoffed. “You clearly have a thing for me.”

“Clever.”

“Thanks, I thought so.”

I tried to pull Poe’s jeans down a bit more, plotting out in my head how I could get him onto his back. I didn’t get the chance to work out my plan though, because he seemed to have something else in mind.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” I asked when he pulled my hand away from him.

“Mind your own business.”

I giggled at him but didn’t want to drop the game. “You’re not the boss of me, and this is no way to get me to like you, if that’s your goal.”

“Who says it is?”

“Point taken. It would be a waste of time anyway. I can’t imagine why you think I would possibly be enjoying any of this.”

He moved lower, unbuttoning my shirt and kissing the skin he exposed. “Me neither. But your skin gets all warm when I touch you, and your eyes went a little flat when I did this.” Poe stopped to press his hand between my legs, applying pressure as he rubbed just slightly. Still enough to make me lose my breath.

“Weird.”

“Very.” Poe had gotten down to my shorts before he stopped and looked up at me. “I guess I have no reason to think you might be into me.”

I shook my head as I opened my legs up wider. “None. I’m kind of embarrassed for you, actually.”

Poe’s fingers started pulling at the zipper. “I appreciate your sympathy.” The button came undone, and my heart threatened to break my chest.

“Ya know…” I laid back, feeling my shorts being pulled down my legs. “I should find a way to make it up to you. It’s only fair.”

“Later,” Poe insisted, and then I felt his mouth on me, over the underwear I decided I hated for existing.

I went silent, unable to come up with clever things to say, and unwilling to try. Stuff like that would make Poe cocky… That, or the gasp from me when he did something as simple as touch me.

I waited for him to go ahead and rip the rest of my clothes off, but he clearly wanted to take his time. I let it happen, because it wasn’t exactly unpleasant, what Poe did.

His fingertips had just started pulling at the band when his phone vibrated. Poe and I both tensed, and I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m so done,” Poe growled, and then reached for the phone.

I sat up, covering my lap with the blankets. Maybe a dumb thing to do, but it felt needed. I saw Poe glaring at the phone in the seconds before he answered it and hissed out the boy’s name.

“Poe!” I heard Brent say from the other end. “You picked up.”

“Yeah, I almost didn’t, so tell me what you want so I can say no.”

Brent took a moment. “I… I told you I needed a little money. I don’t have anywhere to stay. The cops kicked me out of the park last night.”

Poe closed his eyes, but I saw the fight in his head. It must have been hard to separate the boy he used to care about, and the person he had become. Someone who could hurt a little girl and put Poe in this position whenever he felt like he needed something.

“Go home,” Poe said to Brent as I started rubbing his shoulders. “Go tell your parents what happened, and they’ll help you.”

“You know I can’t do that. They keep trying to send me to rehab.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing, Brent. You’re a junkie, and god knows what might happen to you. You can overdose, starve to death, a million damn things can kill you, and the little bit of money I can give you won’t change that. You’ll always need more.”

Brent sighed. “You’re supposed to be my friend, Poe.”

“No, that ended when you mutilated my sister. I should never talk to you again, yet, I always seem to answer when you call.”

“I know. I really get it, and I’m sorry, Poe.”

I winced when he said Poe’s name again, reaching so far to make a connection. Did Brent think that this would have been enough? That even though he’d hurt Poe a hundred times, there could still be the same emotional connection there? Not likely.

“Then go to your parents,” Poe said. “Tell them you need help, and then actually take it. Don’t you want to have a family again? Somewhere safe for you, where you don’t need to steal and beg and worry?”

“It won’t help!” Brent yelled, setting off my irritation. He yelled at the only person that cared if he lived or died, and that hit home a little too hard. I would have liked to rip the phone out of Poe’s hand so that I could yell at Brent, without Poe having to do it.

“It would help. They want to send you to a place that literally specializes in helping people like you. They’d make this easier.”

Poe had told me that Brent had been—for a whole three days—at a rehab. He’d broken out and managed to get away from the police that barely searched for him. A drugged-out teen wasn’t an easy find, and they supposedly had more pressing matters to attend to. I didn’t agree with it, but Brent’s parents must not have pushed very hard. It made me feel a twinge of guilt, because I could have imagined my parents being the same. They had little children to take care of, and I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I hadn’t mostly been on my own. If I’d gotten into drugs, or this stuff with Peter got worse, my parents might have written me off. I could have been on the street like Brent, twitching for a fix I couldn’t afford.

But then I saw Poe, and I saw how tightly his fist clenched, and how intensely his eyes stayed on the wall. He looked like he had to remind himself not to do damage, and I couldn’t forgive Brent for that. I couldn’t feel badly for someone who chose to hurt a person who loved them.

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Brent snapped. “They’d have me strapped down to a table and left there until I couldn’t feel anything anymore. They don’t want me better because they love me, they only want to get rid of their little embarrassment.”

I hated listening to the back and forth, but I had no other choice. While the boys fought it out, I held Poe’s hand. I let him squeeze the hell out of my fingers, knowing he had to have been unaware of the strength in it. I hoped he was also unaware of the desperate trembling in his voice.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Poe eventually said. “You need to quit coming around here and calling me. I have a family to keep safe, and my friends.”

Brent scoffed. “So I’m not your friend anymore? Or is that girl more important than me? What? You get a girlfriend and forget about everything else in your life? Is she the one telling you not to help me?”

Poe squeezed my fingers again and looked at me with guilt. Wordlessly, I tried to make that go away by kissing his shoulder. He rested his head against mine, and I wished I could have made this all go away for him.

“Clover didn’t tell me to do a thing,” Poe said. “I’m making this choice, and the choice is to stop helping you kill yourself. Talk to your parents, because I can’t do this anymore. I won’t let you use me.”

It surprised me when he hung up the phone and threw it hard to the other side of the room. I didn’t even see where it went. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and sighed for several seconds.

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?” I asked. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Not much to say,” Poe told me. “This is Brent, and this is what he does. Nothing I tell him is going to change it.”

“Do you think he’ll go to his parents if he gets desperate enough?”

Poe shrugged. “I really don’t know. If he does, he’d probably steal enough from them to get through a few months, and then take off for a while. His parents might not call the cops, but ya never know. How many times does he have to screw them over before they snap?”

I didn’t know how to answer him. I didn’t know the parents, and I didn’t know Brent. The only reference I had was my own mother and father, and if his were anything like them…then it wouldn’t have turned out the way he wanted. Neglect or rage, neither sounded pleasant.

“What do you want to do about it then?” I asked.

“Nothing. I’m finished with this. I’m blocking his number, and I won’t speak to him if he shows up. I need to set a new precedent here. One that makes it very clear that I’m not going to put up with this shit anymore. If Brent wants to die, he can do it without me.”

I still couldn’t say a single helpful word, so I hugged Poe for what felt like a long time. He hugged me back, putting his forehead against my shoulder. I gave him what I hoped he needed.

“Do you wanna take a walk?” I offered. “We can get some air before it’s too dark. Maybe I can figure out a way to sleep over.”

Poe cracked a smile, and I felt a million times less afraid. “Yeah, I think I would do better if I had you over tonight.”

After I got dressed, we headed downstairs. I checked the clock, and we had about an hour before the sun set. Enough time to walk around the block a few times before it got too spooky.

“Give me half a second,” Poe said, already walking in the direction of the staircase. “Let me grab my phone in case my parents call. They’d freak out if I vanished out of nowhere.”

I watched Poe go upstairs and had a thought that made me smile. If I ran outside really quick and gathered him a few flowers stolen from the mean old man next door. Poe liked the ones I brought him when I officially asked him to be my boyfriend. It felt worth a shot to me.

I hurried to the door, wanting to get back before he found the phone. When I got outside, I’d guessed wrong on the sunset. The sky had already turned orange and purple, bleeding across infinity as I froze my butt off in the chilly air. I needed a sweater but didn’t bring one. I’d depend on Poe to keep me warm.

The old man’s car wasn’t in the driveway, so I took that to mean it was safe for me to steal from him. He had several different kinds of flowers, all around his yard. Nothing he would have missed, and I knew for a fact that he didn’t even water them. They only survived by the rain, and how relentless Mother Nature liked to be. I believed that random stuff like that were signs that something other than us existed. Something weird, who enjoyed fucking with people.

When I found a bunch of pink flowers, I thought they looked perfect, and I bent to steal a few. Surely no one would think anything of such a little sin. If I got caught, I planned on telling them my mother had gotten sick, and I wanted to make her feel better. That, or I would run and call Poe back later. He might have even gotten a kick out of the story, picturing me stumbling through an explanation, before bolting like a coward down the street. Surely, it would test his affections for me.

“Hey!” someone yelled, and I jumped as my heart stopped beating. The jig was up, and I had to test my lying skills.

I turned, flowers in hand, and got ready to lie my ass off. Only it wasn’t a neighbor that had caught me stealing, and I didn’t have a stranger ready to face off with me.

I saw Brent standing ten feet away.