Dead, Sweet Boy (Book One - Dead, Sweet Series) Read online

  I didn’t answer, so he pulled off the road and into the parking lot of the Dairy Queen. At first I panicked. It was the town’s hang out for all the teens, and I surely wasn’t ready to see anyone. When Rick parked, he must have noticed fear shock through my body. His hand extended across the car to stroke my messy hair. Warmth flooded through my frozen heart, causing it to beat more noticeably than it had since I was convicted. I was alive. The impact of his touch produced such surprise that I grabbed his big hand and held it to my face.

  “It’s going to be okay, Sunny.”

  As quickly as I held on, I let him go. The rosy heat of my blood, blushed my face. My eyes darted away from his. My heart slammed as the gates to my spirit closed again. Rick was the first person to touch me since the night Mack left. I didn’t even realize until it happened. Not one person touched me. I touched no one.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I accused.

  “Chocolate?” he asked, pulling back his own energy. He didn’t wait for my answer. Chocolate was my favorite and he knew it.

  My eyes darted to the entrance of the ice cream shop. I recognized a voice in a group of girls who were coming out. Of course, the first person I would have to see on the day of my release would have to be Linda…

  Chapter Five

  Razor Face

  Oh it must be hard for the likes of you to get by

  In a world that you can’t see through

  And it looks so cold

  How does it feel to know you can’t go home

  How does it feel to know you can’t go home

  (Elton John’s, Madman Across the Water)

  Summer was in the air and school was out. Linda and her friends were sporting their new fashions. They looked so clean that I felt dirty just looking at them. Rick bumped into them as they were coming out with their ice cream cones. He changed his mind about going in and headed back to me. That’s when she saw me.

  Linda had a mean streak and I might have deserved it but that didn’t mean I had to take it. They were the kind of group who thought they understood fashion, but couldn’t pull off the grace or elegance some outfits needed. Imagine putting a bull dog in a diamond collar. It’s done all the time, but it’s a statement. They were really pretty for their breed, but there was something really rough about their edges.

  The bitch didn’t flinch when she saw me. And it didn’t bother her to walk up to my side of Rick’s car. I never should have rolled the window down the rest of the way and let the world in. When she leaned into the car I was startled. For a second before she spoke, I noticed a scar above her left breast. I looked again and noticed it was in a shape. It was like a brand that had been burned into her skin, and it was in a shape that was familiar. My recollection was foggy, but it made me think of Mack.

  “Look who’s out.” Her eyes were narrow, angry slits with knitted eyebrows above them. She must have been out of mourning for Mack. Her black hair was dyed back to maroon again and she wasn’t sporting his jacket. My jacket.

  “Hello Linda,” I managed. I smiled, not because I was happy to see her, but because one of the funniest songs popped into my head. Gives You Hell, by All American Rejects.

  When you see my face, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell.

  One of her girls stepped forward and snapped, “It’s Gypsy. Get it right. Call her Gypsy.”

  “Groupies,” I said, under my breath.

  When you walk my way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell.

  Yeah, I know, the song didn’t exactly fit the thing between me and Linda, but it was funny to think of her that way.

  “What did you call…?”

  “Linda, don’t start anything,” Rick defended. “We’re leaving, so just get away from the car.”

  Linda leaned into the car while she said what she probably couldn’t wait to say; what she probably made sure everyone knew about me. “You shouldn’t have come back here, you dog killer.”

  I could have put my head down in shame. Most people who are really sorry for what they’ve done would have taken the blows. I took them as long as I could.

  “Shut up Linda!” Rick scrambled to get in the car. I wondered if he was afraid that I might strike her.

  “She burned down my house and killed my dog. I can’t believe you’re defending her Rick. I thought you were supposed to be Mack’s best friend. How do you think he would feel?”

  The same darkness that boiled in my veins when evil crept in simmered deeply as she threw those words at me. She was right and I was wrong. I should have kept my mouth shut or apologized, but I didn’t. The words were almost a growl as they came from the bowls of the silence I had kept. “Yes I did that. I’ve killed before Linda. Hope it gives you hell.”

  My head almost snapped from my neck when Rick punched the car into reverse and peeled out of the parking lot. “Are you crazy saying shit like that?” he yelled. “Sunny! What kind of stupid are you? She could go to the police.”

  “Let her. I don’t care.”

  “Your first day out and you threaten of all people, Linda. She has witnesses Sunny.”

  Slowly the black simmer receded and I started to breathe again. He was right. It was stupid, but all I had to look forward to was going home to a house that would be as much of a prison as the one I just came from. How could I fit into my town now? Did he think that if we got the band up and going again people were going to want to see me? The arsonist? The dog killer?

  “My parents should have moved. They should have moved us far away from here.”

  “How’s that going to help anything?”

  “Are you kidding me Rick? Really? I mean are you really kidding? What kind of life am I supposed to have here? You just saw it.”

  The same big hand that touched me so tenderly, slammed itself on the steering wheel several times and then punched the dashboard. In all the years that we had been friends I’d never seen him angry like this. Not so outwardly. Rick was the type to sulk when he was angry.

  His wild, straight locks of hair seemed to stand out more dramatically with his anger, and I noticed for the first time how big he was. In six months he had grown taller and filled out. He was even muscular. Why hadn’t I noticed? It was me. I was different. My spirit wasn’t aligned with the world anymore. Faces, people and emotions were all blurred together. Everything about me was several steps behind what my eyes and mind were trying to take in. If Rick hadn’t shown his anger, I might not have recognized it at all.

  “What are you doing? Why are you pulling over?”

  At first he didn’t answer as he pulled into the town park. Thankfully there weren’t too many people out, just some dog walkers I didn’t recognize. “Look Sunny. I have to take you to the police station to check in first and I don’t want to go while I’m upset.”

  “You aren’t the one who’s gotta check in. You can wait in the car if you want.”

  “Listen to you. Isn’t it a big deal to you that you have to check in with the police? It would have been a big deal before.”

  “Yeah well I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”

  “What if Linda’s there?”

  “So what. I’ll deny it.”

  “I can’t take this. I can’t watch you hurt yourself like this.” His voice was frantic as his hands tried to help explain what he was feeling.

  I watched his hands move around in the air. For a moment they looked like Mack’s hands. Oh God, I wanted to grab his hands and hold them, but I knew it was in my head. I looked away. “You don’t have to take it Rick. I didn’t call you to come get me. I didn’t ask you to come see me. You don’t have to be a part of my messed up life.”

  My old friend leaned back a little in his seat. I supposed it was to compose himself again. I watched as his breathing calmed. “Is that what you want? Were you that dependent on Mack? Do you seriously think you can’t live without him? That doesn’t sound like you. I can’t believe this. Do you think Mack would be okay with that?”
r />   “Stop.”

  “No. Do you think Mack wants you to stop living because he messed up? Sunny, think. I’m sure Mack would tell you right now that he regrets what he did.”

  “Stop it. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Well someone has to tell you. I’m not going to pretend you aren’t freaking me out. I know who you are Sun, and this isn’t you.”

  That was it. I snapped. “You don’t know anything!” I yelled. “You weren’t with us all those times we were alone; all that music we wrote together. You don’t know what he was to me. Nobody knows.”

  A dog walker stopped in front of Rick’s car and actually watched us for a minute. I’m sure the sound of my voice sounded violent. When I stopped yelling the man moved on.

  I wanted to tell someone, anyone how I felt about Mack. I wanted to say that he was the only boy I had ever loved. It was a secret I would never tell. If the world knew what a sap I was and how I clung to unrequited love… well, I didn’t care if they knew I was crazy, but not that.

  “You know I don’t have a license anymore. They took it away when I got convicted.” The subject needed to be changed.

  “I can drive you,” he sighed.

  “Well the only places I have to go now are to my parole officer and the mandatory therapy. I’m still nuts ya know.”

  “I see.”

  My leg started to bounce again. Rick sat up and reached over to stop the bouncing but it stopped when I flinched. “Relax Sunny. We’re all crazy. Mack was my friend too. He’s still my friend. It’s not like any of us can forget him. He’s a part of us. He’s here.”

  My arms crossed fiercely across my chest with those words. That wasn’t a conversation I needed, so I was done. Mack was dead and it didn’t help when people kept talking about him living on in memories and crap like that. Whatever sick need Rick had to talk to me about Mack was out of line. His speech was so blocked from my hearing that I didn’t even notice when he was finished. Hell, I barely noticed when he pulled out of the park and out onto the road again. The road that took us past the cemetery. I noticed when he looked at me to see if I was looking in the direction of the graves. I think he sighed when I looked the other way.

  Everyone wants to be a therapist when the whole world knows you’re crazy. People like my parents, who haven’t been convicted of being crazy, but take pills and drink to cope, have all the rights in the world when it comes to giving advice to a convicted crazy person like myself.

  “Honey, all your pills are in the cupboard of your bathroom. I picked them up early this morning so you could have them.”

  Thank God for that mother. You wouldn’t want me to snap again.

  What no one understood, the doctors included, is the pills don’t work. Every day and night I throw them away. I got so good at it, they stopped checking. One pill for depression was upped so many times it made me a zombie, and the other pill was to help me sleep, but who wants to have nightmares?

  “Thanks mother,” I managed for her. I wanted to tell her we were tweak’n with our matching medicine cabinets and that I couldn’t wait until I was a grown up with a full cabinet like hers. Instead it made more sense to take it easy on her. Charity would make the reunion go more quickly.

  “We’re having spaghetti tonight. Cook made it special for you, because she knows it’s your favorite. Oh and I went to the bakery and got you a cheesecake.”

  “Thanks mother.”

  Cook has a name, but my mother never uses it. We are a wealthy family, but in my mother’s head we are royalty or something. Cook’s name is Patty, and I was ashamed to look in Patty’s eyes as I avoided her hug. One of the kindest people in my world, and I was ashamed to be near her.

  My father was golfing. It was a good choice. On visits he didn’t speak to me unless my mother prompted him. His eyes couldn’t hide the disappointment. I was glad to go to my room, but I didn’t think I would ever get rid of my mother. She fussed over my bags and putting my things away, chatting incessantly, to hide her discomfort.

  “I was thinking we could have someone come in and decorate your room. What do you think Sunny? It might be time for a more grown up room.”

  Looking around at the room that hadn’t changed while I was gone, she was right. My mother was right. Everything was pink, like a princess room. It was all too innocent for me. “That would be nice mother.”

  “Really? Oh I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll call my decorator and he’ll get on it right away. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”

  Honestly, it couldn’t happen fast enough. What’s the point of a room full of memories? All the years, me and Mack, watching TV, doing homework, writing music, telling each other our thoughts, hopes and fears, all in that pink room. It needed to go.

  “I don’t know how people do this? Can I sleep in the guest room downstairs?”

  My mother took me by the shoulders and led me out to the hall, where she tried to give me a hug. It was wrong to pull away from her. It was sad. Her face was full of hurt.

  “Honey, you’re so jumpy.”

  “No I’m not, I just…”

  “No, it’s okay. Of course you’re jumpy. Listen, you pick whatever room you want. Hell, take our room if you want.”

  “What?”

  This was getting way weird. Normally it was easy to tell if she had taken too many trips to the medicine cabinet, but she seemed normal. I think. Maybe I didn’t know normal. Her lungs let out all their air in a sigh that left her looking tired. I didn’t know where to put my eyes or myself. These were unchartered waters. My mom and I never really talked, and I think she wanted to talk. My insides started to tighten up and it took everything inside of me not to bolt. What I really wanted was to call out for Mack.

  Tears welled up in my mother’s eyes and they were real. This was new too. She looked so vulnerable and soft. Normally any emotions from my mother were connected to a tantrum that was all about her. The pause was embarrassing. “What I mean to say…” she almost whispered. Her hands stroked each other uncomfortably as she seemed to search for words, or thoughts, or feelings.

  Her face. It was my face. Only older – tired. “The guest room downstairs, at the back of the house, is perfect,” I blurted out. A smile came to her face in the form of relief. We went back into my room to pack up the stuff that she had already unpacked.

  “Yes, that’s a perfect room for you. It’s close to the pool. I know how you love the pool, and you can have your friends over. We can turn the little room next to it into a TV room.” Once again she rambled on at ease. And once again, I didn’t need to talk. We dragged everything down to my new room. While she babbled, I opened the drapes to the French doors that led out to the pool and down to my river. For a moment I was lost in the view of my childhood. It seemed so far away. All the time that Mack and I spent in my pool and at my river. There weren’t any toys that came to mind, or even other people. He was my childhood. There wasn’t one small cubby of my house or my life that wasn’t empty now without him.

  “Sunny? Did you hear me?”

  “Huh, oh sorry.”

  “I said, do you know what color you want to paint your room? I was thinking that greens and yellows would be so fresh and grown up. We could do some sort of theme if you want.”

  “Color?”

  “Oh, I saw this room in a magazine; I’ll bet you would love it. It was so modern but had a colonial flair. You know that blue they use in the teapots and curtains?”

  Colors used to mean so much to me. My wardrobe was full of almost every color. Flowers and rainbows would fascinate and thrill me. Colors were happy like I thought I was. So many times I tried to get Mack to feel what I felt when colors flooded my senses, but he couldn’t. His favorite color was black. He said it was the original color of the world, before God turned the lights on, and that if you wanted to really see anything, you had to compare it to black. It didn’t make sense to me then.

  “Black,” I said. “I like the color black.”

&
nbsp; Chapter Six

  Love Song

  You say it’s very hard

  To leave behind the life we knew

  But there’s no other way

  And now it’s really up to you

  (Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection)

  Several days had passed before I saw Rick again. He called every day, but I didn’t answer. What did I have to talk about? What did we have in common? The band? Not a likely venture at that point. It didn’t even really make sense to have a phone. He was the only person calling.

  He was persistent.

  “I thought I might find you here,” he said as he approached the dock.

  It didn’t startle me because I could hear him approach. It did upset me though. He wasn’t invited and I wasn’t ready.

  “Want to go fishing?”

  “Not really,” I answered, not hiding my annoyance at all. I tossed the rest of the apple I was eating into the river. For a moment I let myself be distracted by wondering what kind of fish might eat an apple. His voice brought me back. He was pissing me off.

  “Let’s take your boat out,” he suggested. He was nervous and knew he wasn’t welcome. That’s when I looked up and noticed that he no longer wore the really tight ‘skinny’ jeans the rest of the band wore. He was too naturally big now. No more skinny legs and small frame on that guy. He was turning into a man. I took a second look, as if I were meeting him for the first time.

  “What’s up Rick? I mean, what do you want?” My voice was harsh and uninviting.

  He shook his head and looked away. “I just thought that maybe we could do something. Chill.”

  It felt awful to treat him like that, but I couldn’t help it. He would be better off staying away from me. All I needed anymore, was peace and quiet, and to be alone. Nothing and no one fit and I was no longer very good at pretending.

  “I don’t know how to chill Rick. I’m not the person I used to be and I can’t help it.” That must have been his queue to sit down next to me. Someone else to give me counseling and advice was the last thing he’d better offer.