Allyson In Between ✔︎

Chapter Twenty-Two

| photo by Elia Pellegrini from Unsplash |

The landmarks around the entrance to my neighborhood are starting to look familiar. I'm pretty sure Noah should make a right turn after we pass the gas station with the green sign. His blinker confirms my suspicion and my eardrums throb along with the ticking. I close my eyes and concentrate on the warmth of his hand. His fingers are threaded through mine now. The pressure of his grip is constant, like he never wants to let me go—but I don't think our story is going to have a happy ending.

My weight shifts slightly forward, and then back against the seat when the car comes to a stop. I open my eyes and I'm confused for a moment. I guess I was expecting a dingy house with unhinged shutters. Beer bottles scattered on a weed-infested lawn. But no, this is not the stereotypical house of a drug dealer. It's immaculate. With crisp yellow paint and a large front porch that looks warm and inviting—despite the backdrop of menacing sky and waterlogged trees.

Noah releases my hand to unbuckle his seatbelt. He shifts sideways and his eyes brush past mine on their way to the back window. They stay there, fixed. Like all those multidirectional creases carved into his forehead. A muscle in his jaw goes tense and relaxes. It flexes again and holds for a moment and I catch myself clenching my teeth as I watch. I'm copying him. Clench. Release. Clench. Release.

Until Samantha's car pulls in, jerking to a stop a little too close to Noah's rear bumper. She gets right out—with her pink polka dot umbrella and a wide-eyed stare that says, "What the hell are you guys waiting for?"

"I don't want you here," I tell Noah. "But it's not because I want to hide anything from you. I just...it would be easier. For me. If I could keep it separate—the mistakes I made before the accident, and the way I feel about you now."

Noah closes his eyes, blocking me out completely this time as he twists back around to open his door. He gets out of the car and just stands there, getting pelted by angry raindrops, before he squats down, steadying himself with a hand braced on the cracked vinyl seat he just vacated. "I can't leave until I know you're safe," he says, his blues eyes dark. Like the unrelenting cloud over his head. "And after that..." He shakes his head. "I can't make any promises."

I unlatch my door, with trembling hands, and meet him at the front of his car. We follow Samantha's lead, splashing along the street curb, to a smooth concrete driveway. The front door opens as we herd up the porch steps. By a guy with unruly brown hair, green eyes—and a full freaking beard. His gaze jumps, narrow and nervous, taking the three of us in. But then he focuses on me. Drew the drug dealer gives me this alarmingly intimate welcome-back smile that makes my stomach turn. In the worst possible way.

I fist my hands and lock my arms against my sides, fighting an urge to punch that stupid grin off his fuzzy face. "What have you done to my sister?" I ask.

"Hey—whoa," he says, head jerking back. Then he waves us inside his house with an impatient swipe of his hand. "Your sister was rummaging around in my car. I only let her in here because she said you sent her. Then she started crying hysterically and I couldn't get her to leave."

Drew leads me through a short hallway, to a spacious kitchen that opens into an over decorated family room. Lindsay is curled up, looking small and pitiful on a love seat covered with aggressively floral fabric. "Are you okay?" I ask, squatting to get a better look at her eyes. Which are definitely red. "What are you on?"

"Nothing," she says, feeble and unconvincing. "Did you talk to Samantha?"

"Don't lie to me, Lindsay—not anymore. Did this guy give you drugs—weed or something stronger? Did he touch you?"