We All Fall Down

Chapter 27

Roach

I honked the horn and waited for the girls to come outside. John was as quiet as always in the backseat, but I could hear him squirming against the leather seats. I rolled my eyes and slammed my fist against the horn again when they finally emerged from Mary Beth's ripped screen door. I leaned forward a bit to see past Mickey. My chest still felt tight thinking this might be the time Patrice left for good. With my only friends about to go their separate ways, I already felt my world crumbling. Patrice was all I had left, and if she was gone, too, what did I have left? It was strange because I had never cared this much about any girl before. But she wasn't just any girl, she was special, someone who I thought really cared about me. I thought back to one of the other times she talked about skipping town, and I'd begged her to take me with her.

"You won't get in trouble. I'm an adult! I can make my own decisions," I sat next to her on my tailgate at our spot on the lake. I stared at our pinky fingers just an inch from one another.

"Oh, Joshua...you know that I can't do that. Not to you, your parents...It would destroy John," she wouldn't look at me. She watched a bird glide across the water looking for fish.

"What would you do?" she asked, finally turning to face me.

"Well, what the fuck would you do Patrice?" I felt myself getting angry. I knew what she was doing, and I hated her for it. I hated myself for falling into the trap. "I'm here! I'm right here and I care about you, you know that, and I know you feel something, too! Don't try and lie to me!"

"Josh...you're so young. You think you have it all figured out. I remember when I was that ignorant to the world. You have no idea..." She trailed off as a tear slid down her smooth cheek. Age hadn't altered her yet. I wanted to brush that tear away, feel the salty water on my fingertips, but I didn't. Mostly because when she references her real life. Rick. It forces me to see things for what they were, and not what we pretended them to be on the lake.

"Don't bring my age into this. Age wasn't an issue when this all began. And I'm not the one who started this. Don't tell me Rick does for you what I do! Nobody can make you..." She slapped me, and I deserved it. But it was true. I felt used. I tried to push it away. I tried not to see that I was just a play thing for her, but here we were. And I resorted to low blows because it's all I had. Anger and pain.

"You can't say that! You can't do that, too! Okay!? That's exactly why I'm leaving. That kind of shit right there! I'm not perfect, I know that. But I can't keep living where everyone thinks I'm crazy, Josh!" More tears fell from her gorgeous eyes. It hurt me to see her like this. But she wascrazy. She did do a lot of stuff that pissed people off or scared them. But she's right. I'm not the one who gets to say it. I'm her safe person.

We ended the conversation with her promising to let me know before she left. We fooled around some more and made out until I thought my lips would fall off. She scooted to the edge of the bed of the truck and slid off, her shoes crunched on the gravel as she turned and stood between my legs facing me.

"I don't want you to go," I said staring at the freckle on her neck.

"You always say that," she chuckled.

"I know. But this time, I just have a feeling I won't ever see you again," I watched her eyes for any sign.

"Maybe you will, maybe you won't. That's how I keep my mystery," she smiled and pulled away from me. And then she was gone.

She was gone and unfortunately for me, it looks like I was just another actor in her play that she chewed up and spit out like everyone else. I clenched my jaw and took a short but deep breath. She wasn't going to ruin this trip for me, and I knew that I, at least, had one more week where things stayed the same. Mary Beth was no straight-laced girl either, but it made more sense to try and get something going with her than wishing things with Patrice would be any different.