Grabbing Hold (The Motorcycle Kid #1)

68. Scars, Part One

TRIGGER WARNING: this chapter's pretty (very) heavy, and will contain scenes which reference domestic violence, drug usage, deportation, minor police brutality and injury. 

Ryder sat with knees pulled to his chest, his shoulder a mere breath away from Emma's as they watched the lights of the city in the distance. It was a weighty silence; he could sense the unease in her posture, could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she struggled to keep herself from bombarding him with questions. After all, even Ryder knew he offered more questions than answers, and knowing he had no idea when he'd see Emma next, there was no sense in keeping any more secrets. 

Besides, he'd already been about as vulnerable as he was ever going to be when he'd confessed his feelings, something he had never thought he would've done. Emma was never supposed to be a permanent fixture in his life. A summer fling, maybe. But feelings? Ryder hadn't expected that. And if he could come clean about his feelings after all the pain he'd been through in the last year or so, he could come clean about anything.

"Ask me," he said quietly.

Emma blinked a few times, startled, stray blades of grass across her fingers as she lifted her hand from the ground. 

"Huh?"

"You're practically vibrating, Blondie." Ryder scratched his head. "You can ask. I'll answer."

"Are you sure?" Emma asked quietly, not wanting to be yelled at the way she had been the last time she dared to ask Ryder about his personal life.

Ryder ran a thumb over her knuckles, breathing deeply. "Yeah. I...I want you to know. I...I need to talk about stuff eventually, right? Go ahead, ask me."

Emma ran the questions through her head.

"How did you get the scar on your stomach?"

The young man was taken aback, hand instinctively covering the area where Emma knew the long, jagged, fading scar lay beneath the fabric of his T-shirt. A flicker of panic crossed his eyes, and she braced for his automatic self-defense mechanism, a.k.a yelling.

"M-my scar?" Ryder stuttered out instead. He didn't meet Emma's eyes, trying to formulate a response that wouldn't mean shutting her out like he had in the past.

"I got it the night I got arrested."

"You got stabbed?"

"Well, I did break five of his ribs and land him in the ICU," Ryder said, a little nonchalantly. "A stab wound seems a fair trade-off."

Emma's face was filled with shock. Ryder rolled his eyes.

"I forget you're not used to this life."

"Of course not! How can you talk about getting stabbed so...easily?"

"Anything's easy to talk about when you've been surrounded by it your entire life, to be honest," Ryder replied with a shrug.

"Ryder...what happened that night? Why'd you get arrested? And does that have anything to do with you losing the scholarships?"

"You're smart, Blondie. Trust you to ask the one question that's going to make me end up spilling everything."

"Ryder-"

"It's fine," he waved her off. "I said I'll answer."

He watched as Emma's hands and gaze drifted back down to the grass.

"Felipe didn't turn into an asshole overnight," Ryder said bluntly, fist clenched at his side. "He's always been a piece of shit."

Emma winced.