Red and Gray

Memory

Erina stayed.

For a long time.

As Gray slept off the pain, people came and went. That girl Grace, the two boys who'd been with her - old friends of Gray, apparently - and other people from school. A few cops. Flowers and gifts piled up in his room.

Erina would've felt sickened if she wasn't so relieved. These were the same people who'd regarded her with tolerant but thinly veiled contempt. And they were acting like they'd all been buddies.

But she had no room left to be bitter. She began to talk to Grace.Grace was nice - the kind of nice that seemed to have come from a hard-won battle. She chattered freely to Red and marveled at her long hair, taking the black strands and twisting them into elaborate braids. The only girl friend Dee had ever had was Dee, and she was witness to Erina's shitty past. Grace wasn't.

Having someone who didn't know but cared anyway was strangely refreshing.

But Erina loved it most when it was just her and Gray.

Awake and sarcastic.

"How are you holding up?" he asked her, when she paused to take a breath from reading him a book. A Clash of Kings.

"You're asking me?" she said with a weak laugh. But she knew what he meant.

The cops had been interrogating her for weeks about Scott. They had her come into the station, then barged into Gray's room a couple of times to ask him questions. She'd told them flat-out that Scott was delusional from boozing and snorting, but her voice trembled.

She could still see the way their eyes scorned her, the knowing turn of their mouth. That kid... Yeah, she's grown... Her kid...

"What did they mean?" Gray asked now. She blinked, turning to him. "What?"

"When they kept calling you 'her kid'," he asked. "Are they talking about your mom?"

Erina sucked in a sharp breath. There it was. The heaviest piece of crap in Erina's baggage. Mom.

My mommy's in the car. It's not moving and neither is she.

She picked a loose thread on Gray's comforter. "Yeah. They were talking about my mom."

Gray laid his hand over hers before she could pull the thread out. "You never told me about your mom."

She shrugged. "You never asked." A shit excuse.

"I'm asking now," Gray said gently. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

She shook her head. "I have to. I haven't thought of her in - what, four years? And she died seven years ago."

"What?" Gray's eyes widened, and she realized how little she had really told him.

She was going to have to, eventually. Even if it broke her.

But can you still break when you're already broken?

Now Erina wondered how badly Gray would cut himself putting her pieces back together.

Not if I can fucking help it.

"When you get out of here - " she said slowly, " - and all this bullshit with Scott is over with, will you do something with me?"

He nodded - spontaneously, she could tell, from how jerky it was. "Yeah. Anything."

She curled her hand around his again. "Good. I guess it's time to visit my mom."

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