THE COLOR RED | DALLAS WINSTON

xxix. PEACHY KEEN

ANOTHER MURDER. It was an active story for a while. A few guys were dragged into the station. No evidence that led anywhere, no convictions. Charlotte would have forgotten all about it if she could shake the memory of Heisenberg's lifeless eyes penetrating her skin from his shallow grave. Three feet in the ground, buried with the truth of her family. Had it not been for the debilitating nightmares of Heisenberg's body collapsing before her, his body shoved into a shallow grave, she might have forgotten.

Her senior art project's theme was change. How was she, like all others, different than the person they were when they began high school? Her background's colors were deep blues and violets for sorrow and loss, some baby pink mixed into the Tulsa skyline. Then came her own image.

Bruises littering her knees and legs. Charlotte's hair platinum, but she was trying to add some more symbolism for a better grade, so her dark roots were added. Representation of her trying to forget all the terrible things that had ever happened. The books in her hands covered in vines, decaying as they clutched her bony hands, her dead family tree. 

Charlotte Porter went from a doe eyed freshmen to a self destructive wench whose head barely stayed above the surface. The damage was recognizable from a basic surface level. Deep down, it was much, much worse. Despite all the shit Charlotte had gone through, witnessed, she was still somewhere between acknowledging that she'd collected an abundance of baggage in the past few months. 

The moment she threw her graduation cap in the air at graduation, none of it mattered. It was as though nothing had happened, some form of normalcy had been achieved. Charlotte Diana Porter was the girl next door, graduated. Post ceremony, she and Brooklynn were like old friends, as though nothing happened. No fight, no cussing out, no cut throat insults, no memory of such things. Charlotte and Brooklynn's family went to dinner, had a fabulous dessert. Everything was perfect.

"You're all intelligent now." Dallas smirked later that night, lately smoking a joint and then passed a freshly lit weed to her

"Can't be that smart if I'm smoking pot with you."

"Y' made it farther than me. You can do anythin' y' want now that you're free."

"Something like that." She hummed, calmly blowing her smoke out

"Did I tell y' that I got dragged into the station, they wanted to see if I knew somethin'." Dallas smirked, laughing to himself. "I think they knew I was blowin' smoke up their ass." He sighed and looked at her. "This might be the last time you see me."

Damn him. After all that perfection all day, a wonderful conversation, intimacy. Her head on his lap. And he whipped that one out. Even Charlotte, in all her adoring school girl adoration for Dallas, was unhappy with such a change of tone, drastic subject change. 

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Heisenberg talk is gettin' bad. Fingers are gettin' pointed. I don't got many more reasons to stay. Might as well get out before it gets worse. Better for you, better for me."

Charlotte angrily huffed her smoke out, her lips glued together with fury and confusion. She was blindsided. "I'll go with you." She said the moment she could utter a word, it was the only thing her brain could come up with. Not a plea for him to stay. Just a declaration that she would leave everything if he would too.

"Yeah?" He laughed, then realized she was dead serious. If a murder wasn't involved, he'd laugh harder. She was wrapped around his finger. He could ask her to look at something at the bottom of a cliff and he could push her right off... and Charlotte would thank him. That kind of admiration from her after all the resistance was delicious.

"You're too soft for the rough side of New York." He told her plainly, shrugging it off

"I can take it." The young artist promised, tentative confidence in her voice

"What the fuck will you think you'll do there?" 

"Art." Charlotte replied. He still looked skeptical, "Look, I have nothing here either. We're young, what is there to lose?"

"Alright." Dally smirked, sitting up. "I'm leavin' in two days, if you ain't here by three, I'm goin' without you."

Two days. It seemed like forever and a short time. Two days until freedom from the demon within the woods. Two days to say goodbye and pack up an old life. Two days. But she still smiled eagerly. New York. Dallas Winston. The idea was romantic and horrifying all at once. But it made sense. Cops had always been after Dal, even though they'd been off his back since he got shot, he was still a household name down at the station. They wouldn't think about Charlotte, not unless they interviewed someone who had somehow seen them near that house the day of the murder.

She was safe from accusations and scrutiny, he wasn't. That's why he wanted to run. Dallas Winston only got pinched by the cops when he wanted to. This time, he didn't want to be sent away, stand before a judge, get a lifelong sentence. Sure, jail was a social event for him, but being able to get out of Tulsa, a place he hated from the start, and go elsewhere... that proposition was peachy keen.