Wolfsong (8 page)

I opened my mouth to give her a tragedy for a tragedy, to tell her about Dad walking out on us one random day, but I couldn’t find the words. Not because they weren’t
there
, but because I couldn’t find a reason to give them to her. She was open and kind and I didn’t know what to do with that.

We got ice cream as the sun set.

We walked around the park, the paths lit up with white lights.

She reached out and held my hand and I stuttered over my words and tripped over my feet.

It was perfect. It was so perfect.

And then she said, “How’s Joe doing?”

And I said, “Oh shit.”

I took her back home. I apologized because I had cut our first date short. She was puzzled but nice about it. She said I could make it up to her next time and my face felt hot. She laughed again and before I knew it was happening, she leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed me softly. It was sweet and kind and I hoped Joe was okay.

“See you tomorrow?” she asked when she pulled away.

“Yeah,” I somehow managed to say.

She smiled at me and went inside.

I touched my lips because they tingled and then I remembered myself.

Home was two miles away. I didn’t have a cell phone. We couldn’t afford one.

I ran the whole way home.

The lights were on in the house at the end of the lane.

The door opened even before I got to the porch.

Thomas stood in the doorway. Carter was at his side. Both looked like they were ready to attack. Thomas took a step onto the porch. His nostrils flared, and for a moment, I thought his eyes flashed impossibly, but I told myself it had to be the light. Nothing more.

Carter was on me in a second, rubbing his hands over my head and neck. “Are you okay?” he said, his voice deep. “Why are you so scared? What happened?”

It was then I realized I
was
scared. Because I had let down my friend.

“No one followed him,” Thomas said, stepping beside his son. I could feel the heat off both of them.

“He’s not injured,” Carter said. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “Did someone hurt you?”

I shook my head. “Joe,” I said. “Joe. I forgot. He—”

“Ah,” Thomas said. “That explains it.”

Carter dropped his hands and took a step back. Now he only looked annoyed. “You’re an asshole, Ox.”

“Carter,” his father snapped as I recoiled. “That’s enough.”

“But he’s—”

“
Enough
.”

With that one word, all I wanted to do was make everything better. To do whatever Thomas told me to do. And I couldn’t figure out why.

Carter sighed. “Sorry, Ox. It’s just…. Joe, man. He’s Joe.”

I hung my head.

“Dad,” Carter said quietly. “Don’t you think he should know already? He’s pack.”

“Inside,” Thomas said.

Carter didn’t say another word. He was back up the porch and inside, shutting the door to the Bennett house.

“Is he okay?” I asked Thomas, unable to look at him.

“He will be,” Thomas said.

“I didn’t mean….”

“I know, Ox.”

I looked up at Thomas. He wasn’t angry. He was just sad. “I’ll walk you home.”

I thought to argue. To tell him I just wanted to see Joe for a minute, to tell him I was sorry. But his tone left no room for argument, so I just nodded and followed him, feet dragging in the dirt.

“Is she nice?” Thomas asked.

“Who?”

“The girl.”

I shrugged. “She’s okay. She seems like a good person.”

“And you haven’t had many of those,” Thomas asked. It was not a question.

“I do now,” I said honestly. Because I did.

“You do,” he said. “Sometimes I forget you’re only sixteen. You’ve got an old soul, Oxnard.”

I didn’t know if that was good or bad, so I said nothing.

“Do you like her?”

“I guess.”

“Ox.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Good,” he said. “That’s good. Elizabeth and I met when I was seventeen. She was fifteen. There has never been another one for me.”

“But… Joe. He’s….”

“Joe….” He sighed. “Joe was upset. I’m not saying that to make you feel bad, Ox, so please don’t misinterpret my intent. Joe is… different. After everything that has happened to him, he can’t be anything
but
different.”

“Gordo said—” I stopped myself, but the damage was done.

Thomas cocked his head at me. “And what
did
Gordo say?” he asked, sounding more dangerous than I’d ever heard him.

“That someone hurt him,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. “I didn’t let him tell me any more.”

“Why?”

“Because… it wasn’t his right to tell me. It’s not my right to be told anything at all. And honestly? I don’t know if I care. And not because I don’t care about him. But because I want to be his friend no matter how he needs me.” I scuffed the dirt a bit with the tip of my boot. “And I’ll be his friend as long as he lets me.”

“Ox, look at me.”

I did. I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.

His dark eyes were bigger than I’d ever seen.

And he spoke, his voice even and soft. Words that washed over me like a river and I couldn’t stop him, no matter how much I wanted to. No matter how hard I wished he would shut his fucking mouth.

Joe was taken by a man who wanted to hurt Thomas and his family. The man kept him for many weeks. He hurt him. Physically. Mentally. Broke his little fingers. His little toes. His arm. His ribs. Made him cry and bleed and scream. He would call them sometimes. The bad man. He would call them and they would hear Joe in the background saying that he wanted to come home. All he wanted to do was come home.

Eight weeks. It took them eight weeks to find Joe.

And they did. But he wouldn’t speak.

He knew them. His family. Mostly. He cried silently, his arms and shoulders shaking.

But he wouldn’t speak.

Even when his nightmares were at their worst and he would wake screaming in the night, thrashing on his bed, trying to escape the bad man, he still wouldn’t speak.

They tried therapy. It didn’t take. Nothing would make him speak.

“Not until you,” Thomas said.

I must not have been a man yet, because under all that rage, a tear worked its way out and rolled down my cheek. “Who?” I asked, and that one word sounded like an earthquake.

“A man who wanted something he couldn’t have,” Thomas said.

“Did you kill him?”

His eyes grew darker. “Why?”

“Because I will if you didn’t. I will break him and make him suffer.”

“You would?”

“For Joe? Yes.”

“You are so much more complex than you first appear,” Thomas said. “These layers of yours. Just when I think I’ve reached the bottom, it falls away and goes even deeper.”

“Can I see him?”

“Give him a couple of days, Ox.” Thomas touched my shoulder, squeezing it gently. “He’ll find you when he’s ready. And you take care of your girl. She deserves it.”

I flushed. “She’s not my girl,” I muttered.

“She could be.”

“Maybe. Am I part of your pack?”

For the first time since I’d known him, I had caught Thomas Bennett by surprise. His eyes went wide and he took a step back and said, “What?”

“Your pack. Or whatever Carter said.”

He said nothing and I wondered if I’d crossed a line I didn’t know existed.

“I didn’t mean….” I trailed off, unsure how to finish.

He said, “What do you think pack means?”

“Family,” I said promptly.

Thomas smiled. “Yes, Ox. You are part of my pack.”

CARTER AND
Kelly weren’t at school the next day. I worried. Usually, I rode with them. But they weren’t there in the morning and I was almost late after Mom gave me a ride.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Jessie said, squeezing my hand while we sat at lunch. I did my best to smile at her as she talked. About how she liked Green Creek more than she thought she would. About how she couldn’t wait for summer. About how she missed her mom. She wondered how long it would hurt and I told her I didn’t know, even though I wanted to say it would probably hurt forever.

She kissed me on the cheek before I went to work.

THE GUYS
gave me shit at the shop. Chris said Jessie had gotten home the night before and was all swoony.

“Ox is so
dreamy
,” he breathed in a high falsetto. “His
eyes
and his
smile
and his
laugh
. O. M.
G
!”

I blushed furiously and tried to focus on an oil change.

“Look at him!” Rico said gleefully. “He’s like a tomato!”

“Our precious baby boy is growing up,” Tanner sighed.

I said, “Where’s Gordo?” His office was dark.

“Day off,” Rico said. “Had some business to take care of.”

“What business?” I didn’t remember him saying anything. He never took Mondays off.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” Tanner said. “You just worry about trying to impress your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “Try telling
her
that.”

JOE WASN’T
waiting for me on the dirt road. The house at the end of the lane was dark, like no one was home. I thought about knocking on the door, but I went home instead. In my room, the stone wolf sat on a shelf. I held it and realized that Thomas had never answered me about the bad man who had hurt Joe. If he was still alive.

A HORN
honked outside the house the next morning. Carter and Kelly waited in the car. I was nervous.

“Hey, Ox,” they said when I got in the front seat. Kelly sat behind me.

“Hey,” I said back. I wrung my hands together.

“He’s okay,” Carter said as we bumped down the dirt road.

I let out a breath. “You sure?”

“He will be.”

Kelly said, “We’ll make sure of it.”

And I said, “Your dad says I’m part of your pack,” because I wanted to make sure they thought so too.

Carter hit the brakes suddenly. The seat belt pulled against my chest. Kelly’s arms came around my front, clasping tightly. Carter leaned over and rubbed his forehead against my shoulder. “Of course you are,” he said and Kelly hummed his agreement, arms tightening.

We didn’t say much after that and that was okay.

CARTER LAUGHED
at something Jessie said. Even Kelly smiled. I was in a daze.

GORDO WAS
at the shop. The moment I walked through the door, he was in front of me.

There were bags under his eyes, and he looked pale. Even the tattoos on his arms looked faded.

“You okay?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Yeah. You?” He sounded pained.

“You weren’t here yesterday.”

“I know.”

“Maybe you should go home, man. You don’t look well.”

“I’m feeling better now,” he said and then he hugged me.

We didn’t do this often, so I was surprised. But I hugged him back anyway because he was Gordo. I put everything I could into it because I needed to.

“I’m getting you a phone,” he muttered. “Cell phone. I’m pissed off that you don’t have one. Couldn’t even call you.”

“Hey, no. You don’t need to—”

“Shut up, Ox.”

And so I did.

JOE WASN’T
waiting for me on the dirt road. The lights were on in the house at the end of the lane. I was pack now, but I went home instead.

I SLEPT
with the stone wolf in my hand.

CARTER AND
Kelly smiled at me when I got into the car the next morning. I wanted to ask them about the eight weeks Joe was missing, but the words stuck in my throat. Both of them found some way to touch me. A clap on the back. A pat against my chest.

It should have been obvious. It should have been obvious what they were, but then I wasn’t looking for the incredible buried in the ordinary.

“HOW’S JOE?”
Jessie asked at lunch, and Carter and Kelly froze.

“Haven’t seen him,” I muttered.

She looked confused. “Why not?”

“He’s been sick,” Carter said before I could speak, and Kelly squeezed my leg underneath the table. They still crowded on either side of me while we ate.

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he gets better.”

“He will,” I said. I must have put too much emphasis on the words because she looked at me funny.

Carter and Kelly pushed against me and I knew what they were trying to say.

GORDO HANDED
me a cell phone. It wasn’t fancy. It was functional. It was awesome. He had programmed his number, the shop’s, the diner’s, and the rest of guys’ into it.

“You keep this with you, okay? But don’t you dare use it in class unless it’s an emergency.”

I nodded, touching the screen lightly. “I have my own phone number?” I asked in awe.

And he smiled at me. That little smile I knew was for me alone. “Yeah, man. You got your own number.”

I said, “Thanks, Gordo,” and I hugged him again.

He laughed in my ear and I forgot that I had hated him for a little while.

IT WAS
Wednesday and Joe wasn’t there.

CARTER AND
Kelly made me put their numbers in my new phone. They gave me their parents’. And Joe’s, because apparently he had one too, even though he was only eleven. I didn’t know why little kids needed phones, but as soon as I had his number, I stared at it. I couldn’t figure out how to do a text message, so I didn’t do anything at all.

CHRIS TOLD
me that Jessie was hinting at him that I should ask her out again. I rolled my eyes when they laughed and whistled.

I WALKED
down the road to the house. Dirt bloomed up in little clouds as I dragged my feet. The sky was gray and the clouds were threatening rain.