Twenty-Two With Beckett

I hear my name drift through space again and again, until I finally open my eyes.

B’Rad is standing next to us, three overnight bags strapped across his shoulders.

“We gotta go,” he tells me, adding, “I didn’t see anything, I swear.” He points to his glasses on top of his head.

It’s all good. We’re mostly dressed anyway. Not much to see but our arms and legs tangled together under a blanket of clothes.

“I’ll give you a minute to...” He doesn’t finish, just turns around.

I wake Beckett up with a kiss, hand her the parts of her clothes that didn’t quite make it back on in the middle of the night.

We follow B’Rad through the misty yard, into the house littered everywhere with empties, and half-eaten snacks, and sleeping girls, past a couch where maybe-Naomi is out cold, her long legs wrapped around a redhead in a SpongeBob T-shirt. I don’t see Stella and Valentina, but I know they’re here somewhere.

Beckett and I curl into each other in the back seat of B’Rad’s car, still breathing each other in, our hands stroking and caressing the same way we did last night.

After a while, she says, “Let me see your phone.”

I pull it out of my bag and hand it to her. She puts my contact info in her burner so she can text me.

hi

hello, I text back.

I can smell you all over me, she writes.

I throw a quick look in B’Rad’s direction. No wonder she wanted to text instead of just talking.

I send her back a blushing emoji, adding:

I hope last night was ok?

it was perfect. well... almost perfect.

I look up at her, confused. Type three question marks and wait for her response.

I meant, for your first time.She looks at me after she hits send, and I stare at her for a few seconds after I read it.

I write: what do you mean?

it would have been perfect if you could have... y’know?

I shake my head. what do you mean, for my first time? it was your first time, too.

Her expression goes blank, fingers freeze-hover over the keyboard, eyes freeze-hover on mine. She finally peels away, starts typing again.

“That wasn’t your first time?” I blurt.

Beckett checks to see if B’Rad heard. Of course B’Rad heard, he’s driving the damn car. He’s just too polite to show it.

She goes, “Daya—”

“You had sex with Cason?”

A massive wash of red pours over her. “It’s not... I didn’t...”

We are one click away from Grace Redeemer.

I’m reeling.

“But you said... I mean, who else would it be? It’s not like you had sex with—”

There it is. The whole truth. Splashed all over her face.

“...with Lucy...?”

We swing into the church parking lot and B’Rad goes, “Oh, shit.”

A police car with its lights silently flashing is parked next to the sagging balloon arch out front. A crowd of people is pooled on the steps: some of the kids from last night. Pastor Ben and Pastor Mike. Parents. Cops... all gathered in front of the church.

“Drive around back,” Beckett tells B’Rad in a panic, but the phones have already come out. All those cameras, pointed straight at us.

“Hurry,”she says.

“Why?”

“Because that’s where the unlocked door is.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’ve already seen us.”

“Just go—”

“It’s too late,” he says, slamming the brakes to avoid hitting Beckett’s dad, who sprints down the steps toward us.

“Shhhhhhit,” B’Rad hisses, tracking Mr. Wild to the back of the car.

Beckett visibly flinches as he throws the door open and leans in.

“Get out,” he tells her.

She’s frozen. We’re all frozen.

“Get out of the car,” he says again.

Her turn is quick, the look on her face a blast wave of fear in my direction as her dad reaches in and yanks her bag through the open door.

“Now, Beckett.”

He crushes the words between his teeth, shoots me a look like he wishes he could crush me, too.

B’Rad stares straight ahead, trying to be invisible. But there’s no escaping her dad’s rage as he presses right up to the open driver’s-side window.

“Be grateful,” he says, “that all you are is fired.”

B’Rad blinks hard against the shock of those words as Beckett scrambles out of the car and follows behind the long, heavy stride of her father. He escorts her to a white sedan and throws the door open, and she dissolves into the back seat. Her father doesn’t get in right away. He returns to the crowd of worried Pure Prommers and parents who have been watching everything from the steps, now looking like a hornets’ nest that just got poked.

I turn back to the white car, search the rear window for any glimpse of Beckett. All I get is the ghost image of her face through the tinted glass, lit up every few seconds with blue and red from the police car parked a few feet away.

I bend forward to get a better look at the steps, wondering where Joanna is in that swarm of people.

It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to realize she’s not there.

“Let’s get out of here,” I beg B’Rad, and he cuts away quick from the front of the church.

Every beat of my heart feels like I’m being body-slammed to the pavement.

Once we’re headed out of Greenville, I unbuckle and climb into the front seat.

I feel him turn, feel him stare at me, feel the air fill with questions he’s too nice to ask. He doesn’t try to talk me out of crying, not even when crying turns into full-body sobbing. At a red light, he reaches over and opens the glove box, pulls a Hound’s Tooth napkin out from under the rolled-up Pray for America T-shirt, and hands it to me. It smells vaguely of pot as I blow my nose into it, but the tears just keep coming.

“What do you want to do?” he finally asks.

“They’ll kill her for leaving last night.” I have a hard time catching my breath. “And if they find out what we did...?”

B’Rad goes, “I know—”

“No, you don’t.” I take another napkin out, blow my nose again.

For a long time, he drives around, letting me cry. How can he still be so nice when it’s my fault he got fired?

“I’m sorry you lost your job,” I say.

“It’s not your fault.”

“You need that job.”

“I need a job. I’ll find something else—”

“Fuck. Him,” I shout.

He looks at me for so long, it gets uncomfortable. I turn away, watch the road roll then disappear beneath us. Follow the pale morning light as it seeps upward from behind the distant rocks.

“Can you just take me home?” I ask.

B’Rad doesn’t answer right away. We pass a couple restaurants and a gas station before he says, “I mean, yeah, but... why would you want to go there?”

“Whatever’s gonna happen, I just want to get it over with.”

We silently weave through town, past the businesses on the nicer side of Escondido that won’t be open for a few more hours, and the ones that don’t open at all on Sundays, toward the shops and stores on the south end of town that are boarded up now, never to open again. It seems like nothing in the Flats stays for long. Businesses come and go. People come and go. And yet, I feel anchored. Not the kind of anchor that holds you steady—but the kind that keeps you from going anywhere.

When we pull up in front of my house, B’Rad sets the brake and turns toward me.

“Are you sure this is really what you want?” he asks.

What I really want imploded on the way home from Oviedo.

What I really want can never be found at Grace Redeemer Church.

What I really want didn’t even bother to show up on the steps with the other worried parents this morning.

So, actually, what difference does it make what I want?

B’Rad looks at me like he’s deciding if he should let me out of the car.

“You know, you can sleep on the boat just as easy as you can here. Probably easier.”

Definitely easier.

“Seriously, Daya.” He looks over at the house. “Is it even safe for you to go inside?”

I shrug. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.

“You’re not... I hate to ask this, but... you’re not thinking about hurting yourself, are you?”

I dry-laugh, and shake my head no.

“Look, I know it’s going to be pretty thick with your mom too, so... I mean... what kind of friend would I be if I just... let you walk in there by yourself, with no backup?” He waits for me to answer.

“I guess... the kind who trusts.”

I skim a glance off him. He looks hurt. He looks like a guy who’s trying to think of another, better argument to keep me from getting out of the car. But there isn’t one. I’m in choice. I’m choosing to face this.

After a while, he opens the door and gets out. I hear him pulling my bag from the back seat.

“I’ll wait here for a few minutes—”

“You don’t have to.” I lift the bag from him.

But he watches me walk up the gravel driveway and around the side of the house, where I jiggle the back door handle to pop the lock. As far as I know, B’Rad’s still at the curb when I go inside.

For a flash, I regret not asking him to stay, just in case. I have no idea what I’m about to walk into.

I wonder, though. Joanna may not even know what happened. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t at the church with the other parents. Why wouldn’t she be there, unless she had no idea we left last night?

Maybe she doesn’t know.

I keep this thought on repeat as I navigate the pitch-dark house toward my room.