Wills' Last Job / The Break of Dawn

Can't Get Much Worse - GSSCII - Chapter 7

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Note: Reading the first six chapters of this multi-POV tale is not required. HOWEVER, you may find yourself wanting to indulge in the eclecticism created by my cohort after this first taste. If so, follow the link to Chapter One above (or at the end of this post) to start binging.

They won’t even notice I’m gone. Just like they didn’t notice they were saying goodnight to a bunch of pillows arranged carefully under my comforter last night. Or last Friday night. Or Saturday night. All those nights they poked their heads through my bedroom door to tuck me in, distantly. All those nights I snuck out to meet him.

Well, not to meet him as much as to casually show up wherever he happened to be. Usually loitering behind a gas station, or in the home team dugout, or on the curb outside Rita’s All Night Diner. Most nights I ride my bike around town until I find him. One time I hitched.

Today I’m walking because I know exactly where he’s going to be. I overheard everything they were planning last night. I wasn’t even eavesdropping, I was just sitting there in plain sight, next to Wills on the curb. He had greeted me the way he always does. With a smile, a “hey, Sunrise,” and a slight shift of his body to one side, inviting me to take the spot beside him.

Drew didn’t even acknowledge my presence, but that’s nothing new. He’s been ignoring me since the day I was born. They all have, even my parents. I’m invisible to everyone.

Everyone but Wills.

“You shouldn’t be here, Sunrise,” he says.

He slides one body width down the length of my brother’s car, letting me take my place beside him and settle into the warm spot he left on the door. He flicks his cigarette into a nearby puddle, extinguishing it instantly, and then reaches into his pocket for a piece of gum. He tears the stick in two pieces and offers me one.

“You shouldn’t either,” I say.

He sighs and turns his head toward the entryway of the alley. “Not much I can do about it now,” he says.

“You could leave,” I say, unable to hide the desperation in my voice. “Right now. Screw my brother and his stupid plan. He doesn’t care what happens to you, Wills. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Let’s just get in the car and drive. We can be out of town in—”

“We?” He cocks his eyebrow at me, and my cheeks flush.

“I just thought we could go together…” my voice catches and I clench my jaw to keep the emotion out of it. “I hate it here. I hate my life. My parents won’t even notice I’m gone, you don’t know—”

“They’ll notice,” he says. “And besides, we’ve been through this. It can’t happen.”

“I’m not saying… this isn’t about that.”

“Yes, it is.” He cracks a knowing smile and checks the alley entrance again. “A man’s gotta have a code, Sunrise.”

“What does that even mean?” I cross my arms and spit my already flavorless gum out on the pavement.

“It means I don’t date high school girls. Especially one that’s my buddy’s kid sister.”

“I’m not a kid!”

“You are a kid,” he says firmly. He turns and leans in close to me, creating a warm waft of spearmint-laced tobacco and body spray. “Just be a kid, Dawn, please.” His dark, brown eyes lock onto mine and my heart starts pounding. “Stop trying to grow up so damn fast, or you’ll be sorry you did, I promise you.”

He leans away just in time for my eyes to start making tears. I press my lips together to try to stop them, but it’s too late. I swat at them with the oversized sleeves of Wills’ sweatshirt. The one he lent me weeks ago, that I never gave back. And never washed.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know your family is messed up. But you’re not.” He slides his body along the car until his arm is touching mine. I force myself to stay still. To not lean into him and bury my face against his shoulder. To not grab him and hold onto him and never let go.

“I told your brother this is my last job.”

My heart leaps hopefully. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really,” he says. “A man’s gotta have a code. And this right here…” he glances down the alley again, “this ain’t it.”

“Here,” he says, loosening the gold ring on his pinky finger and sliding it off. “If I end up in jail today, they’re going to take this, and I can’t let that happen. It was my mother’s.”

He grabs my hand, and my whole body wakes up to the touch of his callused fingers. He tries the ring on my fourth finger, but it’s too big, so he slips it onto my middle finger and turns it, until the tiny opal at its heart is facing up. I spend twenty seconds gazing at the ring, and at his hands, still holding mine, before I look up.

His eyes are shining, his mouth closed tight over the words he won’t say. He licks his lips and his gaze drifts downward, to my mouth. My insides somersault and I gasp, childishly. 

He drops my hand and shifts away from me. “Now get outta here before you turn me into an even bigger dirtbag than I already am.”

I watch him pull a freshly rolled cigarette from his pocket, bring it to his lips, light it, and take a long drag. I turn on my heels and start walking, slowly, toward the narrow passageway between the hotel and the condemned apartment building next to it.

“See you around, Sunrise.”

I look back, but his eyes are on the alley, not on me.

“Bye Wills,” I whisper.

I cut through the park in a daze, twirling the opal ring around my finger. Angered voices shouting in protest, and the distant whine of the vault alarm triggered by my brother and his crew, muddle the air. I’m struck by a twinge of jealousy as I spy my mother and Lauren, chatting on the sidewalk. Lauren was the first person to ever really listen to me, to make me feel seen. She used to clean the dance studio where my parents had the habit of forgetting me all the time. She was nice and pretty and I thought I could trust her. But then she started hanging around with my mother and I knew I couldn’t. My mother ruined Lauren for me. Just like my brother ruined Wills. That’s what my family does. It ruins people.

Lauren catches my eye, just as her boyfriend arrives with my dad. I duck behind a recycling bin before she can call me out. It smells like sour milk and dog shit, so I escape into Wills’ sweatshirt and breathe in his scent, still lingering in the fabric. My heart aches shamefully, and I hate myself for crying over him. Again.

The screeching of tires pulls me to my feet, and I watch my brother’s car flip over and land in a mass of twisted metal and broken glass in front of my parents.

My stomach lurches. I cover my mouth and pin my eyes to the driver’s side window where Wills should be. But it’s not Wills climbing out from behind the wheel. It’s my brother. Even with his mask on, I know it’s him. I count the rest of his crew as they crawl out and stand up.

Wills isn’t with them.

My chest tightens and I bury my face in my hands—my shoulders shaking—blood pounding in my ears—the deafening crack of gunshots—

One—Two.

Three—Four.

Five.

I peer through my trembling fingers and feel a stab of disappointment. My brother is still standing. I ball my fists against my temples. I grit my teeth and taste metal. I watch him flee, like a coward, as my mind cranks through my options.

Go to my parents, who look ready to strangle each other. Go to Lauren, who lost my respect the minute she fell in with my mother. Go to Wills…

My body threatens to collapse under the weight of the grief I can’t let crush me.

Not yet.

I reach into the recycling bin and pull out an empty beer bottle. I slam it against the pavement, smashing the bottom into pieces, and examine the jagged edge of the remaining glass in my hand. I turn on my heels and start running, hard and fast, down the same street my brother took.

He’ll be tired now, and slow.

But I’m neither.

Today’s the day Drew stops ignoring his kid sister.

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If you must know what happened to Wills, you’ll want to read this chapter next. But you really should read them all. Bookmark them. Come back anytime. We’ll be here. -TGSSC2 CREW

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