Purple Hearts Read online

  “I’ll go in,” I told her.

  “I’ll come with you,” she offered. Cassie looked paler than usual beneath the streetlamps.

  “No, you stay. Stay with your mom.” I glanced back down the street. “I can’t believe the police aren’t here by now.”

  She folded her arms, shivering. “This isn’t exactly a high-priority neighborhood.”

  Marisol handed me her keys. “Bottom floor. Biggest key. Top lock.”

  Cassie squeezed my arm. “Thank you.”

  After I turned the barrel of the lock, I pressed my ear to the door, waiting for the sound of movement. Nothing. Scooting to the side of the door, I lifted my cane, and whipped it open, bracing for a body, waiting to get a hit square in the gut, just like my dad taught me.

  Still nothing.

  I felt along the walls for a light switch with one hand, gripping the cane with the other. My leg was on fire, but none of it registered. All my nerves were focused on the task.

  My foot crunched a shard of glass. Light from the street illuminated the rest of it, glittering, all over the floor. A large window on the east end had been smashed in. Paintings and photos hung on the wall, and there was a square of paint above a media console that was brighter than the rest of the wall. They’d taken the TV.

  I paused in the middle of the room, listening for another snap of glass. If whoever was in here wanted to get out, they’d have to step loudly.

  I glanced to the left. Two smaller windows had shattered, spidering from the impact of bullets. Shit. The intruder had a gun.

  A noise filled the room. A high chime. My heart stopped.

  Then I realized it was my phone. Just my stupid phone.

  I glanced at it, cane still ready.

  this wut u get when u dont pay, the message read.

  Johnno.

  The fire in my leg moved into my entire body, white, hot flames. He wasn’t going to get away with this.

  Sirens sounded in the distance, rapidly approaching, screeching to a halt outside the duplex.

  When I came out, Marisol was talking to an officer. The flashing lights turned the walls of the house blue and then red. A few curious neighbors pressed their faces to their windows. Someone across the street opened their front door and leaned against the screen.

  I limped over to Cassie. “What took them so long?”

  She tucked a short strand of hair behind her ear, a shadow passing over her face. “Just be happy you’re white or you’d be on the ground with a knee in your back.”

  I nodded, my veins still pumping. “I want to pay for your mom’s windows and the TV,” I told Cassie.

  Cassie looked at me, confused. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know, but I want to.”

  She shrugged, yawning, and shivered again. “I’m too tired to get offended by your pity.”

  “Are you cold?” I asked.

  Her eyelids were drooping. “Yeah.”

  “Do you want me to take you home? I have Rita’s car.” She didn’t look like she wanted to drive. She didn’t look like she wanted to do anything but sleep.

  “It’s fine. I want to stay with my mom a little more,” Cassie said, waving, as she walked away. “I’ll see you later.”

  I hesitated, and got back into Rita’s car. I kept my eyes on Cassie and her mother as I drove slowly down the street, the flashing lights cutting strobes across my vision. I watched until they were two dark, huddled specks against the night, until I turned the corner and could no longer see what Johnno—what I—had brought upon them.

  Cassie

  After the police left, Mom and I boarded up her windows. I asked her if she wanted me to stay with her, or if she wanted to come to my apartment, but she’d waved me off. “Go get some sleep, mija. I’m fine.”

  I clutched the steering wheel. My fingertips were tingling. I didn’t want to wake Toby again, so I turned toward my place, stifling a yawn. The roads were empty, the traffic lights flashing yellow. My vision blurred, and a cold sweat began to work its way through my body.

  Shit, I was tired. It was three thirty a.m., but it was more than that. Food. That thing I was supposed to eat. I’d forgotten my phone at home, which meant my alarms hadn’t gone off. Luckily I was only ten minutes from home. I’d be fine. To distract myself, I went over the set list for tomorrow night.

  Start off with “Merlin,” because it’s funky as hell.

  “Be Still,” for the romance vibes.

  Straight from the harpy part of “Be Still” into Nora’s drony song, “Bear Creek.”

  My brain buzzed and the car listed slightly to the right. I shook my head and forced myself to focus. Okay, where was I?

  “Too Much.”

  Then slow it down with “Frankie.”

  “Vibes.”

  Crowd favorite, “Lucy.”

  End with “Green Heron.” The song for Mom.

  By the time I parked in front of Rita’s, my fingers had gone numb. My forehead was cold. I needed to get inside and sit down and eat the granola bar I kept in my purse for emergencies. But just a second here, rest on the steering wheel.

  Okay. I took a deep breath. Up the stairs we go. Here we go. This is us going.

  By the time I made it through the door, I was digging in my purse for the granola bar, my knees shaking.

  Luke was still up.

  “Are you okay?”

  I flopped on the couch next to him, still digging. “Fucking purse,” I muttered. “It’s a health hazard.”

  The shivers were getting bigger. Black started to rim my vision. I’ve been so good at keeping it level, I told my gut. Come on.

  “Goddammit.” I hadn’t realized my hands had stopped digging. They were just hanging limp in the purse, cold.

  “Cassie?”

  My head was getting too heavy. It dropped forward. I picked it up. It dropped backward. I picked it up.

  Luke got up. I heard him digging in the bathroom.

  Then I didn’t hear anything.

  Blackness.

  I felt a glucose pack on my lips.

  “There you go,” Luke was saying. “It’s on your tongue. Move your tongue, Cass. There you go.”

  I felt the cool gel fall into my throat. I swallowed, involuntarily. The ceiling came into view.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Stay with me.”

  “I’m here,” I said, and moved my head to a more comfortable surface, which happened to be Luke’s shoulder. Mittens licked my hand, warm and sticky.

  “How long does it take to work?”

  “About twenty minutes. I’m just going to rest here. Is that okay?”

  “Absolutely. It’s your couch.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, and let out something like a laugh. His heart was pounding, rapid fire. “You okay?”

  “Your face was just sort of . . . gone. Blank. Scared the shit out of me.” He touched my head with his hands, moved them to my cheek.

  I sat up to look at him.

  The fear in his eyes was attached to something else, something deeper—the feeling that needs to be there in order for someone to be scared of losing someone else.

  I recognized it. I had felt it that day when he left my car and went walking the first time. Fear of losing him attached to—what? Attached to what?

  I laid my head back on his chest and went toward the fear. We were already there, in a way, and when you get near death twice in one night, once in fear for my mother, once in fear for myself, you don’t feel like you have much to lose.

  “Were you there when Frankie died?”

  Luke was quiet. Mittens put her head on Luke’s thigh.

  “Yes.”

  He’d told me that Frankie’d gotten hit, that they were on the same mission, but I wasn’t sure how close. I wasn’t sure if it had been news, or firsthand knowledge.

  Luke continued, “I guess, you mean, did I see his body?”

  “Yes. That’s what I mean. Is that too morbi
d? You don’t have to talk about it.” I wasn’t sure why I was so curious, but I supposed there was some part of me that was still in denial, the part that saw him among faces in the street sometimes. Are we sure he didn’t just run away and find another way home?

  “It was so quiet. We were talking about fucking Pokémon cards.” He paused. “Wow, I’ve never been able to remember what we were talking about.”

  “Pokémon? Really?”

  “Yeah. We were riding in the jeep, routine scouting near the dam. Rooster was saying that Charizard was the best, and Frankie was arguing with him. He was saying Lugia was the best Pokémon because it was the guardian of the sea. And then bullets started to hit, and someone, I can’t remember who, signaled for us to get out. Which was so stupid. We shouldn’t have gotten out.”

  Luke’s voice was passing through his chest as he spoke, to my cheek. I could almost hear the words before they came out of his mouth. “Then what?” I asked.

  “Then, well. I was at the end of the jeep, toward the headlights, and Frankie and Rooster were on the sides, and I got hit in the leg, and both of them got hit.”

  I felt a wetness in my hair. He wiped his nose. I stayed quiet.

  “I got down and pulled Frankie’s body toward me to make sure. Checked his pulse. Closed his eyes for him.”

  I felt lucky to have last seen Frankie laughing, blowing a kiss. That I didn’t have to see him that way. “That was good of you.”

  “Yeah. But, you know.” His chest expanded as he laughed. “Those were his last words. ‘Lugia is the best Pokémon because it’s the guardian of the sea.’ ”

  I laughed with him, fuller this time, now that more of my energy was coming back. “That’s so Frankie. It’s perfect.”

  “It is. It is.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I just wish that I had told everyone not to get out. But I was a private, you know? You were supposed to trust your captain.”

  I lifted my chin, looking at him. “You did the only thing you could have done.”

  “Maybe.” His eyes had become more silver, the traces of tears still attached to the lashes. I wondered if his irises always did that when he cried.

  He leaned closer. I knew why, and I knew what was unsaid. His lips found mine, soft and slow. I closed my eyes. Safe, I remember thinking. I feel safe.

  Then a hunger burst through it, and I took his shoulders, pulling him closer. He didn’t resist, putting his hands around my waist, pressing, pulling the fabric of my shirt into his fists.

  His lips darted to my neck, to my collarbone, to the top of my breast.

  I moved my leg over his while his palms fell down my back, over the curve of my ass, and then up, under my shirt to my skin. The sensation of his skin on mine shocked both of us. I heard him gasp, and I stopped.

  I thought of Toby, at home, asleep, Lorraine purring on his chest. I remembered the promise I had made to him. Even then, it was a lie. For some reason, I couldn’t find the guilt where it should have been. My body couldn’t yet process what we’d just done. What I’d just done. All I could think about was wanting more.

  “Hey,” Luke said, looking up at me.

  I moved back to sitting on the couch, breaths still coming quick, brushing the back of my hand across my wet lips. “Hey.”

  He was trying to slow his breath, too. But nothing in his eyes held regret.

  I smiled at him, surprised and unsurprised at the feeling that had announced itself in me, the same feeling I got when I found the right notes. It was new and not new, the feeling of foraging for something that was already there, never hiding, but newly found.

  Luke

  When I was sure Cassie was asleep, I shut off the lights in the living room and slipped on my shoes. Mittens hopped up, wagging her tail.

  “Not right now, Mitts. I’ll be back,” I whispered.

  I was buzzing. High. Clear. The opposite of cloud head.

  I still had Rita’s keys. I had wanted to do this right away after I’d received Johnno’s text, but it was best now, now that I knew Cassie was safe in bed and he was back at his house.

  I got on the highway, pushing the pedal on Rita’s Volvo as far down as it could go with my left foot, my eyes out for cops. The roads were empty.

  He’d gone too far. He’d taken this beyond pills, beyond money, beyond whatever ego shit he’d picked up from the street. And it might have gone on until he’d drained my pockets, until he’d sucked me back into holding for him, until he made my life as empty and ruined as his. Get up, get messed up, take out anyone who gets in the way.

  But now that I was almost out of reach, I’d realized he was just playing a game. He was now just fucking with me for the sake of fucking with me. And anyone who was in my life he’d fuck with, too. If what I felt for Cassie was real, that either meant she could no longer be a part of my life or he would have to go. He and his threats and the nonexistent money he wanted.

  I chose Cassie. Of course I chose Cassie.

  I thought of how I had seen her tonight, wide-eyed with a baseball bat. Marisol, hunched next to her car. They should never have had to feel like that. A beast had risen in my chest, and I didn’t know why, or why now, but when I thought of her sleeping, the idea of him watching her, hurting her, I wanted to eliminate him from the Earth.

  I turned down his street in Buda and switched off the headlights, rolling slowly up over the curb, onto his overgrown lawn.

  His door was locked. I took out one of my old, expired credit cards and slipped it through the crack, shoving bit by bit until I levered the lock out of its slot, a trick I’d learned, ironically, from Johnno.

  I strode down the hall and kicked open his door, switching on the light.

  He was curled in bed in his boxers, sheets tangled around his legs. He had two posters tacked on the wall, a bird’s-eye view of two naked teenage schoolgirls entwined on a forest floor, and a movie poster for The Big Lebowski.

  “Up,” I said.

  I waited until he’d sprung on top of his bed to strike his stomach with the cane. He doubled over.

  Cassie’s blank face filled my vision, head lolled back, so vulnerable, so opposite the sharp strength she had when she clipped her keyboard to its stand, when she noticed I couldn’t reach something and flipped it toward me, her steady eyes as she listened to me telling her about Frankie’s last moments. The idea that Johnno’s pranks had sucked the core out of her, when she had done nothing to deserve it, blocked out the pain in my leg. I felt the urge to build something for her, to use my hands, to break anything in her way.

  I came down on Johnno’s back, his bony spine and ribs poking through his skin.

  Once, twice, until he was down on the bed again.

  “Number one, if you ever get near my family again, I will kill you. That’s a promise.”

  In my periphery, I could see Johnno sneaking his hand under the bed. Once he had his hand on the gun, I stomped down hard, feeling bones crack. I picked up the pistol.

  “Number two, I’m not paying you another fucking cent. I’m done.”

  I cocked it near his yellowish ear.

  “Understood?”

  Johnno didn’t answer, breathing hard.

  I pressed the barrel on Johnno’s knee. “You know I’m willing to take off your kneecap. I said, is that understood?”

  “Yes, you fuck,” he said, his voice muffled by the sheets. “Now get out.”

  I wasn’t about to risk the gun going off, finishing him for good, sending me into further purgatory, so I unloaded the cartridge. As soon as I did, Johnno went for my right leg, sending searing waves of pain through my body.

  Before he could gain traction, I brought the gun back and whipped the front of his skull.

  “Agh!” Blood spilled from his nostrils, from the cut on his head. It was a beautiful electric red. He brought a hand to his head, rolling in agony.

  I backed out of the room using my cane, gun poised.

  My chest was heaving as I got into Rita’s car. I starte
d the engine, reversed with a squeal, and watched Buda get smaller in the rearview mirror as the little pine tree air freshener dangled in the breeze. Sunshine crept through the cool air.

  When I saw the exit for the Texas State Cemetery, I took a detour. The radio played that Bowie song “Space Oddity.” I turned it all the way up, up to Cassie-level volume, until I reached the gates.

  My hands started shaking. The buzz had started to wash off, the clarity. I’d never beat someone so viciously before.

  I moved from the blank concrete of the highway to the quiet, green oasis. Frankie’s grave was smothered. Yellow roses, white roses, daisies, carnations, chrysanthemums. Probably his mother’s doing. I cleared a small path, so I could see his name.

  “Hey, Frankie.” I stood next to the obelisk. “I miss you, man. I’m sure you’re having a good time wherever you are. And you’re right, Lugia is the best Pokémon.”

  I sat down.

  “Cassie’s doing well. She’s surviving. I don’t know what caused you to put so much faith in either of us, but I’m glad you did. I think about you all the time. Especially lately. You had such a good head on your shoulders. You would have helped a lot of people.”

  I realized I had been pulling up grass as I spoke, and now I had two big handfuls. “Sorry,” I said to all the souls, and let the blades catch in the breeze.

  “I think I have feelings for Cassie,” I said, testing out the way the words sounded.

  Feelings for Cassie. They sounded good, like a song title.

  “We kissed,” I tried again. That sounded even better. We. What was I saying?

  Only Cassie came out of the silence. Her black hair. Her honesty. Her voice. Her intelligence. The place where her thighs touched. The face she made when she was on the computer. The purpose I felt when I was near her. Even if it were my job to listen to her sing for the rest of my life, I would.

  “What am I saying, Frankie? You’re the emotions expert.” I stood up and touched the top of the headstone. I guessed maybe I should speak to the woman herself.

  Cassie

  I woke to Mittens breathing in my face, waiting. I’d had the strangest dream. I was standing in my living room across from the futon in the late morning. The sun was shining warm through the windows that looked out on the front yard. My potted plants were gone, and instead, stalks and leaves had sprouted out of the cracks in the floorboards all around me, vines climbed up the walls, flowers drooped, resting on my bare feet. Somehow I had planted this greenery, and it was supposed to be here, warm and comforting around me.