Page 20 of Carter

He exhaled and shook his head. “I wanna hurt him.”

“It’s fine,” I told him, grabbing hold of his arm. “It was the first time he ever touched me. I’ll be good and he won’t do it again. Don’t do anything stupid, Carter. If you do, you’ll make it worse for me.”

He didn’t reply, but he managed a stiff nod. I wasn’t sure I believed him.

“Promise,” I urged.

He shrugged, swiftly replying, “I promise.”

I studied him, trying to sense his mood but he disappeared inside that shell of his, and now it was impossible to know.

Finally, in the distance, I saw the bus turn a corner and stop at a red light.

“You gonna skip with me?” he asked.

“We have a field trip today,” I replied. “They’re taking the gym class to an ice rink to play Curling.”

He swallowed a laugh. “Curling?”

I gave him a dry look. “It’s a sport, Carter.”

He looked amused. “Are you going to becurlingwith everyone, Leah?”

“Maybe.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How would you know?” I challenged. “I could be really good at it—”

“You’re going to be hanging back at the library, I think,” he cut in, smiling broadly now. “Because there’s no way in hell you paid for that shit.”

I bit my lip to stop from laughing and continued to appear solemn. “You don’t know everything, Carter.”

Now he stared at me, his blue eyes looking deeply into my own. I felt my skin tingle when he replied, “When it comes to you, Leah, I do.”

I looked down and swiped at some invisible fluff on my leg. I said nothing as he continued to watch me.

Bumping his shoulder against mine, he asked once more in that spine tingling voice, “Are you going to skip, Leah?”

Why was he doing this?

Why did he have to make me answer him?

He knew the hold he had on me. I was…powerless.

“You already know,” I finally whispered, and strangely, I was surprised by how sad my tone sounded to my ears.

As expected, I skipped class and spent the day with him.

*

During his two weeks of suspension, Carter would intercept me on my way to school and plead for me to skip class. I did whatever he wanted because he was my fucking hero and I loved him like crazy.

We usually stopped by the gas station on the way to the bus stop and buy some ice cream and energy drinks. Then we’d catch a couple buses to Castle Fun Park, an amusement park that was usually packed with kids over the weekend. The arcade was mostly dead during the schooldays, and so he bought fifteen-dollar cards and we played the cheap 60 cent retro games until we ran out of money.

Those days always stood out to me the most in our early years. I was sure he was giving me all this attention because he wanted me to be strong and not think about what James had said. My image was tarnished, would always be, and he was keeping me sane by treating me like a friend and not a whore’s niece.

“You figure out what you’re gonna be yet?” he asked me once on our walk back home after a very busy day being a truant student; this shit was tough work.

---