Page 5 of Beautiful Scars

My voice is shaky and breathless. “You came over to introduce yourself. We were out here talking, Garrett came outside, leaned on the railing, it broke, and he fell. I…I think he was drunk.”

“Atta girl.” He smiles broadly as he very gently reaches out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

"He’ll never hurt you again,” he says. His eyes search mine, his brow furrowed.

If only I could believe those words.

Chapter Three

Levi

Red,whiteandblueflashing lights flood the neighborhood. Standing on the sidewalk that cuts through Angel's yard, I scan the houses lining the street. Gawking faces with wide, curious eyes peer out from every half-closed blind and curtain edge. Everyone loves a good tragedy. I may be new to this neighborhood, but people are people, and they’re the same everywhere. Especially in crappy neighborhoods like this one, where everyone only pretends to mind their business. Privacy has its limits—it usually ends right where the yellow tape starts.

By tomorrow, those faces pressed to the glass will have called or texted every friend or relative they have. They'll spread their opinions and make guesses about what happened like it's their job. By tomorrow night, it'll be so far ground down through the rumor mill no one could recognize the truth if they tried.

Good news for me, but not so much for Angel. She can kiss her privacy goodbye. I think she's going to be the subject of conversation for a while, like it or not.

To me, it seems like a small price to pay to be rid of the scumbag being loaded into the back of the ambulance, but to Angel? I'm not sure how she’s going to feel about it.

I get the feeling she’s no stranger to any of this though. Hell, if she went through half of what I'm thinking she did before I showed up, not to mention everything that came after, and she's still holding it together? The girls got some guts. She’s standing there calmly on the curb—not a hint of anything that would give away what happened today. Before or after I showed up. Respect.

“So, you’re telling me you have no idea how Mr. Coleman ended up with those tread marks on his side. Is that correct, son?” The question rips my attention from Angel. It comes from the tall, skinny cop standing in front of me, and for a minute it throws me. I didn't consider that I'd probably left marks on the guy.

Fuck. What a rookie mistake.

The cop has one eyebrow cocked and is staring down at my size 13 boots. He knows the answer. The real answer. The hint of a tight smile at the edges of his lips and the tone of his voice tell me that much. He's just waiting for me to incriminate myself.

He thinks I'm just a stupid kid. But I know that the fact he's even standing here asking me instead of cuffing me and hauling me in for formal questioning means that for whatever reason, he doesn't really care about my answer. I breathe a tiny sigh of relief—confident I've got nothing to worry about. At least from him.

I'll admit though, I’m not sure he'd be as generous if he knew how hard it'd been to stop myself. I'd wanted nothing more than to grind that asshole into the ground. It took everything I had in me to stop kicking once I started. I don't think I would've if Angel hadn’t been standing there watching.

“No, Sir. Like I said, I've never met the man before,” I reply, trying to sound as sincere and respectful as possible. Cops eat that shit up. "We just moved here." A lesson pounded into me from my father about dealing with cops—less is always more.You can’t poke holes in the truth, son, he always used to say. Short, sweet and with as much honesty as possible is always the way to go.

“Ah well. We know Mr. Coleman, and his," he pauses and his eyes dart to the spot where Angel is standing, "habits. He enjoys pissing off the wrong people and tends to do it often. His condition and the fact that he's refusing to talk to us isn't surprising. Thank you for your cooperation. If we need anything else, we’ll be in touch.” The cop smiles widely at me and offers me his card. I take it and tuck it into my pocket. Who knows, maybe it'll come in handy someday. The guy reaches out to shake my hand before stepping away. I take it too. Nowthatis something I'm not used to.

Common sense is telling me that I should let myself take the win and get out of here. Consider what I did my good deed for the day and let the karma coin drop. The sane, rational voice in my head is begging me to just forget this girl, forget this house, forget all of it.

And that little voice is right. The last thing I need is the kind of trouble all of this could bring me, bring my mom. I didn’t get yanked out of the middle of my life, dragged from one side of the country to the other only to end up in the kind of situation we risked everything to keep me away from. I'm tired of running. The last thing I want to do is pack up and leave another place. As much as I hate it here, I hate moving even more.

Too bad for me though. What I want simply isn't in the cards. Right as I take a step to leave, I see the cop take a couple steps closer to Angel. He seems like a decent enough guy. The look on his face is full of pity and what looks like genuine concern. Reaching out, he places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes gently.

Angel's reaction is immediate and big. She recoils and gasps, an expression of intense pain twisting her face. Now, my rational brain knows this guy's only trying to comfort her, offer some support in a difficult situation. But, my other brain, the ancient caveman one that seems to be running the show today, is imagining the sound of each of his fingers breaking, bone by bone.

I don’t know for sure what happened to Angel today before I showed up, or what her life is normally like. Today could’ve easily been a one off. One small, fucked up little blip on the radar screen of an otherwise perfectly normal life. And if it wasn't, it's not like I should care. I don’t know her. Life is hard and sucks sometimes for everyone. I'm a neighbor. That's it. I don't even know her real name for Christ's sake.

But, wishing I was stupid doesn’t make me stupid. I saw and heard enough to know that sometimes for everyone, is all the time for her. It makes my blood boil to think of everything that was behind what that asshole said this afternoon. People like him, like my father, are cut from the same cloth. Thinking they can own people. Do whatever they want and never face any consequences.

But I'm not letting myself off the hook. I've got plenty of anger leftover for myself. I don’t know what happened to me when I walked into that backyard. I hadn’t planned on being such a dick. It's not like I walked over there with the intention of making her angry or upset. In fact, I spent the last three weeks camping out on my balcony watching her. And, when I wasn't watching her, I was looking for her and wishing I was. I'd spent a good portion of that time thinking of what I'd say when the time came. All that rehearsing and planning only to have my brain freeze up on me as soon as I walked through that gate.

I'd wanted to introduce myself. That was all. To be fair though, I was seriouslynotprepared to find her the way I did. It caught me off guard. Those deep, hitching breaths and perfect pink cheeks wet with tears made everything come to a grinding halt. Everything including my heart. The shock made me stupid, and I regret it. Iwillfind a way to make it up to her. Eventually.

I wish I didn't, but I can relate to everything that cop is feeling right now. I'm sure it’s close to the same way I felt when I touched her and got that same response. It’s obvious he feels bad—he’s falling all over himself apologizing. It’s obnoxious.

As if she can feel me watching, and hear what I’m thinking, she turns her head and fixes me with those big brown eyes of hers. She takes a thick section of honey blonde hair and twirls it nervously around her fingers. Then, as if I didn't have it bad enough already, she offers me a sweet, wide smile that lights up her entire, beautiful face. My heart rattles in its cage, and I have to remind myself to breathe.

Who am I kidding? I can't walk away from that. From her. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I sigh deeply and go take a seat on the cracked, concrete front step to wait.

Once the doors of the ambulance close and it pulls away from the curb a few minutes later, Angel’s entire body relaxes. It’s not until the very last patrol car turns the corner and the last of her neighbors slide their curtains closed again, that she finally turns to look at me. She seems as surprised as I am that I’m still here. Making her way slowly from the curb to the front porch, she wraps her arms around her body, hugging herself tight.

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