Ryker

“Ryker Fargo, please report to the office; Ryker Fargo.”
    Um, no, I won’t report to the office. It’s stupid that they call you on the loudspeakers to the office. Sound can’t make me go.
    I was in the library. Hiding, really, so I wouldn’t have to go. What if someone had figured out that I was the smoker?
    I was searching through the library. No sign of Ms. Levitt. Maybe she wasn’t here today. I pulled a cigarette from my pocket and lit it, took a drag.
    I heard the door opening. I snuffed the cigarette and tossed it behind the desk, where the person couldn’t see it.
    “Last place I’d expect to see you. You never seemed like the reading type to me.” Someone’s voice, hard and empty. I turned. It was Fawn.
    “Then again,” Fawn continued, “you didn’t seem like the lying type, either.” She started walking towards me.
    “Fawn, what are you talking about?” I asked.
    “Oh, I think you know what I’m talking about,” she said, still coming towards me.
    “I don’t.”
    “Maybe if I told you…it has to do with blaming someone for something you did.” She stopped, her face inches from mine. “Smoking.”
    So she knew. “Fawn, about that—” I started.
    She cut me off. “I don’t want to hear it.”
    “Fawn—”
    “I don’t want to hear it! You jerk! Why would you do that? Why don’t you take the blame yourself, you coward?”
    “Fawn, listen to me.”
    “No! Shut up! I never want to hear a word you say ever again!”
    “Fawn I need to smoke to stay calm. If I’m not calm, I’ll go insane. If I go insane, I’ll die. I can’t stop smoking,” I said.
    She slapped me. I’d always sorts wondered what it felt like to have a girl slap you, now I know: it don’t feel like anything. I couldn’t feel a thing as her hand touched me, but from the sound it made, she must’ve hit me hard.
    Then she whirled on her heel and stormed out of the library.
    My face stung where she had hit me.
    I stood there for a few minutes, just standing there, then I made my way over to the door and let myself out.
    I caught a glimpse of purple out of the corner of my eye. Neon purple. Lisa. I whirled, hurried after her, grabbed her shoulder. She turned.
    “You mad at me, too?” I asked.
    She looked a little surprised. “’Course not, silly. Just…” she paused. “Promise you’ll never tell a lie like that again. One that’s selfish.”
    “Promise,” I said.
    “And promise that you’ll stop smoking.”
    I hesitated. I didn’t think I could do that. I mean, like I explained to Fawn, if I’m not calm, I go insane. If I’m insane, I can’t protect myself, and where I live, that means death. Smoking keeps me calm.
    “Promise?” Lisa repeated.
    I hesitated again, then looked down at her heart-shaped face, into her gray-blue eyes. “Promise.”
    She smiled and hurried off down the hall.
    I watched her go. I knew this wasn’t the sorta promise I could break. ‘Specially not to a girl like Lisa.    
    
Fawn didn’t talk to me the next day. Or the day after that. I was almost scared to go up to her, she just seemed so angry. She didn’t even look at me when we passed each other in the hall.
    Finally I forced myself to talk to her at library. I came up behind her. She was looking at a self full of books. I touched her shoulder.
    Fawn jumped, whirled around. Her thin brows knit together. Angry. She looked angry.
    “Fawn,” I said.
    “What?” she said. Definitely angry.
    “Why’re ya so mad at me?”
    “Why do you talk like you’re trash?” she snapped.
    I glared at her. “Don’t wanna waste time talkin’ right. Who cares if my grammar’s perfect? Everyone knows what I mean.”
    Suddenly she started crying. I hugged her. Probably shouldn’t have. But she looked so upset.
    She buried her face in my chest. “Why did you have to turn out to be a jerk? I thought you might be the one! Then you go and do that?” She tried to say something else, but started sobbing too hard.
    I pulled back. “Listen, Fawn, there’s a reason I’m like this, okay? It’s not like my parents are angels and I just turned out to be a monster. Life’s not always perfect, Fawn, but I can tell you, you’ve got it a whole f*ckin’ lot better than I do.”
    She just looked up at me for a minute, blinking through her tears. “You’re not a monster.”
    “Yeah, Fawn, I am. I have anger problems. Real bad.”
    She wiped her eyes. “You don’t look like a monster.”
    “You don’t look like a crybaby.”
    She laughed a little and gave me a little shove. “Shut up.”
    I grabbed her wrists and pulled her in close, putting my arm around her waist. She reached up around my neck, laughing again. Her eyes sparkled.
    Then she dropped her hands to her sides and looked up at me. “What did you mean: ‘you’re parents aren’t angels?’ Are they “monsters” like you?”
    “He is,” I muttered.
    “What?”
    “Nothin.’” I spun and walked to the door. “Gotta go.”

When I got home, I climbed through the window as always, into the dark room. “Sami. I’m here.”
    She peeked at me. “Ryker. I missed you.”
    I gave her a hug. “Missed ya too.” I sat down on the bed. She looked at me expectantly.
    “What?” I asked.
    She giggled a little. “What happened today, Ryker? Did you get a book?”
    Damn. I had forgotten the book.
    “Sorry, Sam. Didn’t get a chance. I’ll try to tomorrow,” I said.
    She nodded. “Alright. What did happen?”
    Nothing. Nothing good. I needed a good story.
    “Well…uh…Travis got in trouble,” I started.
    “Why?”
    I was distracted for a second by her huge, haunted eyes. “Uh…they thought he was smoking. It was someone else. They don’t know who yet.”
    “Who do you think it was?”
    I shrugged. “Not sure, Sami. I’m betting Sasha,” I lied.
    “But she always sounded so…so popular,” Sami said. “Like she’s never got to worry.”
    “She is popular,” I said. “And she does seem like she never worries. But that’s the thing. She don’t seem like a real person. She just seems like a bitch.”
    Sami giggled again. “Ryker, that’s a horrible thing to say.”
    “It’s a true thing to say,” I responded, pinching her drawn, pale cheeks. “Gotta go now. Sell that stuff. We gotta get money to eat, right? And for your wheelchair.”
    “Once we get the wheelchair, we’re outta here, right?” Sami asked.
    I nodded. “Then we run.”

I twisted the key in the lock. He thinks I don’t know where He hid the keys, but they weren’t hard to find. They’re under his pillow.
    The lock clicked. I hurried in through the door and into the room, stuffed my backpack with drugs, alcohol, all that crap. This room is where He keeps his drugs. I’m hoping eventually He’ll just waste away, die. Then Sami’ll be free.
    I hurried out of the door, locking it behind me. Put the key under the pillow. Slipped out of the front door. Now I was in the streets.
    I saw one of those drug addicts on the side of the road. You can tell when they’ve got the addiction bad. They’re completely gone. All they care about is getting the drug into their body.
    I approached them, watching to be sure they didn’t have a knife. They regarded me with huge, dark, deep eyes. They reminded me of Sami.
    I slung my backpack off of my shoulder. “Ya want some drugs? Alcohol?”
    They stared right through me. I named a few of the things I had with me. At the last one, they looked up, almost excitedly.
    “Ya want that?” I asked.
    They gripped the edge of my backpack with claw-like, pale fingers. I pried them off.
    “Fifty dollars,” I said.
    They dug a ten out of their pocket.
    “Got more than that?” I asked.
    They turned their pockets inside-out. I handed them their drugs. They staggered away with them.
    I picked up the stuff that had been in their pocket off of the sidewalk. A pocket knife. Two twenties. A piece of lint. That was all.
    I put the knife in the same pocket as my gun, tossed the lint, and went to buy some food.