On the sidewalk, I pause in front of her and allow Abby her space. She’s been on her own for so long, making decisions half the world can’t understand that me charging in acting like I’m the knight that’s going to save her from everything will only piss her off and be wrong.

If Abby wants me to kick someone’s ass, I’ll kick their ass—no questions asked—but it’s not my place to kick ass first then ask if that’s what she wanted later. Not my job to make her already complicated life more messed up than the current living nightmare it is.

Abby gathers her hair and twists it off her neck. The morning heat is already oppressive which doesn’t mean good things for us as we work today. “This makes us unbalanced. You giving me money? We won’t be equals. I don’t want to be with you because I’m indebted to you.”

“Then don’t. If you can’t handle being with me because we gave you money then we go back to being friends.” I have to work hard to not let the internal flinch at the idea of losing her show.

“I don’t want that,” she mumbles.

Good because I don’t, either.

“If I take this,” she says, “I’ll pay you back. I’ll pay all of you back. Work this damn hay hell of a place all damn summer, every summer.”

“Don’t let Chris hear you say that. He’ll take you up on that offer.”

She lets out a mix between a laugh and a huff. “I mean it. On paying back and working here if I have to.”

“If that’s what makes you feel better then—”

“That’s what makes me feel better.” She sighs as if she’s annoyed, as if she’s exhausted, as if she just dropped a heavy weight. “If I’m not selling, I can get a real job and then I can work real hours and since I won’t have to be gone most the night, maybe I can cut back on the nurses’ hours and that will cost me less, but even still...I’m not sure it will be enough.”

“Do you trust me, Abby?”

Abby stares at me long enough that most men would have pissed on themselves by now. She’s an intimidating girl. Beautiful. Seductive. Deadly if she wanted to be. Abby licks her lips. “Yes.”

I tip my head to the window behind me. “Do you trust them?”

She lowers her head like trust means defeat. “Yes.”

“Then let us worry about helping with what you can’t cover when you go legit.”

“You’re asking me to have more faith in you than I’ve ever had in anyone.”

I am. “Isn’t that what faith is? Believing in something without seeing it first?”

“You suck, Logan.”

“Oh, well.”

I ease onto the car next to Abby and she knocks her knee against mine. “Isaiah’s going to kick our asses for touching his car.”

“I’m not scared of him.”

She half laughs. “You aren’t scared of anything. I’m not sure you even know fear.”

“Used to say the same thing about you.”

Abby raises her face to the deep blue sky above. “I couldn’t afford fear, not for a long time, but being shot...the fear caught up. But it’s not dying that I’m scared of.”

“What are you scared of?”

“Of still breathing but being dead inside. I think that’s a fate worse than death. I was already halfway there when I walked into the car shop to find you and Rachel hanging with Isaiah. I knew then I should have walked away, but I was tired of being numb.”

We’re silent and it feels right and wrong. Right in that her admission deserves the respect of thought, wrong because Abby deserves more than to be the only one putting herself out there.

“A few years after being first diagnosed with diabetes, things went bad. My kidneys freaked and I ended up in the hospital. I was scared then.” Terrified. “When I was better, one of my mom’s boyfriends took me rappelling and I loved the rush. Loved feeling alive. Death scared me so much that I like it when my heart beats too hard for too long. Reminds me I’m still breathing.”

I glance over at her. “I was also scared when I heard shots in the alley, saw you lying face-down on the ground. Death scared me. Losing you scared me. The idea of losing you still scares me.”

This time we both pretend the sidewalk is interesting. One eighteen-year-old and one seventeen-year-old. Both dealing with adult shit. Both having the emotional capacity of children. Wanting to belong to each other, but unsure how to navigate emotions.

“Think we did this to ourselves on purpose?” Abby asks.

“Did what?”

“Became the things we were terrified of becoming. You are always trying to cheat death with the crazy stuff you do. I followed in my father’s footsteps and allowed no one in for such a long time.”

“We’re both too strong for that. We haven’t become them, Abby. We’re mocking them. I do crazy shit because I am alive and I enjoy feeling it. The adrenaline pumping in my veins, the air in my lungs, the heat of my skin and yours when I’m kissing you. And you’re not dead inside. You’ve loved too many people for that.”

Abby’s eyebrows raise in doubt.

“Think about it—Linus kept pressuring you to give us up.” I gesture to our group inside currently laughing at something Noah is saying. “That in there, those friendships, that’s dangerous. The good friendships, they’re more potent than an atomic bomb. None of us would let you feel dead inside.”

Abby rocks her knee against mine again and sends me an under-the-eyelash gaze that causes my blood to warm. “Thanks for that.”

“For what?”

“For everything.” Abby flexes her fingers like she’s about to compose on a piano. “I don’t know how to walk away. In all the rules and pieces of advice my father gave me over the years, he never taught me how to give two weeks’ notice to a drug lord. I mean is there paperwork? Should I bring flowers? Do I have to train my replacement? Create a training manual? If I have Kinko’s print and bind it, does that make them an accomplice to organized crime? I mean, how exactly do these things work?”

My lips tilt up as Abby begins talking her nonsense. A conscious stream of things that make sense yet don’t. It’s become a comfort to me, just like our pretend past, just like I’ve become addicted to holding her at night.

“How can I help?”

Abby’s lips thin out and she goes serious. “I need to see my dad.”

Abby

Logan and Isaiah stand with me as I wait for my number to pop up on the screen. I’m the only one who will be allowed in. Dad has a list of people he’s handpicked to visit him, and I’m on that short list even though I’m under eighteen. Mac’s my legal guardian and he signed a notarized letter that gives me permission for the jacked-up meet and greet without an adult.

Other numbers continue to flash on the screen and the people are ushered back to where they’ll be patted down. After that they’ll walk through a metal detector and then be assigned a table where the inmate they want to meet will be.

Lots of suck parts of these visitations, but for me, especially coming unannounced, Dad can refuse this meeting. I’ve never done this before, showed up without Denny making arrangements first, and I mentally will my number to appear, to prove Dad misses me.

Because Isaiah’s supercrazy about keeping his back safe in a crowded environment, we stand by the wall and he methodically swivels his head like an owl’s as he mentally tallies the people surrounding us.

“The criminals are the ones behind the big fat wall,” I mutter.

“All the same,” Isaiah replies.

While Isaiah watches the world, Logan watches me. He seems to understand I don’t want to be touched, I don’t want to be coddled, that I need to be a bit numb when walking through that door. But I like that he’s beside me, standing strong, staying silent, just being there...ready to catch me when I fall.

Because I will fall. I always do. With the choices I’ve made in my life, my path is nothing but crumbling cliffs.

In the past, I picked myself up and dusted myself off with no help and I have to admit it’s more than nice to know that I don’t have to tend to my wounds alone anymore. Nice to know that I could possibly be living a life that no longer causes wounds that bleed.

It’s taking too long. My number should have appeared by now. My blood starts to whoosh in my ears. He’s refused me. My father’s refused me. It’s as if a trap door is being pulled out from underneath me.

“Abby,” Logan says. “It’s your number.”

Relief rushes through me, and I have to remember to suck up my reaction. Dad deserves more than to see my fear and my pain. He needs to see I can stand strong on my own two feet.

I glance up at Logan and he stares down at me. Every caress, touch, and kiss of encouragement I need is shining in his dark eyes. “Go on. We’ll be here waiting when you’re done.”

No doubt that the two of them will be in the same spot. Isaiah searching for the threat to us, Logan waiting for me.

* * *

The guard opens the door for me and the multiple conversations in the room assault my ears. I walk into the room, counting the tables before me and when I find my assigned table, my heart skips a beat.