FREE STORY WITH EXCLUSIVE CONTENT. This is *not* a Paid Story.
Eighteen-year-old hockey prodigy Elliot Wexler has three goals for senior year. One: somehow graduate with a 3.5 GPA. Two: hide his bipolar disorder from his peers. And three: make it in...
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SUNLIGHT PEEKS THROUGH the blinds of my bedroom. Well, our bedroom. Colt lives here, too.
I hate how his stench clings to the sheets, even when he's gone. With a growl, I glance at the red digital clock on the nightstand, cluttered with his empty packs of smokes and beer cans. 2:09 p.m. I slept away most of the day reliving what happened last night; the good parts, and the bad. Shutting my eyes, I touch my lips and imagine Elliot on top of me again.
No, that was wrong. I shouldn't have slept with him, but I wanted to so badly. Elliot's the only guy I've ever liked sex with. Does that make me a bad person? I keep thinking about his room, and how safe I felt there. Here, Colt's shit is all over the place: beaters, boxers, socks, trash. I can't stand it, so I grab an empty McDonald's bag and aimlessly stuff garbage in it. No wonder Mommy didn't want him.
As I storm around the room, I think about when I first met him. It feels like an entirely different life. I was still in high school, and I hung out with these kids by the smoke pit because they were the only ones who somewhat got me. Colt came by to sell drugs, and I was just another high schooler to him. But something about me tickled his fancy, and suddenly he started bringing me things free of charge: weed, food, clothes.
I know now what he was doing: grooming me. The thought makes me sick.
The first night I hung out with him, he brought me to his mom's trailer park in the outskirts of town, and that woman greeted him by throwing a ceramic pot at his head. He screamed in her face until she cowered away and locked us out of the trailer. That should have been one of many red flags, but I was fourteen and stupid and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. At that time, not even Brett knew how messed up Colt really is.
When my phone lights up, I'm pulled from the memory. It's Elliot.
Hey, so I was up all night thinking about what you said and I came to a conclusion.
What's that?
Are you busy today? I'd rather tell you in person.
If you're going to try to convince me to talk to the cops, it won't work so just drop it.
I won't, I promise. Meet me at Ashbury?
You want to hang out at a mall?
....yes????
OK fine.
The mall is a stupid place to hang out, but I want to hear what he has to say. And like Starbucks, it's the last place any of Colt's friends would expect to see me. Ashbury is ritzy and overpriced; my nanny used to bring me there as a kid, but I barely remember it. I heard they'd piled millions into a recent renovation, adding thirty new stores. I hate even the idea of that. It's a stupid shopping mall; there are so many homeless people in Godfrey, so many kids who need help or guidance or just a place to stay. But yeah, let's build a better shopping mall.
