Faye pulls my shoulder harder until I have no choice but to let go of her body.
I catch a piece of her sweatshirt, digging my fingers into the fabric. “Stop cryin. Don’t you cry over me.”
“Let go. It’s folks roaming around out here. They’re looking,” Faye hisses, reaching between us and peeling my bloody fingers from the fabric. “Let go, Junior.”
Me and Slim stare at each other while Faye digs her fingers underneath mine and pulls them up one by one. I think we feel the last pull in our chests. It makes Slim jerk backward like Faye had peeled our hearts apart.
Faye yanks me up by the back of my neck and pulls me out of the car. As soon as she closes the door, Slim turns her back to us, curling her body into a tight ball.
I pound my forehead against the window. “Baby…don’t turn your back to me. Look…look at me. You need to understand thatI can’t give you no sense of normalcy. I can’t. I fuckin can’t. This is the only way you’ll get it. What the fuck you gonna do with a man like me? You gonna carry my burdens too? You gonna take on my debt? Yeah, Arnez is grieving and angry, but it’s some truth in the shit she said. Go live your fuckin life, man. Stop chasing me.”
Faye grabs my shoulder. “Junior?—”
I shrug her off, banging my fist against the window. “Look at me, Lovie. Turn around and look at me. Look at me and tell me you still mine. No matter what, remember? Always mine.”
Her tiny body trembles.
“Junior…”
“That’s my everything, Faye,” I croak, shrugging her hand off. “That’s my life.”
“I know, and I’m gonna take care of her. I promise.”
“I need her to look at me.”
“You need to get in your truck, go home, and stay there.”
“Lovie…” I gasp, staring at her back. “Don’t you fuckin leave me without looking at me. Don’t…don’t do this. Don’t make it hurt more than it has to.”
“Go, Junior,” Faye hisses.
PART SIX
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
RICH
“I don’t thinkthat piece of wood deserves the beating you putting on it.”
I swipe a bead of sweat off my nose and glance across the yard at Beatrice’s back porch where Senior takes a drag from the cigarette he snuck from Smitty as soon as we got here.
“You know of another way to get the nail in the wood?” I grunt back.
“Nah, but I know if you don’t control that swing, you gon’ end up with a bunch of bent-up nails and a limp wrist.”
“I know how to hammer.”
“I ain’t say you didn’t. I just said you swinging a lil’ too goddamn hard today.”
I toss the hammer into the grass and point toward the cup of whiskey I left on the porch’s banister as Smitty walks by it with a 4x4 in his hand. “Bring me that, Smit.”
He scoops up the cup and walks over, handing it to me. “Hm. You might wanna slow down or Beatrice gon’ have a slide instead of a ramp.”
I snatch the cup from his hand and push up from the prickling grass. “I ain’t drunk.”
“You smell like a barrel of Jack.”
