Page 84 of Threaded Lies

My heart—the one that doesn’t exist—twists in my chest and reminds me it does in fact beat.

I nod slowly. “I do believe that and you are more than this shit.” I pat the bench beside me. “Now you gonna tell me why you don’t want to be seen talking to me?”

“It’s not nothing—”

“It’s not anything,” I correct and earn an eye roll of teenage proportions.

“There’s just a lot of bad shit going on right now. Everybody’s on edge with the murders that happened. We have two dealers who got a beef with each other and I don’t want no one to think you’re part of it and in turn, I’m part of it.”

“Fair.” I nod and glance to the outfield where two kids are riding their bikes beyond the fence. “Someone say shit to you?”

“Nah.” But he averts his eyes and I know he’s lying.

“What did they say?”

“Just that you must be either my daddy or my daddy and, like, how much money you be giving me for either.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Leo—”

“I set them straight though, but like, if I climb in the car with you and then you drop me off twenty minutes later, it looks like—you my daddy if you get what I mean.”

“I do.” My stomach churns at the thought.

“People talk here. Why is Leo’s mom buying more groceries than normal at the corner market? Why does she have gift cards instead of the EBT card? Like … everybody is watching everything ’round here.”

Nothing’s changed, has it?

“I got you, man. We’ll figure something out.”

“I mean, they see me working outside. The painting, the scrubbing, the grass mowing, but no one puts two and two together and assumes the extra money coming from that. The people who do things the right way here are the ones who usually get the most taken from them.”

“I understand that.”

“But you still thought I had a crew and was going to jump you.” He stares at me like a kid who’s wise beyond his years. And like a man who just had his feelings hurt and integrity questioned.

“I didn’t think you were going to jump me. I thought maybe someone threatened to hurt your mom or you in exchange for access to me.” I shrug like it’s no big deal when it is. It’s a huge fucking deal that I should have thought of way before now. “I know how things work here, and I wouldn’t fault you for giving me up to save your mom.”

I watch him process the truth in what I just said; his nod is slow and his innocence tarnished like the graffiti does to these streets. “We need a code word.”

“What?” I bark out a laugh.

“A code word. Something I say if I think you’re in danger or if I’m put in that situation.”

I stare at him, wanting to refute him and his idea—more like refute the notion that a thirteen-year-old even has to think this idea—but end up only nodding. “Smart thinking.”

“What’s the word?”

“Monarch.” I don’t know why that’s the first word on the tip of my tongue—maybe because no matter how much I research the damn name and its connection to Rhett I can’t find anything—but it is.

“Monarch?” He laughs for the first time since he sat down. “You think you a damn king or you girly, like a butterfly?” And once the words are out he laughs even harder. I let him have the laugh at my expense because it doesn’t hurt shit to let a thirteen-year-old be a thirteen-year-old.

“We can change it.”

“No, we ain’t. We keeping it.” He fist-bumps me and then pretends to straighten a crown on his head. “Monarch Holden, it is.”

“Fine. Monarch.”