Breakdown (Crash into Me) Read online

  I swallowed hard and shook my head.

  Worry? I wasn’t worried, I was excited, thrilled—the rush hitting me even with the dull throb of the classic music that played on the radio station. Looking at me, anyone might have thought the hair that stood on end on my arms was a reaction of the cold, my dilated pupils the result of fear over being caught. In reality I was excited instead, every second my heart beating faster with the potential of what we were doing.

  Somehow, it ended up being so much easier than I imagined. There were no sirens, no flashing lights, not even as much as the screeching of tires. And no sooner had I really began to enjoy it, we were stopped at a curbside garage. On the brick siding, a digitally printed sign proudly displayed a chequered flag and the name Chop Shop Garage.

  After unlocking the garage doors, William got back in the car just long enough to pull it inside. I struggled to find the car handle in the dark while his footsteps echoed away. Even if I didn’t know where we were, the echo and darkness alone would have told me we were inside a large space, somewhere vast and wide. Although my eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, I didn’t stray from the car—silently wishing that William would reach out for me. Knowing he wouldn’t, however, I breathed deep the grungy smell of diesel and something like leather, instantly recognizing it as the smell that had infiltrated my senses so many times when I was around William.

  I blinked hard when the lights came on, bright fluorescent beams that buzzed at me from above. William seemed oblivious to them while he shut the garage doors down behind us. I took that opportunity to take in the dull white paint on the concrete walls and the horrendous shade of hunter green on the floor.

  “Where are we?”

  “This is where I work.” Like a rambunctious puppy, he shook the rain from his hair and grinned at me wildly.

  “Really?” Workbenches that stuck out of the wall were dirty and stained with what looked like paint and oil. Above one of the benches, a variety of stencils hung on nails, but other than a few tool boxes and shell bodies covered by plastic tarps, there wasn’t much to indicate that it was a body shop at all. “But it’s so… clean.”

  “You say that like you’re surprised, Jumper.”

  I ran my hand along a workbench and looked at my fingers. There wasn’t even a speck of dust. “I have seen where you live.”

  Before he looked away, he smiled.

  “Seriously, all the chop shops I’ve seen on online look dangerous.”

  Half-insulted, he moved from the hood of the car to sit in a makeshift lobby area. “This isn’t like other chop shops, Jumper.”

  I peered over the check-out counter, smiling at the dirty fingerprints on the register. “So this is a chop shop?”

  I was still looking at the garage’s business cards when I felt the tension between us again. “You can’t tell anybody. You know that, don’t you, Jumper?”

  “And admit I was an accomplice in an auto theft?” I shook my head as I smiled. “No thanks.”

  I turned from the counter and back to William, a horrible thought coming over me. “I-Is that why you took me long with you just now? So if I went to the police my character could be called into question?”

  He smiled widely. “I wish I had thought of that. No, I figured if you went to the cops I could just tell them how we met.”

  “Show off how crazy I am?” I nodded. “Good idea.”

  “You’re not crazy, Jumper.” William’s voice was sad, soft. Though I couldn’t quite place it, I thought maybe he was ashamed. “But the cops don’t have to know that.”

  I walked to the other side of the garage, letting my eyes run up and down the metal wall that clearly opened up to the other side. When I sat down next to William, I rested my scarred hand on top of his.

  I didn’t have any words when he brought my hand to his lips and kissed my palm.

  “I figured I’d tell them how we met, say that you were madly in love with me, but I rejected you—”

  I tried to clear my head of the fog he had filled it with. “And I was making up lies to get even.”

  He nodded. “More or less.”

  “How long have you been stealing cars?”

  “I nabbed my first one when I was eleven I think. So about fifteen years now, give or take intervals of obeying the law.”

  “Eleven?” I laughed. “You stole your first car when you were eleven?”

  William’s eyes illuminated with pride. “My buddy Finn and me—it was his grandmas.”

  “A hell-raiser, huh?”

  “My mom beat me black and blue for if it makes you feel any better.”

  I smiled as I saw the entire scene in my head like a movie. “What does that have to do with the Black Saints?” I nodded to the car we had stolen.

  He smiled half-heartedly and gave me back my hand. Instantly, I regretted bringing up the subject. “I was friends with a lot of the Black Saints, grew up with them, drank with them…” Shaking his head, he sighed. “When they needed a quick buck they’d hire me to do a few jobs for them.”

  Since this wasn’t anything I hadn’t already pictured, I leaned back in my chair and nodded. “So you’re not a member of the Black Saints?”

  William shrugged, but still failed to smile completely. “The boss liked what I was doing, and since my pop had been a member they wanted me for their crew.”

  I smiled wryly. “That’s the second time I’ve asked you that question and you still haven’t answered completely.”

  Finally, he grinned. “No, Jumper, I’m not a Saint. Taking cars you haven’t paid for may be a crime, but it isn’t a sin to take something from people who don’t appreciate it.”

  I agreed with him completely. After all, wasn’t that one of the reasons I disliked my mother so much, because she had so much and appreciated so little? Anyway, there was a difference between stealing luxury cars from people who made six figures a years and stealing food from a child.

  “Why did you have to leave Boston then?”

  “The Black Saints are a violent bunch of bastards. They started harassing me when I told them to shove off, and when that didn’t work they started bothering my sisters where they worked…” For a moment, and only for a moment, his eyes narrowed and turned dark. “I couldn’t prove it, but I’m sure they were the ones who killed my pop in the first place. They had to get me to join, understand? Accept money and get me into the fold. I knew too much otherwise.”

  “William, I-I don’t know what to say.”

  Like me, he leaned back and tried to smile. “From what I gather, most of them have been locked up since last year. Either that or they ran off when the incitements came out.”

  I nodded like dumb child I was. I thought I had problems? William had to leave his home and was practically stalked by a gang that had probably murdered his father. Now he had a not-so-depressed-girl in his life.

  My situation was looking better and better.

  Eventually, I heard him pipe up over my thoughts. “How do you feel anyway, about all this, about what I do?”

  “Excited,” I admitted.

  He sighed in relief. “Is that all?” With shifty eyes he looked up at me before quickly looking away again. “I mean, you don’t hate me or anything? I thought for sure at a minimum you’d want to stop hanging out with me.”

  “No!” Panic ravaged me from all angles but I reeled myself in quickly. “I mean, I don’t mind what you do. I think it’s interesting, and even if I didn’t, there isn’t any reason we can’t stop being friends over it.”

  “You might not think that if you knew me better, Jumper,” he said sadly.

  Sitting up, I nudged him with my elbow. “I’m beginning to doubt that.”

  I wandered around the garage, aware of his eyes on me, but not sure what to do about it. Instead of saying anything though, or even looking back at that trademark smile of his, I peeked under the loose tarps that covered the cars. Smiling when I saw the cars that looked complete, I frowned when I saw the ones tha
t were only frames.

  It was the last car in the line that caught my attention the most, dark purple with a shimmering finish and wide slotted headlights. There was something appealing about the low slope of the hood and the retro front end but I didn’t dare touch it. Instead, I leaned in closer and admired the leather interior, smiling so wide my face practically hurt.

  “Do you like that?” The sound of William’s boots scuffing on the concrete floor echoed as he moved to join me. I went to protest when he moved to pull back the rest of the tarp, but when I saw him smile with that intense look of his, I knew there wasn’t any stopping him. “It’s a 74’ Pontiac firebird.”

  I swept my feet against the floor. “It’s, uh, very purple.”

  William rolled his eyes and dragged the tarp to the corner. “In 1974 Pontiac released a special version of this car called the Super Duty 455 with a strong cylinder block and a 4-bolt main bearing. Cosmo and I restored it along with the original forged crankshaft and aluminum pistons.”

  “Cosmo?” I had to admit I was slightly surprised. Cosmo seemed more clown than criminal. Then again, what did I know about criminals? “He works with you? Stealing cars and stuff?”

  “Yeah.” William’s smile faded as he scratched the back of his head. “But I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

  “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

  “Thanks, Jumper,” he said gratefully. “I appreciate that.”

  Meanwhile, I was concentrating on trying to blame my imagination for feeling that William was checking me out. Then again, I thought, all too recently my imagination was running amuck—giving William the face of an outlaw when something else told me otherwise. What if then my imagination wasn’t my imagination at all, but my instincts instead? Was it possible I could rely on my thoughts after all?

  I felt his eyes leave me and wander back to the hood of the car. “Firebird,” he scoffed and stepped closer to me, making my stomach rise up and down like a broken elevator. “It kind of reminds me of you.”

  “It does?” I crossed my arms over myself and pretended to look offended. “I didn’t know I was so purple.”

  “No,” he laughed. “Firebird—like a phoenix or something.”

  “I have nothing in common with a firebird,” I said defensively. “And even less in common with this car.”

  “You’re like a phoenix, Jumper.” Reaching forward as he took another step, William brushed a piece of the hair back from the side of my face. “Up from the ashes to rise again…”

  Rise again? Is that what I was doing? In the last few days I had felt better than I had in months, smiling, laughing, and even looking forward to things again. Whether it was because of William and racing, new friends, or even the sessions I had with the student counselor I wasn’t entirely sure. But maybe, I thought, it was a combination of all three. Still, I wasn’t used to compliments—had lived an entire childhood without an ounce of praise—and I had no idea how to deal with it.

  “I liked stealing a car with you, Do-gooder.” I backed away from him just enough to breathe again. “It was wonderful.”

  For an instant, his smile faltered, and he too took a step back. “You weren’t supposed to like it—not really anyway. I just wanted to scare you enough so that you’d quit all this stupid shit.”

  I giggled and leaned against the firebird. “Well, your plan backfired, because I liked it, and if you aren’t careful, I might start to like you too.”

  William narrowed his eyes at me and stepped forward. I was completely cornered in. “You just like the rush.”

  “And you,” I admitted quietly and looked away. “I like you too.”

  “There are other ways to get a rush, you know?” Despite the fact that he didn’t pressure me to look at him, I got the sense he wanted me to. Since one of the last things I wanted to do was disappoint him, I obeyed the silent request. “Things you can do other than stealing cars and hurting yourself.” Testing the waters, he took a step towards me again.

  “Like drugs?”

  “No, Jumper,” he laughed. “Not drugs. More natural things…”

  Remembering one of our first conversations, I went for the smart-ass approach. “Funny, I didn’t picture you for an all-natural kind of guy.”

  “You’d be surprised, Jumper.”

  Then he closed the distance between us.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It started out simply enough; William’s lips just brushing over mine. But when I gasped and he tried to pull away, my hands clutched to the back of his arms and attempted to keep him with me. Accepting this as permission, I felt him relax before I closed my eyes and did the same. But now that we both had our hands free they seemed to be everywhere. I used mine to work through his hair, flinging off his beanie in some undesirable place and as far down his back as I could manage. While he gently bit the end of my lower lip, William worked his thumbs into my lower back, relieving tension there I didn’t even know I had.

  Unfortunately, we had to separate, faces smiling and arms still tangled around each other. I counted the breaths I took and kept my eyes shut, enjoying the sound of William’s breathing as he leaned into the crook of my neck.

  “I hate you break it to you, Jumper…” His hand skimmed across my wrist, making me shiver. “But I think you might be an adrenaline junkie.”

  “Yeah.” No longer afraid and feeling braver than I had in my life, I pushed back on the firebird until I was sitting on its hood. When I was semi-comfortable I wrapped my legs around him to keep him close. “I think I might be too.”

  This time I was the one who initiated the kissing.

  We ran out of breath at the same time, pulling away from each other but still holding on to one another as though our lives depended on it.

  “I-I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “It’s okay—”

  “No!” William released me completely, gently untangling his hands from my hair and turning his back on me. “No, it isn’t. I-I should take you back now.”

  I swallowed hard and reminded myself to breathe. I was unsure where his frustration was coming from and how I should feel myself, so I just looked away.

  “Sure.” I crossed my arms over myself and sighed. “If you say so.”

  After our unexpected make-out session, and with encouragement from my student counselor, I spent the next day filling out applications for culinary school, only slightly disappointed that I didn’t hear from William. Yet when the next day came and went, I started to get worried—worried about him, worried about us, and though his behavior had made it abundantly clear that kissing me was on a whim, my anxiety continued on.

  What if he didn’t want to be friends with me anymore?

  Just like William had predicted, I had felt an intense rush when he kissed me. So much so that I continued to experience little twinges of it two days later just at the memory of his lips on mine. More than that, I felt a surge of emotion when we kissed, a flash flood of something that made me excited, scared, happy and confused all at once. Even before, when I thought I was in love, kissing had never felt that good, that natural.

  I didn’t want to, but I compared William’s kisses to the memories of the only other ones I had experienced. Sloppy and rushed, the first few times I had been kissed had been in front of his friends, always in the hallways of school, or just outside in the student parking lot. And while I had been willing to practice every time we were alone on his parent’s couch, his technique had never gotten any better, remaining slobbery and ill-placed right up until the end.

  By comparison, William was an excellent kisser—gentle but rough all at once.

  Quickly, I became distracted by the memory, consumed and confused by all the burning questions that lingered in my mind. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out what I had done wrong, if I had done anything wrong. If I hadn’t done anything wrong, though, then why did William look so sad when we separated at my house, saying nothing exce
pt a soft goodbye in a harsh whisper?

  Without even trying, I could accept that he regretted kissing me, that it had been an act of kindness that I had taken too far in repeating. But as the second day turned into the third and then the forth, I knew that I was going to have a hard time letting him out of my life completely. No, I knew going cold turkey from William O’Reilly wasn’t going to be an option for me. Still, the more I thought about it, the more confused I became about it. Though William regretted kissing me, he had been kind to me, decent and genuine since the night we met, and if he hadn’t wanted to continue being my friend then why would he have taken such a risk by letting me into his life to begin with?

  Maybe, I thought, he no longer wanted me around at all. Hadn’t he told me I wasn’t supposed to enjoy stealing with him as much as he did? That he was trying to scare me out of it? What if he was trying to drive me away because I couldn’t take a hint? Had he only kissed me to make me go away? To come on to me in the hopes that I would be disgusted by his ego? It wasn’t too difficult to imagine he had gotten tired of trying to be nice to me. I tried to remember whether or not I had told him that I was talking to a counselor. If William believed he had successfully pawned me off, was his responsibility towards me over?

  I did my best to dismiss the thought, but was unsuccessful and ended up floundering in a brief wave of depression before I forced myself to stop wallowing, and do something about it. After a reprieve from the cloud that hung over me I wasn’t going to give into it again. William might not have been willing to talk to me anymore, but maybe I could find someone who did.

  Despite Tabby’s driving and the despicable music on the radio, we managed to get to The Crossings at South Corona in one piece. Even as we explored the parking lot for an open space, however, I felt the question of William’s kiss dangling over me, teasing me like the introduction to a song.

  “It’s too bad about the weather.” Tabby stopped and flipped up her sunglasses before staring up at the sky ceiling just inside the mall. Today she was wearing all black with rhinestones in her fedora and belt. And as usual, my appearance paled in comparison to her. “You would love the flea market in Chino.”