Dark Places

74 | mátalo

**AHHHH, am I posting again on a Friday? Like I'm supposed to????! It's choppy, but I've really had a pretty shitty week so I'm gonna just... keep going 🥹

I also baited errrybody BECAUSE THIS CHAPTER IS REALLY NOT A CUTE CHAPTER... 😅😅😅

❝you should feel my heart beat
every time i hear my phone...
and i can't tell what's in my mind:
have you been coming to me at night?❞

☽

VA A MATARME. Drake.

His elbow settling on a console between us—a quick flick away from yanking and pulling a trigger. Medina is carrying. A Beretta. 9mm.

"It's Corey's," he suddenly says, slinging a scrap of crumpled, yellowing paper I catch, hiding a clumsy flinch. Registration on a 2003 Toyota Corolla. Corey Davis. Expired. (Back in January.) Jeanine is... "His address. I didn't even recognize—"

"We're- We're going..."

38 Clifton.

What?

"What'd she— steal Corey's..."

It was Corey's Corolla.

Bzzz.

And Drake swerves slightly, adjusting, grabbing his iPhone. My own iPhone burning. It must be from MECA.

It must be...

"It's automated," I say when I lean over and see its subject from Maine College of Art: FREE FRIDAYS AT PMA! "Portland Museum of Art," I sigh, almost nostalgically. "It's free on Friday nights for MECA Students."

MECA Kids, Ozlenen had said.

"Huh."

"Do you... uh," I hear myself, I do, but I'm not capable of stopping, caught-off guard by how hazy I feel being so close to Drake. Hot. Mmm. "Do you wanna... go?"

His brows raise. "What?"

"Like, I don't know, si..." Drake and I always went to PMA. It was free for everybody on Friday nights. Not just MECA Kids. "If you want to go togeth— tonight, I meant to say, but uh, yeah, together, too, I guess."

"Did you just ask me out?"

Heat explodes in my cheeks, ribbons of embarrassment streaking down my neck. Shame. He shifts, quirking a grin as I back away, cringing. "Uh, yeah. I think so. I'm pretty high."

"Yeah, you are." Suuuuure, Melo.

But I'm not. I'm low, sluggish, foggy. High waning off.

"Me encantaría, Melo," he snickers, shucking off Forest in a rickety veer: Arlington. Back by Woodfords. "But you and I are watching Jonah. Connor's throwing some fucking fiesta, and I figured"—Drake waves a hand—"yeah, it'll keep Jonah home, at least, ¿verdad?"

Left. Clifton.

"Connor is throwing a party." I look at him blankly. "Why?"

"I don't know." His engine sputters; brakes grind, bumping a curb. Then Drake yanks his keys and throws his door open, sparing an exhausted shrug. "I don't care."

"Oh... kay."

Slam!

☽

GREY-GREEN SHUTTERS AND GREY-GREEN CASING. His cedar siding is faded, weathering sandy-brown. His dry, yellowing-dead lawn; a groove of piling brush off a curb. Windows cloudy-dark. Details lost behind a thicket of brambling bush. Leaves scraping, whistling. Porch seems a deep, muddy red.