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She’d been with Seth almost two months when she thought that maybe it’d be different if Richie had been the brother she left with. It was not to say that she wasn’t at least a little grateful for Seth, but Seth was harsh, and this was not the life she had imagined it would be. They were scraping and scrounging, and some of what they did get when they pulled off a successful convenience store robbery went to Seth’s drugs. Kate hated when he was high, was always afraid he’d overdose and die and leave her alone. Kate did use his new found addiction to her advantage. She knew it wasn’t right of her to do it, to use him taking a trip as a chance to get away herself. Sometimes he’d get high, and she’d slip away from the dingy motel room in order to find some quiet and some fresh air.
The night was balmy and the air thick. Humidity causing her hair to lie lank just past her shoulders. She thought of Richie. He was quiet, focused, and troubled, but somehow there was something in him that she had trusted. There was no doubt in her mind that he would make it wherever he was, while she and Seth struggled. She wondered where he was, what he was doing. Maybe he was pulling off some grand heist somewhere. She had not allowed herself to think about him before tonight. There were many people she didn’t allow herself to think about. She didn’t like to think about her father, her mother, or her brother. It was like looking at a catalog of all the things she had lost. She often had dreams of killing her daddy and dreams of Scott with the fangs of a culebra.
Tonight though she indulged in thoughts of Richie. Something about her memories of him were less painful. He had been gentle with her, their hands had clasped when they prayed. He was rough around the edges like Seth, but somehow he was more refined, more introverted. When he held her hand he had seemed desperate, like he needed someone to hang onto, to rely on, and to believe in. Kate felt the same way and had since her mother died. When Richie first talked to her by the pool she had found him a little odd, but incredibly charming. He’d been a gentleman, but Kate wasn’t stupid. She knew how older men worked. Some of them would do anything to woo a young girl right into their bed. It wouldn’t have been the first time a man had tried to do that. Thankfully the last time she’d been with Scott, and when he had gotten back from the bathroom the older man had backed off, mistaking Scott for Kate’s boyfriend. Richie had been different than that. He seemed truly interested in talking to her, understanding a perfect stranger, and she was grateful to have an outlet even if it was a man who looked like he should be selling bibles instead of sitting by the pool with her. For a moment it felt like she knew him, a stranger, but not quite. They were two people suffering and commiserating and in that brief instance there was connection.
Most people thought Kate was Seth’s lover, a much younger girl and an older man was not too uncommon in parts of Mexico, so not many people questioned it and sometimes she let them believe it. Seth wasn’t the brother whose lips she thought about. Kate still wasn’t sure what had happened between her and Richie in the Titty Twister. “Set me free,” had rolled from her lips like she wasn’t even the one who said them. His fingers pushed the hair from her face, and he had looked at her so intently that she couldn’t breathe under his gaze. Then her lips had brushed against his, not once, but twice. It was soft and chaste, the closed lip kind of kiss that people often associate with unwavering purity. Something about that kiss still shook her and sung within her. It was almost perfect, but of course as life is nothing is ever perfect. For a breath though everything was right. It wasn’t like she was a victim and him one of her kid nappers for that space between them. They were two suffering people communicating in the only way they knew how. The moment in the dimly lit room ending too soon, Richie’s solemn silence was interrupted by Seth’s loudness, which was jarring and abrasive. For brothers they sure were different, and the more time that she spent with Seth the more it became apparent to her. That wasn’t to say that Seth was bad and Richie was good or anything of the sort. It was just that the difference was stunning and stark to her and in more ways than one reminded her of her own brother and how different she was from him.
Seth acted like he’d never had a brother, and Kate found it difficult to forget that she had one. She tried not to think of him. This was true, and even now when she was thinking of Richie her mind went from Richie to Seth to brothers to Scott. It was like a weird game of word association that would never end. Kate didn’t want to believe that the culebras were evil, that they were merely people like she and Seth were. If that were true that meant that Seth and Richie were not irredeemable. That thought was one of her favorite cold comforts, and she would gladly freeze with it on her lips and on her heart. Maybe, just maybe, if Richie and Seth reunited she could reunite with Scott.
The breeze played in her dark hair, and she noticed for the first time that a few tears had slipped down her cheek. She really should be getting back to Seth, who was surely coming down from his high at this point, but she stood there for a few minutes more. Kate imagined a life that was different. One where she didn’t have to run, didn’t have to rob convenience stores. Maybe she should have found Richie and left with him. They made a great pair, the knife throwing proved it. She could have been his knife throwing girl. That seemed like a good idea to her. They would have made money that way. Him with his knife and her in a pretty dress holding targets like some sort of more dangerous Vanna White. The fantasy would never be real, but it was nice to think about.