by Jay McLean
“I’m sorry I made you run the whole time you were here,” I admitted. “You probably hate me.”
“I’m at your house every day, Luke. I don’t expect you to give up what you normally do just because I’m there. If I didn’t want to hang out with you, I wouldn’t have done it.”
“What would you like to do, I mean, besides going swimming in our lake? Is there something else? We can do it. I don’t mind.”
She thought about this for a while, the static in the phone and the usual background noise of my family the only sounds I could hear. Finally, she said, “I like playgrounds,”
I laughed. I probably shouldn’t have, but I did. “Aren’t we a little old for playgrounds?”
“Name one time a playground hasn’t been fun.”
“True. There’s one close by that Mom lets me and Lucy go to on our own.”
“We could bring your brothers. I like them. Well, maybe not Logan. No offense… he’s just so…”
“So Logan?”
We spent three hours on the phone that night—longer than I’ve ever spent on the phone with any other girl, but not as long as I’ll spend with Laney in the future. I fell asleep with the phone to my ear—her light, quiet breaths lulling me to slumber, letting me know she’d done the same.
And so without meaning to, without wanting to, I started to fall in like with a girl who would become my best friend.
My confidant.
My courage…
…A girl who would later crush my heart and destroy me.
Chapter Four
LOIS
Lucas’s dad practically shoved us out the front door, thanking me for breakfast and telling me that I’d helped enough and the rest of them would finish the clean-up. I had my license, but I didn’t have a car, so Luke did all the driving for us. He got his license the exact day he turned sixteen. His dad had taught him how to drive on their property from the time he was twelve. His dad taught me to drive the same way, too.
Luke didn’t have a car at the beginning, so he drove the minivan whenever it was available. Then later, his dad gave him the keys to the oldest, most beaten-up truck they had in the company fleet. Lucy was given their mom’s old car when she got her license. He’d also built her a cabin on the property her junior year so she could get some space away from all the boys. But, just like Lucas, she worked whatever available Saturdays they had doing jobs for their dad to “pay it off.” Luke worked construction and Lucy did admin work in the office. When Lucy went off to college and didn’t need her car anymore, she passed it down to Leo. Even though there was no monetary value to pay off, Leo (without being asked) still worked construction—the same amount of hours as Lucy—because he knew, like all the Preston kids, that it wasn’t about money. It was about the principal. The thing I learned quickly about the Prestons is that while they had money, they didn’t flaunt it or throw it around like it meant nothing. The kids weren’t spoiled, and because of their dad, they knew the value of hard work.
“I gotta get gas,” Lucas says, pulling into the gas station.
I reach into my purse. “I got it.”
“Shut up,” he mumbles, already halfway out of the truck. He fills the tank, and when he returns from paying, he hands me a Snickers bar. Without thinking, I break it in half and give back his share.
The drive is easy—Lucas permitting me to connect my phone to his Bluetooth so I can play my music, which is Justin Timberlake’s Justified album on repeat. He says he’s not a fan, but I often catch his lips moving along with the lyrics.
Forgetting that all calls go through Lucas’s car speakers, I don’t hesitate to answer when Dad rings. “Hey, Dad,” I say in greeting.
“Your mom called,” he says, and Lucas’s eyes snap to mine.
“When?” he mouths.
I can already feel the sweat forming on my brow because I recognize the tone in Dad’s voice—the anger mixed with worry. “When did she call?” I ask Dad.
He doesn’t answer me. Instead, his voice rises, the anger overpowering his worry, and I wonder how much he knows, how much she had told him even though I begged and pleaded for her to let me be the one to break the news. “Did you forget to mention that you had dinner with her last night?”
Luke slams on the brakes so fast I have to extend my arm to catch myself on the dash. I glare at him, but he’s too focused on pulling the car over in the middle of a busy fricken highway of all places. “Luke!” I shout, trying to grab onto his arm as he steps out on the road.
“Lois, why didn’t you tell me?” Dad barks.
“Dad, it’s—”
“What happened? What did she have to say to you?” Okay, so she must not have told him the why we met up. Just the how. And as stupid as it sounds, I’m grateful to her for that. And gratitude, especially for her, isn’t something that forms easily.
“Nothing,” I rush out. “She was just nearby and asked to meet up. That’s all. It’s not a big deal, Dad. She just wanted to see how I was doing.”
I give him lie.
After lie.
After lie.
Dad says my name. Just once. And I know him well enough to know it’s because he has too much to say, too much insight into how my mother works. But he’s built enough strength over the years to keep his thoughts to himself so I don’t end up hating her as much as I know he does. But it gets worse, Dad.
“I have to go,” I tell him, hanging up and opening the door so I can get to Luke. At least he’s on the passenger’s side now, away from the oncoming traffic of the highway. His arms are outstretched, hands resting on the hood, head lowered because he finally remembered. I try to touch him, to comfort him, but he steps back, his hands raised. “Don’t,” he says.
“Luke,” I say with a sigh. “It’s fine.”
He shakes his head, refusing to meet my gaze. “It’s not fine!” he shouts above the noise of the dozens of cars that seem to pass by. “I’m such an asshole, Laney. You told me about the dinner. You asked me to be there for you. You even specified a time to meet you at the diner and I—”
“Forgot,” I finish for him.
He starts to pace, his strides long, toes of his sneakers kicking at the loose gravel beneath our feet. “You should hate me right now. I hate me right now.”
I shrug.
I did hate him.
For the hour I spent sitting in an almost empty diner on a Saturday night waiting for him, I hated him. But I realize now that maybe my hate wasn’t directed at him, my heart was just full of it and he wasn’t around to redirect it.
“This is a deal-breaker, Lane.” He stops two feet short of slamming into me. “I don’t even know why you’re standing here right now. With me. You should’ve shut the door in my face last night.” His eyes search mine for a long time, and when I don’t respond, he asks, his tone solemn, “What did she want?”
I offer another shrug, which apparently is the wrong answer because he’s grasping his hair, kicking at his tire. It’s not the tire’s fault he was an ass. “I wanted to hate you,” I yell. A car honks its horn, the volume rising and fading as it drives past us and to its destination. I wait for the sound to dwindle before adding, “I think for a moment, I actually did. And when you showed up last night, completely unaware of the hurt you caused, I wanted to be done with you… with this entire friendship.”
“And you had every right to!” he yells.
“But—”
“But what? What could’ve possibly happened to make you change that?”
“You skipped your run!”
He steps closer. “What?”
“You never skip your morning run and you did! And you lay with me and held me for four hours because you knew something was wrong, you were just too stupid to know what!”
He shakes his head. “That doesn’t excuse what I did, Laney!”
I want to push him. Shove him hard. Do something to physically hurt him because a part of me is still in that diner, waiting, wanting him there. But
I’ve already forgiven him, so there’s no point. “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him.
“Of course it does!” Now he just wants me to hate him, but I can’t.
“You’re my best friend, Luke, and you’re standing here right now on the side of a highway telling me I should hate you while driving to a store an hour away. For me!”
“But—”
“It doesn’t matter because you’re human and you’re flawed and you make mistakes.” I step to him and hug him quickly, afraid he’ll pull away again. But he doesn’t. He just holds me back, his chest rising and falling harshly against mine. I look up at him, at his normally bright blue eyes now filled with guilt. “And when I felt like my own mom had turned her back on me, you gave me yours.”
PAST | LOIS
Garray, aka Dumb Name, was an idiot. A moron. A pig.
This, I worked out, after spending five minutes with him and Luke. Why Luke was and is still friends with him is a mystery wrapped in an enigma covered with puzzles.
It was halfway through the summer when I first met him. His greeting words were: “Four-eyes dresses like a boy.” So I left him and Luke to play out in the backyard and went inside the house.
Kathy was sitting at the kitchen table with the twins, crayons and paper sprawled all over the place. She looked up when she must’ve heard the back door open and smiled at me. “Dumb Name—I mean Garray,”—she corrected quickly—“already got to you, huh?”
“I think he must be an acquired taste,” I mumbled.
She laughed loud and free and so contagious, even the twins joined in. Once settled, she said, “Is there something else you’d like to do, Laney? Maybe with me instead of the boys?”
I shrugged, feeling a little awkward. “I see you knitting sometimes. I wouldn’t mind learning that.”
“Oh, yeah?” She smiled, surprised. “Well, let’s go.” She left the twins at the table and moved to the living room where she sat down on the couch, patted the spot next to her. I sat while she reached into a basket between the couch and the recliner and pulled out two knitting needles and a ball of yarn. “It looks harder than it is,” she told me, positioning the needles in my hands. Her touch was soft, as soft as her voice. “There are only two stitches. Knit and pearl. I’ll show you knitting first.” Her fingers guided mine as she spoke and even though I tried to focus on her words, on what she was showing me, I couldn’t stop watching her. And I tried to remember the last time my mother sat down with me, talked to me the way Kathy was. The last time she showed interest in me at all. I couldn’t remember, but it didn’t stop me from missing her and wishing that she was more like Kathy.
I spent the rest of the summer between messing around with Luke and being taught by Kathy how to knit, crochet, cross-stitch, and scrapbook. To be honest, I enjoyed the time with Kathy the most—maybe because I enjoyed the activities, so much so that I begged Dad to let me get my own supplies, even though I knew we couldn’t afford it. Or, maybe because Kathy was a mother-figure when I felt like I didn’t have one. I hadn’t spoken to my mother since I got in the car with Dad and drove away. If Dad had spoken to her, he didn’t mention it. If he missed her, he didn’t act on it. If he hurt, he didn’t show it. So I made a choice early on that I wouldn’t either. I spent a lot of days lying to him and lying to myself.
“Where’s your head at, Laney?” Kathy asked, her fingers working the yarn as if it were an extension of her body.
I realized I’d been lost in my own head, thoughts of my mother invading my mind. There were tears in my eyes, tears I hadn’t known were there. I wiped at them quickly, not wanting to show my weakness to the three boys sitting on the floor in front of us, PlayStation controllers in their hands. “Nothing,” I whispered, looking down at my attempt at a scarf.
“Your hands have been in that position for over five minutes,” she said, her voice low, her words meant only for me. But Lucas turned to me, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“Owned you, noob!” Logan yelled, and just as quickly, Lucas turned back around and refocused on the video game.
“Laney.” Kathy dropped her yarn on her lap and freed her hands. She turned to me and said, “You can always talk to me about anything. I know that it’s just you and your dad here, so if things are going on… with yourself, or with your body, or anything else you feel like you can’t talk about with him, I just want you to know I’m here.”
I stared at her—at her sad eyes and her sad smile—and I could feel it in my heart that the words she’d spoken were sincere. The tears pooled again and this time, I let them free, along with the words that would haunt me for years. “I feel like I’m not good enough. My mom hasn’t spoken to me in months… not since my dad and I left her. And now I sit here with you and I wonder why it’s possible to feel more love from you than I felt from her, and I crave it, but I can’t miss it because I never felt it. And I can’t tell my dad because I don’t want him to think that I regret the choice to be with him instead of her, because I don’t. Not for a second.” I wiped at my cheeks, looked down at my hands, and pushed through the giant lump in my throat. “So I wonder if I’m not good enough. If that’s the reason why she can’t seem to find time to pick up the phone and call me. I don’t expect much from her, honestly, but I at least want to know she’s thinking about me.”
Silence filled the room… the video game now paused. I felt four pairs of eyes on me, watching, waiting, and the only sounds that broke the silence were my sniffles as I tried to keep it together.
By the time I found the courage to look up, I was met with Kathy’s tear-stained face. But it wasn’t her who spoke the words which would later define me. It was Luke. “I’m sorry, Laney,” he said, his voice shaking. I refused to look at him, but I felt him stand, felt him come closer until he was sitting on the couch next to me, his hand reaching for mine. “I’m sorry that your mom makes you feel like that because you are good enough. For me. For all of us. And if she doesn’t want you as family then it’s her loss, because now—now you’re a part of ours. Right, guys?”
“Right,” Leo agreed, while Logan shouted, “Your mom’s an ugly, smelly bitch.”
He was eight.
Chapter Five
LUCAS
“You can go now,” Laney says, sitting back in the car, the engine idle. “You have time.” She’s looking between the seats and onto the road behind us. I’m looking at her. We should drive, but I can’t. I don’t want to pressure her to talk, but I can’t leave until I know what’s happening because I know it can’t be good. Anything to do with her mother ends in her misery. Sometimes it lasts days, sometimes weeks. And I feel as though I need to plan my next move more than I need my next breath.
I comb my fingers through my hair, pleading words filtering in and out of my mind too fast, and I don’t know what to say.
“Luke?”
I don’t bother sparing her feelings. “What the fuck did she want? Why was she here?”
She blinks hard, probably trying to find a response that’ll both satisfy me and keep my mind at peace. I don’t want any of those things. I just want the truth. I raise my eyebrows, relentless. I’ll sit here and I’ll wait for however long it takes for her to speak. Seconds tick by, then she inhales deeply, her words rushed when she says, “When I was younger and my parents were still together, my dad set up a bank account for me.” She’s not looking at me. Not at my eyes, anyway. She’s fixed on my t-shirt, at the faded Nike logo across the chest. “It was supposed to be a college fund.” She swallows. Once. Twice. “For the past few years, we’ve been putting money in there and saving. I guess when Dad set it up, he thought the bank required both signatures to withdraw any money…” Her voice breaks and she looks up at me, her eyes wide, the shape and color of almonds.
I know where this is going, but I don’t want to admit it as much as she doesn’t want to say it, and so I say, hoping, praying she says yes, “So you need you and your dad to sign?” She shakes her head, and my chest tightens.
I’ve heard enough of Laney’s stories about her mom to know what she’s capable of. The shakiness in my exhale reveals my fear. “This is bad, isn’t it?” I mumble, moving closer to her.
We’re supposed to have four more years. Ever since we visited Lucy and Cameron at UNC a couple of years ago, this was our dream. We were going to do it together. My athletic scholarship was a sure thing because I worked my ass off to get it. I pushed away other offers. I wanted UNC because Lane wanted it. Because we walked around campus, her hand on the crook of my elbow while she pointed out where she’d be sitting when she sipped her coffee. Or where she’d hide out at three in the morning trying to study because her crazy roommate she’d already named Sasha listened to death metal and dealt ecstasy from their messy, tiny dorm room. She stood at the exact spot where she said I’d one day pass out drunk, but not before sending her cryptic text messages to find me because I’d just beaten a state record in the hundred-meter sprint and had celebrated a little too hard with my teammates.
UNC was our dream.
Our future.
After clearing her throat, she tells me, “When Dad got back on his feet financially, he looked into the account and saw that it hadn’t been touched, which to him meant that she probably forgot about it. And I guess she did. Until she wanted to switch banks. So when she went to close out all accounts, they must have mentioned my college fund and she—”
“No.” I mentally block my ears. “Don’t say it.”
“She took all the money, Luke.”
I blow out a breath, my cheeks puffing with the force of it. “And it’s all gone?” I ask hesitantly.
“She used the money to pay for an in-ground pool in her house that my dad paid for, to be enjoyed by her new husband and his kids.”