by McLean, Jay
Mia
Holden’s with a girl—of course—a different girl than the one he had in his bed that he couldn’t “get rid of.” I didn’t realize he’d turned into such a male hussy, and I don’t know where the heck all these girls are coming from because it sure didn’t seem like there were this many of them when we lived here. When I’d first brought it up, Holden blushed, which is something he never did. “Please don’t think differently of me, Mia Mac. It’s just… sex is fun.”
I told him that I didn’t care. As long as they were both consenting and he was open and honest with them, it wasn’t my place to judge. It was God’s.
That tripped him up... until I busted out a laugh.
Short of getting a girl pregnant and then abandoning the kid, Holden had way too much good in him, especially toward me, so there aren’t a lot of things in this world he could do to disappoint me.
I glance over at his truck and see him sitting on the bed, a girl standing between his legs, their mouths locked.
My nose scrunches. “Gross,” I whisper to myself. But I’m not the only one who hears it.
“What is?” Colton Lockwood’s standing in front of me, his gaze shifting from Holden to me. “Holden and Kaleigh Rogers?”
“That’s who it is,” I murmur. “I couldn’t tell from the back of her head.”
Colton laughs, his head thrown back, and it’s so obviously fake it makes me uncomfortable. Colton, in general, makes me uncomfortable. If the rumors are true, since the age of ten, he’d been convincing girls to leave church services and go to the playroom to make out and fondle each other’s parts. Why he’s talking to me, I have no idea.
“You’re Mia, right?”
I nod. “Colton, right?”
His smile is so broad it almost seems genuine. “You remember me?”
“I do.” I’m surprised he remembers me, though.
“How’s your grandpa?” he asks, sitting down on the table next to me. His long legs could reach the ground, but he hoists them into the bench, so he’s matching my position. “I haven’t seen him in the shop lately.” Colton’s family owns the wheat farm and the little bakery that goes with it.
“He’s good,” I tell him.
“That’s good,” he says, adding, “Honestly, when I heard you were leaving, I worried about him.”
My eyebrows rise. “You did?”
“Well, it’s just… I mean, he’s alone now and stuff, and you two were always together when you came in to buy bread or whatever, so I thought… maybe he’d become a recluse without you or something…”
Huh. Maybe I’m a sucky person for judging Colton based on rumors I’ve never actually verified. “And you worried about him?”
Colton shrugs. “I guess.”
“Well,” I say, cracking a smile. “You’ll be happy to know that he’s doing just fine.”
His lips kick up on one corner, and yeah, I’m not blind. If the rumors are true, I could totally understand why it’s easy for him to convince girls to leave the lessons of God’s teaching. He smiles wider now, and I wonder if he caught me looking at him. “So… what are your plans for the night?”
Breaking through my fog, I nod toward Holden’s general direction. “I think this is it,” I mumble. “Once he’s done there, we’ll probably just head home.”
Colton nods and then something warm lands on my knee. I look down at his hand as he squeezes once and says, “You should come—” That’s all he gets out before a gust of wind floats against my cheek, and the table beneath me rocks.
It takes me a moment, but the screaming and yelling from around me have me jumping to my feet and tugging on an arm. Colton’s back is pressed against the table, his throat held down by a strong, firm hand attached to muscled forearms—forearms I recognize. “Leo! What are you doing?!”
I’m tugging on his arm, and some other guy is attempting to do the same while shouting at Leo to “Get the fuck off him!”
Leo doesn’t budge. He’s a solid wall. A statue.
“Holden! Help!” I shout, tears in my eyes, and everything happens all at once. Colton reaches up, trying to pull away Leo’s fingers from around his neck, but Leo only squeezes tighter.
“What the fuck, dude!” I recognize the voice as Holden’s as he pushes me aside and stands between the two of them. “Dude, let him go!”
Leo finally releases him and stands to full height.
“Who the fuck are you?” Colton fumes, rubbing his neck as he gets to his feet.
Shoulders square, Leo stands firm. “Don’t ever fucking touch her again,” he seethes. “Don’t speak to her. Don’t even look at her.” He takes a threatening step forward, and it’s suddenly silent, all but for the beating of my heart. Mouth to Colton’s ear, Leo whispers, loud enough for everyone to hear, “If I catch you, I’ll kill you.”
I don’t know why I’m crying—whether it’s shock, or anger, or fear. Tears stream down my cheeks just as Leo turns, looks down at me with his jaw tense, nostrils flared. “Don’t cry,” he deadpans. “He’s not worth it.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Holden watching us. He says, “Can you get her home, Leo? I got this.”
“Got what?” I ask.
But no one answers me. Instead, Leo grasps my upper arm and drags me to his truck. I’m in a daze as he opens my door and helps me to sit. He makes his way to his side and gets in, starts the engine. Then he pulls out of the parking lot, but not before I hear Holden yell, “Anyone but Mia, you asshole!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mia
“Are you going to explain what happened, or are we just not going to talk about it?” It’s the first thing spoken since we got in the truck, and my voice seems to fill every inch of the cab.
Leo sits, tense, his hand white-knuckling the steering wheel. Every time I release a sob, he flinches. I still don’t know why I’m crying. I’ve put it down to shock, but also fear. Leo has scared me. His actions, his words—they’re a side of him I’d never seen, never even thought possible from him—and I’m terrified. Not of him, but of what he’s capable of. “It doesn’t matter,” he grinds out, focused on the road ahead of him.
We’ve already passed the house, so I have no idea where he plans on going.
“It matters to me,” I tell him, sniffing back another sob. “What happened to make you—”
“Leave it alone, Mia,” he snaps.
And now I’m pissed, because he’s talking down to me as if I won’t understand, or maybe he doesn’t want me to understand. “I have a right to know.”
He simply shakes his head, his jaw working.
I pull my feet up onto the seat and face him completely. “Tell me!”
He turns into a side street that’s so hidden from the road; I don’t know how he knew it existed. “No!”
We’re surrounded by nothing but darkness and dense bush, and he’s driving like we’re on a dang highway. Frustrated, I tell him, “This is a dead end.”
“What?” The car swerves as we go over a large tree root, and it takes both hands for him to right the vehicle again.
I repeat, louder this time, “This is a dead end!” I reach across the console and grab the wheel while simultaneously pulling on the hand brake. “You’re going to fucking kill us!” The tires skid along the dirt, and I struggle to keep the steering wheel straight as we get jostled from side to side.
The truck stops only feet away from the Dead-End sign attached to the barrier with reflective markers. If I’d waited a second longer to lift the hand brake, we’d be through the barriers and down a twenty-foot cliff.
Chest rising and falling, I sit back, my breaths shaky. “You’re an idiot!” I spit.
Leo’s looking down at his lap, his head lowered, but he doesn’t say a word.
“I don’t know what the heck got into you, Leo, but you can’t—”
“That motherfucker bet his friends ten dollars that you’d...” He trails off as if it pains him to continue.
&n
bsp; “That I’d what?” I demand.
He lifts his head, the back of it against the headrest as he rolls it to the side, faces me. His eyes are red, raw, desolate. “He said he’d have you on your knees with his… his—”
“I get it,” I whisper, my stomach turning at the thought.
Leo removes his cap, throws it on the dashboard, and rubs at his eyes. His voice is rough when he says, “I could’ve killed you, Mia.”
I know this, but hearing him say it, the way he says it—my anger fades, replaced with a hint of pity. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” he murmurs, then sucks in a breath, looks out the windshield. “I don’t know what happened.” His mouth barely moves as he speaks. “I mean, I do, but I don’t… I don’t know how to explain it. How to verbalize it. I heard him say what he said and when I saw him touching you, I just...” He licks his lips, cracks each knuckle one by one.
“You just... protected me?” I offer.
He shakes his head. “That’s the thing, Mia. I don’t know if that was all of it. That guy—he just… he reminded me so much of Laney’s ex; so cocky and arrogant and… I don’t know. I snapped.”
So, it wasn’t about me.
It was about her.
When I was younger, I thought I was competing against Laney—the beautiful, creative girl who was always around. The one all the Preston boys adored. It took three summers for me to realize that I’d never be her. I wouldn’t even come close.
“I need to get some air,” Leo mumbles, pushing open his door. I watch him walk to the front of the truck, to the barrier. He starts shaking it. At first, I think it’s out of anger, but when he leans against, almost sits on it, I’m proven otherwise. Arms outstretched, the muscles in his forearms shift as he grips on to metal, his head bowed, legs kick out in front of him. I wait a minute. Two. And when he looks up at the sky, his mouth moving, I wonder who he’s talking to, what he’s saying. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I get out of the truck, sit beside him.
It’s as if he was waiting for me, because as soon as I’m seated, he says, “The other day, when you took me to that milking place, you said something…”
I look down at the ground, at the dirt beneath my feet. “I said a lot of things.”
He huffs out a breath. “You said that you don’t hate anyone. And I guess I’m just wondering how that’s possible. After that night, how can you not hate me? …Or my brothers? What they said—”
I clear the giant knot in my throat, stopping him from saying more. I don’t need a reminder of what they said. I live and breathe it every day. Heat pricks behind my eyes, and I blink, blink, blink, until they’re gone. I swore I’d never shed a single tear over that night again, and I’m determined to see it through.
“I ask because…” Leo starts, and I look over at him. He’s looking up at the stars again. “Because I think I have a lot of hate in my heart, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.” He pauses a beat. “And I want to. Because I know it’s destroying me. I can see that it’s happening, and I don’t know how to stop it.” His voice breaks as he speaks, and I can tell how hard this is for him and how much he’s pushing himself to say the things he’s saying. He said that he couldn’t verbalize it, but he is. Here. Now. With me. He’s doing it. And so, I do what he once did when I cried to him about my mother not wanting me. I take his hand, and I hold it, and I don’t let go.
Fingers linked, he grabs on to me, as if I’m his lifeline. His anchor. Once upon a time, I felt the same about him.
I say, my voice low, tentative, “Hatred is a one-way emotion.” I take a breath. “It only affects the person holding on to that hate. Take Laney’s ex, for example…” I face him, but he’s already watching me. “Do you think he knows how much you hate him? Do you think he cares that you do?”
Leo chews the corner of his lip as his eyes search mine.
“Does he even know you exist?”
His lashes lower.
“So, what’s the point, right?” I murmur. “Only you carry the burden of hatred, Leo. And it’s a lot easier to let go of that pain than it is to hold on to it.”
He nods as if he understands, but I can tell that there’s something more on his mind. Something heavier. When he lifts his gaze, his stare is blank, eyes clouded. “What if…” he trails off, and I find myself moving closer to him.
“What if what?” I urge.
He looks away again, mumbling, “What if the person I hate most is myself?”
Air jolts against my ribcage, gets caught in my throat. It takes everything inside me to open my airways, breathe his words right into me. “You don’t hate yourself, Leo Preston,” I choke out. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t be here.”
Trust me, I want to tell him. I’d know.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Leo
There’s a young couple in the diner with me, and they’re talking to each other, but not really. They’re doing that thing where one person talks and the other person hears them, but they don’t really listen. They’re too busy trying to come up with what to say when the other finishes speaking because silence would be too awkward, and that would be too hard.
Personally, I like the silence in between. Those few seconds or even minutes where you kind of wrap your mind around everything that’s just been said. Talking for the sake of talking is pointless to me—kind of like hearing but not listening. When I do talk, I like to ask questions. And when people answer, I consider it a gift.
Miss Sandra appears beside my booth and practically drops my order on the table. “You going to try to kill him, too?”
I internally groan, my face scrunched in that silently apologetic way when I look up at her. I don’t actually verbalize an “I’m sorry” because that would be a lie, and I don’t want to lie to Miss Sandra.
She tilts her head to the side and offers an assessing “Hmm” at my non-response, and then, as surreptitiously as she arrived, she’s gone again.
No longer interested in the fake couple, I pick up Lucy’s book sitting on the bench beside me, and just because I kind of miss her, I crack the spine and send a picture to her.
Lucy: I hate you.
Leo: You’re welcome.
Lucy: How are you?
How am I?
I shouldn’t have started the conversation because now she’s waiting for a response and I don’t know what to say. I’m average, wouldn’t suffice. But I’m not good, and I’m not bad, either. I am, however… lighter than I was yesterday, far less burdened with the weight of Hate.
I guess I never looked at it the way Mia described. To me, hate was always just an emotion, something I couldn’t control. It was a four-letter word that I’d scrawled on the backs of many, many photographs.
I respond to Lucy, mainly to ease her worries.
Leo: I’m better.
Lucy: I’m glad, Leelee.
I crack a smile at Lucy’s pet name for me. When we were kids, she deemed that she hated the “O” part of my name and started calling me Lee, which then turned to Leelee. I was a toddler and didn’t understand why she was suddenly changing my name, but I thought it was a game and so she became Lulu. Together, we were LuLee. And we were together a lot, come to think of it. She even put our joined names on a sign that hung at the entrance of a makeshift library she’d made us in her bedroom. The walls were made of sky-blue bed sheets. Sky-blue—so it wasn’t too girly—so I’d want to be in there with her.
She set up a beanbag and little table in one corner, and we’d sit in that beanbag together, me under her arm while she read to me. She’d let me pick any book I wanted off the cardboard box shelf she’d created, and she’d point her finger along every line, saying each word carefully. And when I got confused, I’d interrupt her to ask questions, and she never got frustrated. She’d stop and answer them as best as she could for someone only five years older than me. Eventually, she’d start teaching me to read, to recognize letters, and how those letters joined to make words
.
When I had to repeat third grade because I was so far behind in my reading skills, she blamed herself.
She never read to me again after that.
Eight years later, I was diagnosed with dyslexia.
It’s weird—how volatile memories are. I hadn’t thought about Lulee’s Library in so long; it was almost painful to recall it. I pick up my phone, ready to text her. I have:
Hey, remember
before I delete it. It seems a waste to share something so significant to me via a message, so I make a promise to talk to her about it in person.
The couple has left their table now and are on the way out. After Miss Sandra clears their table, she returns to me with the chocolate cake. I haven’t even taken a bite from my breakfast. Instead of leaving it with me, she sits down opposite me, her back to the corner, legs outstretched on the seat. “You like to watch people, don’t you, baby?”
I shake my head.
I don’t like to watch people.
I like to listen.
Like last night with Mia. After I said what I said, and she did the same, we sat in silence, our hands linked, for a good half-hour. In my head, I replayed her words almost verbatim, because I listened.
I listened, and I learned.
“Are they together?” I ask, nodding toward where the couple was.
“Why’s that?” she asks, stretching the muscles in her neck. It’s the first time she’s sat with me, and I’m not mad about it.
I shrug. “Curious.”
“You lookin’ for a scandal, hon?” She’s smirking, and I ignore my meal, lean back on the worn leather, my arm resting on the back of the seat. She adds, “Prior to your little show last night, there hasn’t been a scandal around these parts for, what… sixteen years?”
I nod as if I know what she means, and me—scandal? Unlikely.
“Well, thirteen years if you count the year your darkness returned.”