by Hart, Rebel
Well, except Clint’s arms.
Why didn’t he want to sit next to me?
This was all my fault. Michael was right last night. I ruined this trip for everyone who had been looking forward to it. I had been talking about things changing all summer. We had planned this trip together. To try and ease our souls. To try and give us some hope. To try and give us one last memory to take to college with us.
And it was a terrible memory.
What was worse was that I felt like I had ruined my friendships. My relationships with those I loved most. The three most important people to me in my life. In one fell swoop, I had alienated all of them. Clint, the man I loved; Allison, my best friend; and Michael, the first man I ever trusted after my father left.
You’re a fuck-up, Rae.
I couldn't stop turning Michael’s words over in my head. Those things he’d said to me over dinner last night. Jealous of Clint? Was that even possible? I mean, I had never considered any other path other than college. Sure, a four-year institution hadn’t been in the plan. But college had always been there. Some sort of higher education after high school had always been there. How the fuck could I be jealous of Clint for not going?
Going had been my dream.
Are you sure about that?
I shoved the thoughts off to the side. I focused my eyes out the window as the air conditioning pummeled against my face. I kept myself as silent as I could and pressed myself as close to the window as I could get. Away from the tension in the car. Away from the fact that I wanted to scream.
Away from the fact that I wanted to keep crying until I drowned myself in my own tears.
You’re pathetic, Rae.
Despite the fact that Clint’s apartment was the first place we hit, Michael didn’t stop there. I pulled my head upright from the window and gazed out the windshield. Watching as Clint slowly looked over at Michael.
“You missed my--”
“I know,” Michael said plainly.
I looked over at Allison and she sighed.
He’s taking me home first.
It shouldn’t have shocked me. In some ways, it didn’t. It just… hurt. Then again, I deserved it after what I pulled. Michael picked up the pace. Raced down streets doing fifteen over before turning into the opening of my neighborhood. He couldn't get there fast enough, and it made my stomach sink.
“Home sweet home,” Michael said flatly.
I opened my door. “Thanks for the ride.”
He didn't answer as I climbed out.
I quickly gathered my things from his trunk and turned around. I said goodbye to Allison with a soft hug as Michael threw the car into reverse, backing down the driveway before we even let go.
“Michael!” she exclaimed.
I dropped my things in the driveway. I watched Allison struggle to get the door closed. I saw Clint wave at me through the windshield before he looked over at the wild man driving. The tinted windows quickly covered their faces the further back they pulled away from me. And as Michael sped down the road, his tires skidded on the pavement.
“Rae?”
Mom’s voice pulled me out of my trance and I felt myself tense up. I closed my eyes and picked up my things, then headed for the porch. The worry on her face made me sick to my stomach. Fucking hell, would I really have to talk about this with her? I didn’t want to. The only person I wanted to speak with was Clint.
Then Michael.
But certainly not my mother.
“Come on. Here. Let me help.”
I pulled myself away. “I’ve got it, Mom.”
She pulled my suitcase from my hand. “No, you don’t. And that’s okay sometimes.”
I snickered before I dropped my things near the staircase. I walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the fridge. I pulled out a soda and cracked it open, then found my space at the table in the corner.
I dropped down and guzzled it until the pain of the carbonation took over the pain I felt in my chest.
“So the weekend went that well, huh?”
I set my soda can down as Mom sat beside me.
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
Mom shrugged. “Well, too bad.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great.”
“Hey, I know you. I raised you. And I know that the more bothered and stressed you become, the more you lock up. The more you shut people out. Which does no one any good.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”
She placed her hand over mine. “It matters to me.”
I stared into my mother’s eyes and tried to come up with a reason to move away from this conversation. Because I knew if I started, I wouldn't stop until it was all out on the table. Including the shit I had to deal with when it came to her.
“You really don’t want this, Mom.”
She squeezed my hand. “I’m a bigger girl than you give me credit for.”
All right. Your funeral. “I don’t know if C.S.U. is for me, Mom.”
She nodded. “That’s fine. We can find you another school, if that’s what you want.”
“I went to a college party and got so plastered I told Clint I needed a new boyfriend.”
She blinked. “You got drunk?”
“And high. I lost complete control, Mom. I’m not ready to be on my own. Not like that.”
“What else happened this weekend?”
Tears crested my eyes. “Everything, Mom. I said so many disgusting things to Clint. I ruined my friendship with Michael. He won’t even talk to me. He’s so angry for what I did at that party. The mess I made of things and the hurtful things I said to Clint.”
“Oh, honey. Come here.”
Mom scooted her chair closer and wrapped her arms around me.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m petrified of going off to school. I want school. But I don’t know if I want English. And I don’t know if I want school right now. I don’t know if I’ll like teaching kids or if I’m playing it safe or if me going off to college will ruin me and Clint or if I’m not going to be friends with Allison and Michael anymore and I probably won’t now anyway because they hate me and want nothing to do with me and Clint didn’t sit beside me in the car so I think he hates me, too--”
“There, there. It’s okay. Sh, sh sh sh sh sh.”
I drew in a shaking breath. “And you’re always asking me for money. And I don’t have money to give you. I have my own plans to have my own place and you stopped looking for a job and I don’t get why you did that and I’ve had to hide money from you just to keep it for myself and I’m so tired of you complaining about me contributing to a house I don’t want to call home in an area of the city that I want to leave in a part of the state I don’t even know I want to continue living in!”
I felt my mother’s arms go slack and I pulled back.
“What?” she asked.
I wiped at my eyes. “I know you stopped looking for a job because I had money to contribute. I became your financial enabler and I didn’t speak up until it was too late.”
Mom blinked. “You’re upset with me about money?”
I sighed. “Not just money, Mom. Everything. It’s like you’re scared you’re going to fail at a job or something, so you don’t even try. You psyche yourself out before anything ever happens and you fall back on what’s easiest because you’re content with the life you have. Even if it does make you miserable most of the time.”
“I’m not miserable, Raelynn.”
I rolled my eyes. “And now you’re upset with me, too.”
“Yeah, rightfully so. Just because I ask you to contribute to some of the bills you help rack up around here doesn’t mean I want to drain you of all your money.”
“So, the fact that I pay for all these lunch outings we randomly have now and order the pizza all the time for our movie nights and do all the grocery shopping and pay over half of the bills doesn’t strike you as odd. Especially when I only worked a part-time job at a grocery
store?”
“I mean, you had the money from all those--”
She stopped herself in her tracks and I nodded slowly. I stared at her with tired eyes, waiting for her to look at me. Waiting for her to respond to me. Waiting for her to say something--anything--acknowledging that I was right about this.
That my assessment of the situation wasn’t completely off.
“Mom?”
She licked her lips. “Everything will be okay. It always is.”
“Mom, please look at me.”
She took my hand, but refused to look. “I didn’t know you were feeling like this, sweetheart.”
“I honestly thought it would go away, Mom. After I went off to college and confirmed for myself that I needed to be there instead of here. That maybe, me going away would help you to find your footing somehow.”
She snickered. “You’ve been planning on going to college to get away from me, haven’t you?”
And as the question fell from her lips, my world came to a grinding halt.
Had I planned on going to college to get away from her?
36
Clinton
“Here you go.”
Cecilia placed a mug of coffee in my palm before closing the balcony door behind her. She sat beside me in the reclining lawn chairs I’d purchased for this little concrete slice of paradise. I knew she felt relieved. Especially after coming in the way I did last night. I practically took the door down trying to get inside. And after she saw the bruises on my face and my ribs, she promptly got me to a doctor this morning.
She wanted me to go to the E.R. last night with her. But I’d refused.
“Have you heard from her yet?”
I shook my head. “No.”
My stepmother nodded. “Don’t worry. She’ll reach out when she’s ready.”
I shrugged. “Not so sure about that.”
“I’m just glad you have a clean bill of health. Because those bruises sure aren’t getting any better.”
“They don’t hurt.”
“I’m sure they do. They just don’t hurt more than your heart right now.”
I snickered. “Ever the wise one.”
She giggled. “I come with my own perks.”
I sipped my coffee. “Is there anything I could’ve done differently?”
She patted my leg. “From what you’ve told me about how the weekend went? No, there isn’t.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe that.”
“I know you don’t. You’re a fixer. That’s what you do. And you're very good at it. But this is something you can’t fix. And you struggle with that.”
“I wish I could fix it, Ma.”
“I know you do. And so do I. Knowing Rae is hurting like that reminds me of the kind of person I was when I first met your father. Lost. Scared. Afraid of being alone and willing to grab on to anything just to feel as if I meant something to someone.”
“She means something to me.”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way. If Rae doesn't feel as if she belongs anywhere or that anyone is happy with her, she’s going to feel alone. Whether or not you feel she should feel that way.”
I groaned. “So fucking complicated.”
“It really isn’t. Not when everything is stripped away. If you take away the emotions and the events of the weekend and boil it all down, what you’re left with is an eighteen-year-old girl who was forced to grow up too soon who doesn’t have any more answers when she’s used to having them.”
I thought on her words. “You’re right, actually.”
“I know I am. Because I was her once.”
“I made her this list, you know.”
Ma turned to face me. “What list?”
I sighed. “The day after the party. I left the hotel and found myself on campus. I used one of the library computers to list out all sorts of avenues Rae had that she probably hadn’t thought about. I gave it to her hoping that, maybe, her knowing her options might help her out a bit.”
She smiled softly. “You’re a good man, Clint.”
“I just want her to not feel like this.”
“Because you love her.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah. Because I love her.”
“What were some of the suggestions?”
I grinned. “One of them was to travel.”
“Travel?”
“Yeah. You know, work from one of those freelance sights with her art or whatever and use the money to travel around. People do that nowadays as a full-time job all the time. I really think she could do it.”
“And you think that would make her happy?”
“I don’t know. But at least it would give her some time to figure out what might make her happy instead of being so damn miserable all the time.”
I looked over at Ma and found her smiling fondly.
“What?” I asked.
She sipped her coffee. “My rebellion against my parents was traveling after high school. Well, I mean, I was homeschooled. We all were. And then I was expected to settle down. Have kids. Live that very traditional, religious lifestyle. My middle finger to them was traveling on what little I could scrounge up after I turned eighteen.”
“How did that go?”
“Oh, it was fantastic. I had a couple of friends in the area where I lived that wanted to do the same thing. We’d always sneak out and get together and daydream about life beyond our yards. Beyond the fields and the trees and the chickens that woke us up well before sunrise. We even went so far as to reach out and get passports without our parents' knowledge. Then, once we had those in hand, we packed up our things and left.”
“That’s… that’s insane, Ma.”
She giggled. “We pooled our money together and could barely afford one-way tickets to London.”
My eyebrows rose. “The three of you went to London?”
She nodded. “Oh, yeah. I think the ticket lady took pity on us, too. Which is why we could afford them. Either way, we got the tickets, got to London, and started hopping from country to country. Working odd jobs just to afford the train tickets and food. We lived out of hostels and experienced the world and all it had to offer.”
“I’m surprised you guys were safe.”
“Ah, I think we were lucky in that regard. If something felt off to us, we just kept going. There was no pressure to do anything or live up to any standard, so we didn’t hold ourselves to one. Just three girls trolloping through Europe trying to soak up as much as possible. We did that for a little over three months before it got old.”
“Did you have fun, at least?”
She sighed. “It’s one of the fondest memories I have in my life.”
“That’s amazing, Ma.”
“I learned so much about life and food and culture and music. I learned more than I ever would have in a classroom. That much is for certain. I picked up on languages and learned traditions. I became a connoisseur of wine and fashion.”
“Sounds like you.”
She smiled. “All this to say, if Rae wants to travel, she should jump on it now.”
“Well, maybe she will.”
“And you should go with her.”
My eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I’m serious, Clint. There’s no time like now. And as you get older, it gets harder to do things like that. You get trapped into things like leases and mortgages and car payments and kids.”
I snickered. “No offense, right?”
She winked. “Never.”
I shook my head. “I mean, it sounds nice. But I don’t think she’d want me to.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m holding her back.”
Ma rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t be so dramatic. That’s her job.”
I chuckled. “What?”
“Clint, the two of you do nothing but build each other up. I mean, look at what you did for her this weekend. Despite how much she chewed into you because she was loaded with all sorts
of nonsense at that party, you still managed to help her. And when you broke up with her? Completely pushed her away? What did she do?”
I grinned. “She kept making sure I was okay.”
“And kept up with your homework. And your tests. And encouraging you. It’s what you two do for one another. That’s what couples should do for one another.”
I shrugged. “I don't know, Ma.”
“And look at it this way. Even after you were punched in the gut by some random guy at this same party, you were still prioritizing her in your efforts. If that’s not true love, then true love doesn’t really exist.”
“Maybe. But I still wouldn't be able to come up with that kind of money. Traveling takes a lot nowadays. And I screwed up big time. I don’t have any qualifications. The money I set aside from selling those--”
Ma took my hand and squeezed it tight. She urged me to look at her as she tugged at my arm. I leaned back in my chair, completely forgetting about my lukewarm mug of coffee. And as she stared directly into my eyes, she snickered.
“First of all, you owe me nothing.”
I groaned. “You need help here.”
She shook her head. “Not as much help as you think I do.”
“What do you mean?”
She smiled. “I got a raise over the weekend.”
“What?”
“Yeah. A raise. From my part-time work. I mean, it’s not a lot. But it’s enough to take the phone bill off your shoulders every month. And after doing away with cable and going directly to streaming services, I’m trimming down the budget. With a couple more moves, I’ll be able to completely take the bills off your shoulders.”
I blinked. “But, what about your--?”
“I’m a grown woman, Clint. I know how to make a budget and stick to it. I know how to set money aside and find ways not to touch it if that money can’t be touched.”
“I never said--”
“And as far as having no qualifications goes? That isn’t even kind of true. Sure, you might not have a stamp of approval from teachers and such. But you have talent you can capitalize on. You’re a writer, sweetheart. And do you know what the most wonderful thing in the world for a writer is?”