by Kelli Warner
Jay’s face drains of color. “That’s enough.”
“My grandfather didn’t like you, you said so yourself. Aunt Faye confirmed it. What did you do to deserve that?” I taunt. Jay doesn’t respond, but I can see I’ve struck a nerve. “How does it feel to be the bully on the other side?”
The muscles in Jay’s jaw tighten. “It’s my obligation to protect you, Paige.”
“Is that all I am to you? An obligation?” I say it like it’s a dirty word.
“That’s not what I meant,” Jay huffs. “It’s my responsibility to look after you. To protect you.”
“Why even bother?”
“Because I’m your father, whether you like it or not.”
“No!” I shake my head. “You are my warden. But fortunately for both of us, that won’t be the case for much longer.”
I bound for the stairs, taking them two at a time up to the second floor. I expect to hear footsteps behind me, but there’s nothing, not even a hint of movement from the living room, where I left Jay with his mouth ajar, brought up short by my sharp words. Deceit pounds in my veins, fueled by Jay’s hateful accusations. I’m practically itching to pack my bags right this minute and forget everything about this house and the people who live here. But beneath the anger lives a sadness so thick, it nearly chokes me. I’m not sad for myself or for my own unfortunate circumstances. That I can deal with. What nearly suffocates me is that Cade was hurt in all of this. The look of disappointment in his eyes tonight racks me with guilt. How did I let this happen? It had started out as such a perfect night—and it had imploded in the blink of an eye.
I bury myself beneath the blankets, not even bothering to turn on the lamp beside my bed. The room is dark, and my one hope is that it will swallow me whole, leaving nothing behind except the sheet over my head.
Mom, I need you.
The doorknob turns, and my body stills. Slowly, I peek out from under the blankets. The hallway light streams in through the crack of the open door, and I can make out Lily’s silhouette as she slips inside.
“Paige?” Her small voice beckons as she slowly moves to the foot of the bed. “Are you sad?” She must have heard the terrible exchange between Jay and me in the living room. Does she know what a terrible person I am?
“I’m fine,” I say, ready to send her away and return to my solitude. But before I can get the words out, to tell her to go and not to worry about me, she pads over to the bed in her footed pajamas and crawls up under the blankets. I adjust quickly to make room for her, and she nestles into my chest, wrapping her small arms around my body. I tug the blankets up around her chin and slide back on the pillow.
I’m not sure how long we lay like this. An hour? At one point, Lily’s breathing slows, and I know she’s fallen asleep. I stare at the ceiling, unable to close my eyes. In the faint distance, I hear the clock in the living room chime. It’s midnight.
So much for a happy New Year.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Paige
Cade and I haven’t talked in three days. I’m too embarrassed and ashamed to call him. I can’t seem to figure out how I would even begin that conversation. And it’s not a good sign that Cade hasn’t bothered to call or text me either.
To make matters worse, Jay and I aren’t speaking. We had one conversation on New Year’s Day, and it was just long enough for him to ground me for a month. As punishment, I must ride with him to and from school, and I’m only allowed to drive my car to work and straight home. He made a rookie mistake when he took away my cell phone for only two days, but I wasn’t about to bring that up. That phone is the only lifeline I have left until my sentence is sufficiently served.
“Are we clear, Paige?” Jay’s face was a stern mask as I sat stiffly on the couch trying not to roll my eyes.
“Crystal,” I’d said flatly. Jay had sighed in frustration as I’d retreated to the solitude of my room, where I’ve spent most of my time since.
Pressing my hands to my bedroom window, I peer down into the backyard, my vision slightly distorted by the pelting rain against the glass. I imagine myself washing away with the water on the other side.
How in the world did everything get so messed up? I miss Cade so much, although I don’t blame him for being angry. I let him down when I didn’t stand up for him. And my biggest fear is that I won’t be able to fix it.
My mother would know what to do. For starters, she would put her arms around me and tell me that regardless of how bad I feel right now, the earth will not shift off its axis and everything will be okay. But she’s not here. I clutch my shoulders as a cold emptiness begins to seep into my veins, just like the outside rain pooling on the patio beneath my window.
Without another thought, my hand reaches for the nightstand drawer, and in one fluid movement, I withdraw my mother’s turquoise journal. I trace the embossed ballet slippers on the cover, my heart racing as if it could bust free from my chest at any moment.
Am I ready for this? Yes. No. Maybe? All I know for sure is that I need my mom, and if I’m only able to have her words, I will take them; I will drink them in and try to get as close to her as I possibly can. I sink onto my bed beside Kitty Poppins, who’s stretched out in the middle of my comforter. Ignoring the cat’s growl of protest, I flip open the book.
My mother began dancing when she was four years old, just like me, and by high school, when she’d started this journal, she was well on her way to dancing professionally. It was her dream. Just like it had been mine. I still feel robbed that someone took all that away from us in a matter of minutes. It’s not right or fair or anywhere close to okay, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to move on from that.
I lower my head, and my eyes take in the words scrawled so beautifully in blue ink. My throat grows thick and I scrunch my eyes tight, trying to slow my breathing against the pounding jackhammer behind my rib cage. I can do this. I want to do this. I need to feel that a sliver of my mother is here with me, to wrap myself in her thoughts and words, to finally know what it was that she thought about when she was my age. But most of all, I’m hoping she will tell me what happened between her and Jay. I’m desperate to know how love can go so horribly wrong and lead to—whatever this is that’s happening to me now.
I open my eyes and begin reading. The first entry appears to have been written just hours after Mom and her friends returned from seeing Janet Jackson in concert. She gushes over how they were starstruck and singing at the top of their lungs when the pop icon performed their favorite songs. The energy in her description puts a wide grin on my face. Mom had a couple Janet Jackson CDs in her car that she always insisted we listen to on long drives. She may have mentioned seeing her in concert, but if she did, she certainly wasn’t as animated about it as the girl writing this journal.
I quickly find myself lost in each page turn, reading through numerous entries about friends, school and her dreams for the future. My breath catches when I get to the first entry about Jay. They met in biology class, just like Aunt Faye told me. Mom describes how another girl had been after him, but she’d snagged him first.
He’s so cute, she wrote. He asked me to the movies on Friday night. I recall the picture in Jay’s office of him in his football uniform. He did look good back then. He still looks good, only now he looks like a principal, all authoritative and serious.
I’m not going to lie—it’s a little awkward reading about their first kiss, and she describes it in surprisingly vivid detail. I remind myself that these are the poetic words of a girl who is on the brink of falling in love. I know what that feels like. It’s blissful and mystifying and exciting, all rolled up into a gooey ball that hovers on the edge of exploding from the inside out—until it all goes wrong. The moment thoughts of Cade surface, I dismiss them and refocus on the journal, which, I remind myself, isn’t any better. My mother’s feelings for Jay would be incredibly sweet if it weren’t for the fact that they were about to plunge headfirst into a relationship destined for destruc
tion. Call it the ultimate spoiler alert.
Mom wrote about the evening she took Jay home to meet her father for the first time. I sit up straight as my eyes scan her words. She’d been so excited to show off her new boyfriend to her family, but her excitement fizzled to disappointment when the introduction turned out to be a dismal failure. I pull the journal closer.
Dad doesn’t like Jay. He told me he’s not good enough for me, and that I should be with someone who’s going places, not with a guy who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together or an ounce of ambition to stand on. That’s what he said. I’m so mad at him right now. He’s being a complete jerk.
I reread each sentence. My mother’s discouragement is palpable in every stroke of the pen against the page. What in the world had created a dislike so strong, and after just one meeting, that Martin Bryant would use such hurtful words to crush his daughter’s excitement? I hope for my mother’s sake that she was able to talk to my grandmother about all this, but there are no entries, at least so far, to indicate that she had.
It’s strange to think that Mom was my age when she wrote in this journal. Stranger yet that I’m literally watching her love for Jay grow from one page to the next, while a rift begins to grow between her and my grandfather. I wish I could ask Jay what exactly happened back then, but if I do, I will have to show him the journals, and I don’t want to do that—not yet anyway. My hands grip the edges of the book tighter. This is a special connection between my mom and me, and I’m not ready to share it with anyone else.
I’m surprised when something falls from between the pages and lands in my lap. It’s a photograph of Mom and Jay. They’re wearing blue caps and matching gowns, each clutching what look to be their diplomas. I raise the picture closer, so my eyes can study every inch of it. Jay’s arm is around Mom, and he looks proud. My mother’s smile is a mere shadow in comparison. My eyes trail back to the journal in search of answers to this new piece of evidence.
I graduated today, Mom wrote. And now I’m more scared than I’ve ever been. I’m planning to tell Jay everything tonight. I still don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. My dad doesn’t want me to say anything, but I just can’t take it anymore. Jay has a right to know, and I can’t keep secrets from him anymore. If he freaks out and breaks up with me, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t think I can do this on my own.
My heartbeat pounds everywhere in my body all at once, ricocheting into my ears and throat. With my mouth suddenly bone dry, I reach to turn the page, surprised when I notice that my fingers are shaking, the anticipation electric as they quiver against the paper. This is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for. I know how it ends, and yet I’m still hoping there’s something I missed, something within these pages that makes all of this somehow less devastating. I’m not prepared for the next words I read. My eyes widen. In a shaky hand, Mom has scrawled, Dad talked to Jay before I got the chance. It’s over.
The following words and sentences come at me in a torrent of angry, heart-crushing strokes of her pen. In utter disbelief, I stare helplessly at the words as they hit hard. Reading and rereading the awful sentences, I search this page, and the next, for something that will tell me this isn’t what it is. I’m desperate for anything—a word or a sentence that will take it all back, confirm in some small way that Martin Bryant is not the monster he’s morphed in to on the pages of this journal. And Jay—he’d sworn to me he’d loved my mom, but the words from her own hand confirm that’s a bald-faced lie. An odd sound escapes my throat as my eyes freeze on the next sentence. The journal shakes in my white-knuckled hands. What the—?
Shock, disbelief and denial collide, and the book slips from my fingers and onto the hardwood floor at my feet with a thwack. Frozen on the edge of the bed, I’m unable to pick it up, paralyzed against any movement at all. My heart pounds out a frantic jig, as if it’s trying to break free from the confines of my body, and I gulp in shallow breaths. The room around me is loose and fluid, my vision pitching from side to side, and deep down in my center, a wave of nausea swirls like a tornado of knives. I drop my face into my hands as the cold, hard truth sinks in, delivering the final blow and crushing my heart into tiny splinters.
How could he do that to her?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cade
“I don’t know what’s eating at you, son, but if you slam down one more of my tools, you and I are gonna go outside and have some words.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, picking up the wrench and returning it to its place on the wall. Even with my back turned, I can feel Mac’s heavily critical eyes. I focus on my work, careful to give the tools the gentle respect they deserve. Mac closes the hood of the minivan he’s been working on and, just as I predict, he’s beside me at the workbench.
“Is there something you want to talk about?”
“No,” I answer, wincing when he claps a heavy hand on my back, his subtle way of informing me that my disinterest in having a conversation isn’t a factor in this equation. Mac wants to talk, and even if it’s a one-sided chat, my presence is required.
“I think I’ll get a cup of coffee,” he announces. When he doesn’t move, I glance up. Mac juts his stubbly chin toward the break room, and I have no choice but to follow his silent command. I will, however, take a moment to acknowledge the irony in all this. The last thing I’ve been able to catch lately is a break in any form.
Joe and Brian, the two mechanics working nearby, at least have the decency to pretend they weren’t watching our exchange. When I glance their way, they’re both focused on their work, but not Jared. He just shakes his head, like I should have known better than to bring my problems to work.
Once we’re in the break room, Mac grabs his usual mug off the shelf and tips the coffeepot into it. “Spill it, Cade.”
“Spill what?” I ask, leaning my hands on the back of one of the chairs.
“Whatever it is that has you so riled up that you’re taking it out on my equipment.” Mac lowers his tired body onto a chair with a grunt. “We’ve got a lot of work to get done and only a few more hours to do it, so take a seat and give it to me straight.”
I sigh and drop into the chair across from him. Despite my reluctance, I rehash the details of my fallout with Principal Chapman on New Year’s Eve. I tell Mac everything, right down to how he looked at me as if I had no right to breathe the same air as his daughter. And then I share the worst part of that night. It wasn’t Mr. Chapman’s accusations, although enduring that was no picnic. What was most disappointing is that Paige hadn’t told him about me—that she hadn’t wanted him to know I was part of her life. That hurt worse than anything Mr. Chapman could have thrown at me.
“Let’s just say it was a real shit show.”
“Language,” Mac warns.
I roll my eyes. “Fine. It wasn’t exactly how I planned to ring in the new year,” I correct.
“Did you try to talk to Mr. Chapman and explain what was really going on?”
I shrug. “No.”
“Why not?” he asks. I have a bucketload of reasons why not, but not a single syllable makes contact with the air before Mac says, “Seems to me that maybe you should have stood up for yourself, and for Paige.”
“What’s the point? Mr. Chapman will never accept me.”
“Not if you don’t give him a reason to. Look, son, you’ve got a lot to offer this world. But you’ve got to start standing up for yourself. Yes, you’ve made some mistakes. But part of being a man means stepping up and showing the world that you’ve learned from those mistakes and that you’re a better person for doing so. When you don’t defend your character, when you let gossip and rumors circulate without injecting the truth when and where you can, you’re part of the problem.”
“That’s easy for you to say, but—”
“Not so fast,” Mac says. “Cade, I don’t give you advice just to hear myself talk. I’ve been right where you are. Believe me when I tell you that I’ve made my fair share of mi
stakes. Some big ones. And I wallowed in them for a while, until I realized that if I wanted things to change, I was going to have to get off my butt and make that happen.”
“Maybe there are some mistakes you just can’t outrun,” I say.
“I don’t believe that. And I don’t want you to believe it either.” Mac runs a finger along the rim of his mug. “I think what’s complicating matters here is that you love this girl.”
“What? No, I like her, but…”
“All right, take it easy,” Mac says, but the smug look on his face tells me he thinks I’m full of crap. “The point is, Paige is important to you. If she weren’t, you wouldn’t be this upset. But when things get tough, you run because that’s what you’ve always done.”
I start to protest, but Mac holds up a grease-stained hand. “I don’t fault you for that, Cade. I used to be a runner myself when I was younger. But I’ve learned a few things since then, and the most important one is this—at some point, you’ve gotta stop and face your problems head-on. I think you need to consider going to see your father.”
I slap my palms on the table and shoot out of my seat. “Not gonna happen,” I say.
“Hear me out before you tell an old man to go to hell.”
I bite down hard, sealing in the heated words filling my mouth. Mac takes a drink and motions for me to sit back down. “Look, Cade, forgiving your father doesn’t mean accepting that what he did to you was okay. Not at all.” Mac raps his knuckles on the table to get my attention. I raise my eyes to meet his. “Forgiving means you give yourself permission to let go of the feelings that are poisoning you. Until you do that, all this hatred is going to continue to eat you up. Choose to let it go.”
Silence fills the room as Mac’s words settle around me. I hear what he’s saying, and all of it makes sense on paper. Forgiveness equals peace and love and happily ever after. And that sounds really good. In reality, it would be easier and much less painful if he asked me to jump in front of a train.