His parents always treated him like an adult, always let him do whatever he wanted. They thanked me a million times for taking such good care of him, but they never seemed to notice or care that I was scared at all the ways he was changing: drinking and drugging more, hanging out with random people I didn’t know, disappearing for hours or even days on end with no word. By the time I found out he cheated, I wasn’t very surprised…and I was almost even relieved.
It proved that I wasn’t making things up in my head about how he acted, and it gave me the push I needed to finally walk away. I’m glad his parents have been scared into finally getting him the help he needs.
“I know you two had problems—” my mom starts, but the doorbell interrupts her.
“Coño.” I bang my head against the door frame.
“Are you expecting someone?” Mom sounds surprised.
“Yeah. A friend from school.” I have no reason to feel this hot grip of guilt, but I do.
“Do you want me to…”
“Can you tell him…tell him I need five minutes, okay?” I run to my bedroom and close the door. I don’t even want to know what she’ll think when she opens the door to six feet three inches of tan, muscled Southern gentleman with gorgeous cornflower blue eyes.
I pull on whatever clothes I grab first and sling my backpack over my shoulder. When I skid into the foyer, Doyle’s eyebrows are pressed low over his eyes.
“Nes.” His voice tiptoes around the tension in the air. “Your mom told me Lincoln was hurt.”
Mom wrings her hands, and I resist flinging out some stupid retort she doesn’t deserve. It wasn’t her business to tell Doyle, but I don’t think there’s any normal way to react to all this grief and anger and ugly, painful regret. It’s not like there’s a “Someone You Loved Who Broke Your Heart Is Hurt” manual after all.
“We don’t know too much yet.” My voice is as cold as the egomaniacal surgeon’s on One Hundred Thousand Beats as I concentrate on putting on my shoes.
They watch as I shove my feet into my sneakers a tad too aggressively.
“We can stay here,” Doyle offers. “Or you can, if you’d rather I take off. I’ll let ’em know you’re not gonna be in today at school. Whatever you need.”
“I need breakfast.” Mom and Doyle trade looks of concern that make me feel irrationally pissed. And defensive. “There’s nothing I can do for him, okay? I’m here—he’s there. How the hell is my not eating going to help him?” Tears prick behind my eyelids, but I’m not about to let a single drop fall. Not even if I have to bite my tongue off to stop them.
“I have late office hours after lecture tonight, but I’ll keep my phone on me, Aggie. Call me if you need…anything…” Mom’s words fade as I brush past her and march to Doyle’s truck.
He jogs ahead of me and helps hoist me four feet up and into my seat before he gets in and drives his monster truck onto the road to the sound track of our awkward silence. When the tires finally crunch on gravel outside the Breakfast Shack, neither one of us makes a move to get out.
“Did you call him?” His question punctures the heavy silence.
I shake my head, the static buzz of my mounting panic leaving me tongue-tied.
He runs his fingers over his jaw, prickly with golden stubble. “You only get one chance to call as soon as you hear ’bout something. Once that window closes, it’s closed for good.”
“You think I should call?” My voice accuses Doyle of crimes he’s not remotely guilty of.
“I think you should take your time and do what you need to do.” His lips attempt a smile. “I may not like it, but he was your boyfriend for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know he’s all right.”
“Is there anything wrong with feeling like he maybe got what was coming to him?” I croak. I put my face in my hands, the air choked in my lungs, and feel a telltale wetness against my palms. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I said that. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I—”
Doyle’s arms are around me. He drags me across the bench seat, and I breathe in the smell of his skin through the warm cotton of his T-shirt, shielded from all the crap life’s pelting at me right now.
“It’s okay.” His lips press against my hair. “You can love people and hate them at the same time. Trust me, I know how that feels.”
“My God. Oh my God, you must think I’m a monster.” I mean more than that. I mean, you must know I’m a monster because it doesn’t matter what Lincoln did to me. He didn’t deserve to fall off a damn fire escape.
“I think you’re scared and hurt. I think you need to know what’s going on with him.” He unsuctions me from his chest and trains his gaze on mine. “I had a helluva breakup with someone I thought I loved too. I get it. I get how you can care for somebody…and then have a hard time thinking Christian thoughts ’bout ’em.” He swallows hard. “After I broke things off with Ansley, I said some things… I’m not proud of ’em. I was hurt, bad. And I wanted her to hurt too.”
“It sucks,” I whisper. My imagination isn’t strong enough to conjure what Doyle—the most perfect gentleman I’ve ever met—could have said that would still be filling him with regret today. His confession does go a long way in justifying my seething contempt for Ansley Strickland though.
“It does.” He blows out a long breath. “I don’t spend a lotta time focused on it, but it still stings. I nursed a serious crush on that girl forever… I’m talking since we were barely outta elementary school. When I finally got the guts up to ask her out, I was so pumped she agreed. Felt like Christmas morning and getting my new truck and winnin’ the lotto all rolled into one.”
I attempt to hide my grimace over Doyle’s excitement about dating a cretin like Ansley. Even though I know their story ends in catastrophe, it still bugs me to acknowledge that, of course, there were good times.
“You know she was the lucky one.” The curve of his grin files down the jagged edge of my jealousy. “Don’t let your ego overinflate, but you’re obviously a pretty great guy. She’s a moron for screwing things up with you.”
What did that idiot do to pulverize Doyle’s good, strong heart?
“Winds up our whole relationship was all some big scheme. Jest Ansley’s version of an Ebenezer reality show, with me cast as the dumb redneck boyfriend she was gonna remake how she saw fit and parade around like her little rescue puppy.” He shakes his head. “I was jest too deep in puppy love to open my fool eyes and see it for what it was. She dragged me to the barber to get my hair cut how she liked. Wanted me to quit my family’s business and get a job at her daddy’s office, wanted me to play baseball even though I’d decided I was done. I always got the feeling she wanted me to be like my brother Lee, join the military and wear a uniform all the girls’d drool over. But that’s jest not me. She bought these expensive polos and khakis, said I had to dress nicer when I went out with her parents, then wanted to dress me up all the time. Her parents seemed to like me for myself, I think. Her daddy said he thought Ansley could use someone with a level head around.”
“I guess her entire family isn’t comprised of morons then,” I mutter begrudgingly.
“The Stricklands’re an old family, and they like that I’m from an old family too, even if mine don’t have anywhere near the money and power theirs does.” He closes his eyes tight. “I have no clue how long I woulda followed her lead. I was so convinced she was exactly what I wanted, I never let myself think too hard about how we never really had much to say to each other. I didn’t want to face she wasn’t the perfect girl I thought she was. Who wants to admit his girl is mean and shallow? Or that she judges everyone based on their looks, their bloodlines, and their bank accounts?”
His girl. I have to hog-tie my bucking jealousy.
“Sounds like you’re describing the Ansley Strickland I met on day one, minute one,” I can’t help quipping.
He gives me a sheepish smile. “Hey now, go easy on me. She was my childhood crush and the town’s littl
e princess. There’s a lotta deep brainwashing involved in the whole setup.”
“Fair enough. Besides, I clearly have no room to talk.” I get the feeling we’re almost to the meat of the story, and I’m salivating for it, so I throw Doyle a bone by telling him the still-mortifying story of how my own relationship ended. “So…what finally changed things? For me, it was when one of the girls my ex cheated on me with realized he was a liar with a girlfriend and called to let me know what he’d been doing behind my back. In humiliating detail.”
Doyle balls his hand into a fist. “Damn dog.”
“Yeah, he was a total pig. But knowing for sure was a relief. Things hadn’t been all rosy for a while, and I could finally make a decision based on real evidence.”
“Yep, I get that.” He slides his phone out and rubs his thumb on the screen. “Ansley’d always accidentally add me into these stupid group chats with her cheer squad minions. I hate my phone blowing up unless it’s important, so I jest dropped out of ’em. I left my phone in Brookes’s truck overnight once. By the time I charged it up the next day, I had over a hundred notifications.”
“Holy crap.”
“The last bunch were Ansley telling me to call her, saying she had an explanation for everything, to ignore the texts from her friends. It was all jest ‘girl talk.’” His face goes a mottled shade of crimson. “I don’t go lookin’ for trouble, but this time I had to see what had her so panicked.”
“Oh God.” My heart fractures at the pain and humiliation that registers on Doyle’s face.
“It was like reading all the ugliest things you ever thought about yourself and your kin. The stuff you pray nobody else sees, even though you know that’s a real long shot.” I’m sure he’s going to leave it vague, but he keeps going. “There was the fact that I talk and dress and act like a redneck. Ansley told her friends she knew I was so in love with her, she could get me to jump off a cliff if she snapped her fingers. That crap didn’t bother me too much though. It was the stuff ’bout my family. That my grandparents were white trash who had a bunch of loser kids, which is why they gotta raise their grandkids. There was stuff ’bout my daddy bein’ the town drunk, how Ansley saw him digging through the garbage behind Randall’s Liquor Store—I never seen him do that, but I guess he might’ve. And my mama—”
My fury is at its peak now. “What kind of scum breaks the cardinal rule of life—you never talk bad about anyone’s mother.”
“Problem with Ansley is, she don’t think the rules apply to her.” He blinks hard a few times and his voice cracks a little. “I’m not tryin’ to make excuses for what my mama did, but she got pregnant and married real young. She’d already raised her own brothers and sisters, dropped outta school junior year. Once Malachi went to preschool, she got a job at a gas station. It was her first taste of freedom, working for her own money and all. She started to hang out with some shady people… My mama was always kinda naive. She was livin’ a real wild life, partyin’ and stayin’ out all night like she was a high schooler instead of a mom.”
“That must’ve been rough.” I put a hand on his arm and squeeze. I know how much it hurts when you think your mother is choosing other people over you.
“I guess she never really had a lotta choices, so she never realized till it was too late that she wasn’t cut out for the life she got. Anyway, I know full well my mama screwed up, and I don’t know that I ever sorted out how I feel ’bout all that. But when I read the hateful things Ansley said, I realized I could never be with someone so small hearted. I could never be with someone who judged the people I loved like that.”
“So you broke it off with her?” I watch his mouth move back and forth.
“Not before I told her all the ugly things people said about her. All the things I closed my ears to when we dated. It shook her up pretty bad. I’d been her biggest supporter, and she really expected we’d pick up where we left off like I’d never seen her true colors. She was cryin’ the whole time I laid into her.”
“I bet it felt amazing.” Deep in my rotten heart I’m shaking my black pom-poms and cheering Evil Doyle on like the bad influence I am.
“For a minute.” He shrugs. “I shoulda been honest. But dragging her through the mud the way she did with me and my family means I sunk to her level.”
“You could never sink to Ansley’s level of evil. She’s like the prototype for a fairy-tale villain. You’re a way better person than her. And you’re a way better person than me, Doyle Rahn.” I tap my phone’s dark screen. “I’m going to call Lincoln. I can’t promise I’ll be super nice, even if he’s in pain.”
“Aw, that dog don’t deserve anything close to ‘super nice,’” Doyle says with a wicked smile. “I’m gonna jaw with the guys at the tire shop. Half an hour, all right? Then we can do whatever you want.” He jumps out of the truck and lands with a hard thump.
“Doyle!”
He holds the door open. “Nes?”
“You’ll be back in half an hour?”
Because I don’t want him to just…leave. Which makes no sense. He’s not going to walk away from his truck. Even if someone as messed up as me is sitting in it.
“Half an hour. Then we’ll discuss those grits.” His smile isn’t a total put-on this time.
His boots are heavy on the hot asphalt as he crosses the parking lot. My palm leaves a damp bloom of sweat on the back of my phone and my reflection stares back from the blank screen. I nearly jump out of my skin when it rings to life.
“Ollie?”
“Nes, you heard?” When I say yes, she bursts into tears. “I’m sorry I told you not to call him! I had no idea. Did you talk to him yet?”
“No.” I can barely hear my own voice.
“Oh.” The pause is long and full of questions I’m glad she doesn’t ask. Instead she thinks the best of me, like always. “When you do? Can you tell him…tell him I hope he gets better fast.”
“Okay.”
Ollie untangles herself from our stilted phone call, and I slowly—so slowly—go to my recent calls and press my thumb over his name, half hoping he doesn’t pick up. Before I have time to prepare, his voice vibrates through me like thunder before a storm.
“Nes? Nes, baby, is that you?” His voice slurs. Probably pain meds.
“Lincoln.”
The second his name slips out of my mouth, he gives a relieved sob. “Holy fucking shit… It’s you. Baby, I thought I lost you for good. I miss you so damn much. I deserve everything, I know, believe me, I really do. But you gotta hear me out. I’ve been so screwed up without you. I need you, I need to feel—”
“Lincoln.” I freeze the emotions that warm and swirl up from deep in my heart when I hear his voice, the voice I used to fall asleep to on the phone every night. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Me? I’m fine, babe.” He laughs like it’s old times, like nothing has changed. “Sprained wrist, concussion. I’ll be out by tomorrow. It just sounds dramatic, you know? Falling off a fire escape and all that. Forget me. How are you? When are you coming home?”
Home.
Mom in our cramped galley kitchen with takeout menus spread across every inch of countertop. Ollie’s bassoon’s mournful wails punctuated with colorful swear chains whenever she flubs a note. The smell of concrete and exhaust fumes, the screams of kids swinging high in their caged-in parks during recess as we munch on some chocolate-covered frozen key-lime pie to follow up heavenly grilled Mexican corn slathered in cotija cheese and lime.
Home.
Lincoln sitting with his back to my locker and a new mix to share, one earbud for each of us, hands locked, heads bent together.
Home.
Where my heart was broken. Twice. Where my life fell apart. The one big, crazy, beautiful city people flock to for their second chance at life is the one place where I couldn’t have mine.
Home is where the heart is. I guess I’ll figure it out once mine starts beating again.
“You know I’m here for t
he rest of my senior year.” I sound like a robot about to short-circuit.
“C’mon, there’s no reason for that. You can stay at your abuela’s. I know she’d love it if you came back.”
It’s been less than two minutes, and he’s already bossing me around the way he had been doing more and more toward the end of our relationship.
“Mom is here. I just started school and—”
“People transfer in and out all the time, baby. If you don’t want to stay with your abuela, my parents said you can move in with us. To tell you the truth, I’d love that.”
The only sound is our breathing, off rhythm and quick. I close my eyes and picture his spacious room, the king-size bed, the midnight blue walls, modern and understated. I was always uncomfortable in it, even wrapped in Lincoln’s arms. Maybe my gut knew what my brain was too chicken to face.
“I’m not moving back to New York now.” The words are calm and sure.
The silence is finally interrupted by Lincoln’s temper. “What the fuck, Nes? What did my mother say? I asked her to keep her mouth shut. This is the truth. I swear to God, I swear on my grandmother’s grave, Nes. Hear me out, okay? I was just hanging out with her, okay? I barely knew her, and I definitely wasn’t screwing her. I left by the fire escape so I wouldn’t wake her parents, and I lost my footing. That’s all—”
“What?” Hot sunbursts of rage flare up and keep my brain from putting the pieces together. “You got hurt leaving some girl’s place?”
He swears under his breath. “Look, just tell me what my mother said exactly?”
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