“Don’t. Unless you’re going to tell me the truth and be honest with yourself for once, just . . . don’t. Life is complicated, Hannah. What Dustin just said? His situation? It’s complicated. And I’m sure yours is, too. I’m sure it’s the same stupid fucking complications at work. It always is with you two. And I’m tired, Han. I’m tired of the whirlwind that is your love life. I’m tired of waiting on the sidelines while the Dustin and Hannah show takes center stage. I got engaged, Han! To your brother! And nobody in this whole damn house has had a minute to celebrate that. Thanks to you. So, unless you’re ready to give it to me straight, I don’t want to hear it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find my fiancé. By myself.”
My eyes glaze, stuck in their wide-open position as Bailey leaves her seat and marches out the front door on her mission. My daughter’s laughter a room away sounds as though it’s underwater, or in another dimension. Her carefree world feels so separate from the one I’m in. Eventually, I’m going to have to sync those worlds together.
Bailey’s right. Me and Dustin? Our challenges share the same root cause. But while I’ve been so focused on the idea that Alex Offerman is the nexus of our troubles, it turns out the real threat is our lack of faith in each other.
Somehow, I need to be able to trust Dustin again, and he needs to be able to trust me. That’s the only hope we have of ever being a family. Of course, that’s news I’m going to have to break thoughtfully, and that alone may make trust an absolute impossibility.
8
The problem with a small town is there aren’t many places to go when you want to run away. I think that’s the reason a lot of people leave. It’s not that they want to leave home; they simply need somewhere to run off to for a while, to be pissed and confused and in their feelings.
Since the Straights aren’t a thing anymore, I came to the only place that still holds some of those memories—Earl’s. I still have my key from when Earl and Ava let me use their back office as a temporary headquarters as the track was being renovated, so I let myself in through the back and let the heavy metal door slam closed behind me.
There’s something about the smell of this place. It’s not pristine like the shop at the track. These bays have seen years of tire tread and oil leaks. I used to think that if I could make myself seem put together enough, maybe Earl would hire me on as a mechanic or a tire specialist. As much as racing is in my blood, I always had doubts that any of it would pan out, at least when I was younger. The idea of a steady job messing around with shit I liked felt comforting. There are times when I think maybe I should have stuck with that plan.
I unlock the door to my old temporary office, having to give the door extra oomph to slide the boxes stacked on the inside out of the way. I don’t think anyone’s worked in here since the last day I used this place, and it looks as though Earl is back to his record-keeping routine of stuffing receipts in old parts boxes and piling them in here. I’ve got no head for business and even I cringed when I first saw that.
“Forty-two years and zero audits,” he’d said. Guess I can’t mock him with that kind of record. We’ve already gone through two mini audits on the track, probably because while the public might not know about the early plans to go into business with Alex on this thing, the government does. That’s based on nothing but a hunch and Tommy’s paranoia.
I slip through the tight space and find the creaking chair I spent many hours sitting in while holding on phone calls, waiting to beg people to do business with us. The seat puffs out dust when I sit on it and I cough.
The drawer to the right still has my birth certificates—both the real one and the fake one that I guess Colt had made so I could register for school when I was five. The Judges had the fake for years; it was required to enter me in races as a kid. Tom gave it to me after Hannah left, and I guess it’s part of my story—along with a bunch of other crooked, illegal shit.
I drag open the bottom drawer and feel inside for the abandoned bottle of whiskey. My hand wraps around the glass and I give it a shake, disappointed when I only hear a shot’s worth splash inside. I pull out the bottle and hold it in my palm, smiling at my luck. Seems Earl’s been in here doing more than keeping records. This thing was only half empty after my last drink from it.
I slide it onto the desk and reach in cautiously for the next treasure I left behind. The jagged edges of the chimes I made for Hannah scratch my palm. I bring it out and lay the twisted piece of junk on the desk. It’s laughable to look at now, knowing the kinds of art Hannah probably creates. My piece looks like something a deranged middle schooler put together using pieces of trash. That assessment isn’t far from the truth. Why the hell she loved this thing so much beats me. Why I went in her old bedroom two years ago and yanked it from the ceiling is another mystery. I guess I wanted to know it still existed, that nobody threw it away.
I treat myself to the single gulp of whiskey and toss the empty bottle in the trash before pulling out the small box of newspaper clippings and the old movie ticket stub. I spread it all out on the desk, look at this pathetic collage of my life, and laugh. It comes out quiet at first, breathy and forced, but the longer it goes on, the more authentic it becomes until I’m cackling like a mad man, laughter pouring from my chest so hard it makes me cough and cry.
“Hello?”
Not even Hannah’s voice makes me stop. I keep laughing, and the sound acts as a guide, drawing her in. The lights flicker on in the store and she yells out again. I’m able to squeak out “in here” before settling into one final round of coughing. She pushes through the door, running into the wall of boxes, and I titter at the irony of her coming in here to find me and my old shit boxed away amid Earl’s collection of receipts. I’ve put myself in storage.
“How’d you find me?” I lean back, my voice still wobbly from manic laughter. I calm myself as Hannah scans the tight space, looking for somewhere to sit. I gesture to a stack of boxes and she shrugs, taking a seat.
“I guess I still know you better than we both realize.”
If I weren’t done laughing already, those words definitely do the trick. My mouth falls and my eyes drift down to the desktop. I kick my feet up and rub my palm on the side of my face before snaking my gaze back up to hers.
“Well, you know my entire story now. Ta-da!” I shoot her a crooked smile. Her face remains still, sad eyes glossing over with concern. She’s looked at me like that so many times over our lifetime together. I hate it.
“Is it my fault?” she asks.
I draw in my brow, not sure what she’s getting at.
“Your deal with Alex. You . . . losing.” She swallows hard.
I pull my feet from the desk and sigh, looking off to the side and giving myself a few seconds before answering. I don’t want to react. That’s what she and I do with each other, and look where that’s gotten us.
“I mean, telling him my plan didn’t help,” I say through pathetic laughter. I bring my eyes to hers and am hit with her pained guilt. I shake my head. “No, Hannah. This is my fault. I’m the one who thought I could use Alex for his money and connections and never get burned. I’m in this because of decisions I made.”
As true as that is, she and I both know the way she left—what she told Alex—didn’t make it better. She looks down at her lap where she kneads her hands together as she nods and sniffles.
“How long?”
I’m not sure the purpose of her next question, so I answer it a couple of ways.
“I’ve been losing for almost two full years. And it stops when he says it does.”
Her head bobs with understanding. She doesn’t need me to tell her that this will go on forever. She’s not stupid. I might be, but Hannah? She’s not.
“You really think he’d hurt someone?” She lifts her gaze and tilts her head, fear glistening in her eyes.
I suck in my lips and ponder giving her hope, but that’s not our style. I nod slowly and she matches my movement, dropping her head and
letting out a short sob that she sucks in almost the second it happens.
We sit in this quiet space together without speaking for almost a full minute. That pressure I usually feel doesn’t exist with Hannah. Even now, after everything, she and I simply know how to be. If this were our entire world—this tiny room—we might be able to make us work. Unfortunately, the world is much bigger than this and filled with so many outside forces that don’t seem interested in our love story. It got too hard to hold it together by ourselves, I guess.
“Hey,” she says in a gravelly voice, reaching toward the middle of the desk and picking up the wind chime. “I was looking for this thing.”
I blurt out a tiny laugh and scratch the side of my face, squinting at it.
“Really?” It looks like junk to me now but I was so damn proud of it back then. The way her eyes light up, almost appalled by my questioning of it, makes me see something a little prettier again.
“Uh, yeah. I was hoping to put it in Bristol’s room one day. It’s lucky,” she says, holding it close and admiring it.
“Is it?” I scrunch one eye and dip a brow. She glances up at me and eventually laughs.
“Okay, maybe it’s not always lucky, but it has been. And it will be again.”
She holds it up a little, her eyes wide with question, silently asking if she can keep it. I nod.
“Of course. It was always for you.” Our gazes lock at my weighted words, and I’m not sure about her, but my chest fills with a satisfying yet painful breath that comes with old memories.
“Thanks,” she croaks, tucking the chimes into her purse.
She leans forward and inspects the rest of the items on the desk, turning my birth certificates around for her own side-by-side comparison. I never had any intention of sharing my news with anyone, especially Hannah, but something about being close to her makes me talk.
“I found her. Alysha.”
Her eyes flit up to me.
“You did?” She swallows.
I nod.
“Where?” She pulls my real birth certificate closer and runs her finger along my real mom’s name while I pull my phone from my pocket and slide it across the desk for her to read. She glances up and I encourage her to take it and read my text from the investigator.
“I guess she’s in Coolidge,” I answer while she reads. She opens the photo and zooms in, centering on my real mother’s eyes the same way I did.
“She looks like you,” she says.
I smile briefly, a part of me wishing I could appreciate that. She does. It’s the first thing I thought and the one thing I keep coming back to.
“I’m thinking about going to see her. But . . . I don’t know.”
Hannah closes my text to slide my phone back across the desk to me. She pauses when she sees the image on my screen, the one I keep with me always. It’s her and me on top of South Mountain with the radio towers glowing behind us. It’s the last truly happy day I had. She pushes the phone the rest of the way to me and our eyes meet briefly as I turn off my screen again and pocket my phone.
“You should. See her?” she suggests, and I chuckle at her encouragement, assuming she’s simply changing the subject so we don’t talk about the picture of us on my phone. After a few seconds, though, I realize she’s serious. I sit back and fold my arms over my body, showing my unease.
“I mean it. Dustin, I think you need to see her. I think it would be good for both of you.”
“What, like closure or something?” It’s easier to mock and be flippant about things that hurt.
“If that’s what comes of it, sure. But I think she really wants to see you. I feel it.”
“She abandoned me, Hannah.” My answer is swift and nearly closes the door on the conversation.
“You don’t know that. Not for certain. Things like this are never black and white. There’s a lot of good reasons that happen in the gray. A lot of them. And what might seem right at the time doesn’t fit every moment. It’s the reason forgiveness exists.” Her brow pinches by the end of her plea, and her words sit heavy in my gut. I nod, silently promising to give them due diligence, but half-hearted agreements have never been Hannah Judge’s thing.
“We’ll go together. Tomorrow. I’ll drive.”
She stands and moves back a few steps toward the cracked doorway. I stare at her with a bunched up face that offers zero guarantees.
“Too late. I have spoken.” She breathes out a short laugh and gives me a crooked smile.
“We’ll see.”
“We’ll see you in Coolidge, you mean,” she retorts, pointing at me. A second later, she shuts the door, thus ending the debate on me going to see my real mom.
I should probably feel sick about it, but for the first time since I made the discovery, my body . . . it’s full of hope.
9
It’s been awhile since I’ve listened to that impulsive voice in my head that tells me to jump. The last time I did something without truly thinking—and overthinking—I was in business school and living with Bailey, recovering from my breakup with Dustin. Then, it was doing donuts in a Target parking lot covered with ice.
This danger? It’s different. Definitely riskier. But for once, it feels absolutely right.
Or at least, I thought it did during the entire drive home to my parents’ house. Now that I pull into my driveway and am faced with the facts—that I am not alone in this—I’m not so sure.
Bristol is hugging the ugliest plastic reindeer I have ever seen, positively in love with it. My dad is unraveling rows of Christmas lights and twirling them around the dry hedges and barrel cacti in our front landscape while my mom helps my daughter pick out ornaments to dangle from the reindeer’s antlers. Jorge is attempting to figure out how the extension pole works for hanging lights on the eaves of the house. It should be a perfect, picturesque moment, something I want to capture and treasure forever, yet I am frozen in the driver’s seat of my car, suddenly terrified about where any of us go from here.
My daughter is the only one smiling. My mom is faking hers. I catch it fall every time she turns her back to Bristol, and when she finally makes eye contact with me, her eyes are full of warning and question. Jorge won’t face me, and I know in my gut why. I went to find Dustin. My dad doesn’t play pretend anything. He’s scowling. Even while decorating his home with holiday flair that should fill everyone with joy.
I’m not sure I get to decide who I want to talk to first, but my aim starts with my father. Of everyone out here, he and I probably feel the same—responsible, angry and a touch terrified.
I get out of my car and march in his direction, setting my keys, wallet, and phone in a pile on the ground before grabbing a wound bundle of lights and carrying it over to an unlit cactus.
“Careful. I’ve been pricked twice,” he grumbles, not bothering to look up from his own efforts to drizzle a strand of lights through the fake riverbed in front of the house.
“This is going to look really pretty when the sun goes down completely,” I say, plugging my strand into the main extension cord my dad has stretched along the gravel.
“Maybe. Right now it looks like a damn yard sale.” I smile at his wry joke, and he lifts the right side of his mouth in an attempt when our eyes meet.
I wrap my colorful lights around the cactus and focus on the squeals and giggles happening in the driveway a few dozen feet away.
“You may end up taking that reindeer back to Omaha with you,” my dad says. I smile at his words, but it fades as I stand and watch my mom and daughter together. When we drove here from Omaha, I had no intention of staying more than four days. Now, however, I’m finding it hard to accept that we will be leaving this place.
“What can we do, Dad?” My back is to him, but I know he hears me. I fidget with the end of a light strand while my question simmers in the atmosphere.
“I don’t know.”
His abrupt and certain answer makes me turn. My dad is rarely without an idea when faced with a p
roblem. He’s not the kind to give up, even if he’s prone to making wrong decisions along the way. His intentions are always good. This problem, one I’ve only made worse and which carries consequences nobody but me even realizes, feels unsolvable.
My dad stands to admire his work, hands on his hips as his eyes scan the winding rocked strip carved through our cactus garden. His eyes squint and his jaw ticks before he shifts his gaze to me.
“I’ll think of something, Han. I promise.”
He flashes a short smile, meant to assure me. A father wants to make things right for his baby girl. However, I’m not sure he can. Not with this. It’s bigger than the insurmountable threat he thinks Dustin is facing.
“Mommy.” My body reacts to the best sound in the world and I drop the end of my light strand and move a few steps away from the cactus before kneeling and opening my arms. Bristol walks toward me with a wreath in her hands. It’s made from pine cones Dustin, Tommy, and I collected up north one year during one of the kart races. I covered it in glitter, and a dozen years later, about half of the sparkling dust remains.
“Do you like this one?” I ask, taking it from her and admiring my youthful handiwork. Bristol nods and I glance up to my mom who stands a few steps behind her, palm covering her mouth to hide her worried expression.
“We should put it on the door. Do you want to help?” My daughter nods again, so I stand, taking her hand in mine, and move toward the decoration bin in search of a door hanger.
“Hannah.” My mom spits out my name in a nervous whisper, as if we’re sneaking through a haunted house. She unintentionally ratchets up my pulse, and I close my eyes for a minute and draw in a deep breath.
“Hannah.” She does it again and I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, willing myself not to snap.
“Yeah,” I say. My mouth waters. I don’t want to take my mood out on my mom. She’s worried, and that’s where her behavior comes from. I’m worried, and that’s why I get short and mean. We’re toxic together like this.
Burn: The Fuel Series Book 3 Page 7