by Hall, S. E.
Two different laughs, blending in harmony, startle me enough to turn and look. My mother’s face looks young when she smiles, holding her side through the fit of giggles. Tammy is doing much the same.
Ohhh…apparently my rant about the steroid-laden cheaters was out loud.
I’ve also shuffled one inch closer to her, drawn to the melody of her amusement.
Gathering herself now, she turns the page. “Walker’s walk-off made front page news in eighth grade. A two-run homer by Laney Walker won the game and sent the Bandits to regionals. Missed that one; too far and Tammy can’t drive at night so well.” Her fingertips trace the letters on the yellowing page. “Laney is a power hitter, batting .480 this year. Coach Walker, her father, expects big things for this girl.”
Her speeches are jaunty, broken, and I think sometimes she’s reading and sometimes recollecting out loud, or maybe repeating what she’s been told…I can’t quite figure it out.
One inch closer.
Page flip.
“’Logson lineup this year to dominate. Two freshmen on the team the ones to watch.’”
Okay, that one was definitely verbatim from the article.
On and on it goes until the side of my leg is now touching the edge of her bed, and somewhere in the middle of her monologue depicting my high school graduation, where I had no idea I was the 418th person to walk on the stage, I sit down beside her.
She shuts the book and looks at me, tears filling her eyes. “I’m sorry, Laney.”
“For?”
“Trish—” Tammy tries to cut in but gets shushed with a brisk wave of my mother’s hand.
“For being the way that I am, for having to go. But I’m never too far way. Did you get your flowers?”
One sentence, lots of information, and what flowers are we talking about? I got flowers several times. I thought I had an admirer, then a creepy stalker. Turns out I had a not-well-but-watching mom. I like the last choice best.
“Laney?” Tammy comes to sit on the other side of me, taking my hand. “I know this is a lot to take in, and it’s important we go slow, talk about things over time, for your sake and your mom’s, but please know one thing. Your mom has always loved you. She always kept up with your life and all your great accomplishments.”
“I can tell her myself!” my mother snaps.
“Yes, of course you can,” Tammy apologizes.
It feels like it might be my turn. “I didn’t know it was you; I thought I had a stalker. You could have signed the cards. I didn’t know what happened to you until this past Christmas. Dane told me.”
“The young man I spoke to,” Tammy supplies.
“I know that!” My mother’s voice is still very agitated. “Is he your boyfriend?” she asks, her question to me suddenly gentle.
I face her, now misty-eyed myself. I’m about to discuss boys with my mother.
I’m about to discuss boys with my mother!!
Finally.
This is probably too soon and she hasn’t earned it, except for the whole giving birth to me part, but God, do I feel like my heart is flying—I’m having a heart-to-heart with my mom! It’s astonishing really, how much faster the heart forgives than the mind.
“Yes,” I swallow hard, “Mom, Dane is my boyfriend.”
Her smile warms her tired face and she shyly reaches a hand to my hair. “He’s good to you?”
“Very,” I squeak out and nod so much my head feels like it might fall off. I sigh. “You can’t imagine.” A tear traces its way down my cheek, maybe because I’m talking about Dane and feeling so disconnected from him today, or maybe it’s because my mother is petting my hair.
“That’s how it should be, angel, all your heart can hold. Laney is a good girl, never in trouble, good grades, loves her dad, so pretty and smart. Tammy says she dresses like a lady, goes home early. Laney is a daughter to be proud of.” Her hand continues to stroke my hair but her eyes change, the dim light behind them now out.
What just happened? I feel like I lost her.
“I told Dad I found you. He didn’t know where you were either. He’s not mad though.”
Great, now I have Tourette’s.
I feel Tammy’s hand come down on my shoulder so I turn, seeing her saddened smile. “I think maybe we’re done for today, Laney.”
“I’m sorry, it just popped out. I shouldn’t—”
“Shhh, you’re fine, child. Your mama didn’t even hear that last part. Let’s say goodbye and talk on the way out, okay?”
“Oh, okay.” I stand, confused and disoriented.
My mother is laying back now, eyes open and on me. “Such a beautiful baby. You never cried, always just smiled and slobbered. Your first word was ‘Dada.’ They never say ‘Mama’ first,” she comments, her laugh laced with exhaustion.
I don’t want to leave. I want to stay and talk, ask questions, smell her, tell her all kinds of things, but she’s done.
“Bye, Mom,” I choke out, refusing to end my first visit crying. “See you.” I reach out to her hand and squeeze.
She squeezes back.
***
“How’d it go?” Sawyer hustles up the walk to sling an arm around my shoulder.
“Good, I guess.”
I have nothing to compare it to, but I assume it went pretty well.
“You’re pale, Gidge. You okay? What happened?” His arm pulls me tighter to his side and he kisses the crown of my head. “I’ll drive, come on, girl.”
Sawyer helps me in the truck. All that I register is that he drives and there’s no music. Outside of that, I’m in a daze. It’s like that head in a bottle feeling, like when you have a really bad ear infection, and I can’t quite shake myself out of it.
“Are you close with your mom?” I randomly spurt out, shattering the long silence we’ve been traveling in.
“Nope,” he pops out effortlessly.
“Do you miss her?”
“Maybe I miss having a mom, but I’d rather go without than have her version.”
“What’s her version?”
I have no filter…must be delirious from the “ear infection.”
“A cranked out, slap-happy whore.”
Damn. He must be having pseudo-auditory problems as well. Aren’t we just a truck full of eloquence?
“Sawyer…” I had every intention of chastising him, but it just came out sympathetic and weary. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“No worries, Gidge. So sum up today’s visit with yours for me.”
“My mom’s not unkind or bad, her mind just doesn’t work like other people’s minds do; she can’t help it. She thought she was doing us a favor by leaving.”
I realize, with those few words, that I’ve forgiven her. I saw it firsthand today; she didn’t take off to travel or bag a different man and start a new family. She lives in her room, her world, thinking of me and trying to capture small pieces of what she had to let go so that I could have normalcy…whatever that means.
“What about your dad?” I ask him.
“No idea.”
I could definitely have it worse. My dad is better than the best, and he never strapped me with an evil stepmother.
“Sawyer, I love you. Dane does, too. The whole Crew. You know you always have us, right?”
“Yeah, Gidge.” He turns his head and flashes me a Sawyer smile full of deep blue eyes and dimples. “I know. Don’t go feeling sorry for me over there. I’m all good.”
It’s the first lie Sawyer’s ever told me, but I don’t call him out on it. Instead I let it be, laying my head against my window, counting the rises and falls of my chest; I’m all talked out.
***
“Laney?”
Go away, talky dream thing.
“Gidge, wake up.”
My eyes open, Sawyer’s face looming over mine while he shakes me awake.
“Huh?” is all I manage. I guess I fell deep asleep on the way home.
“Do you trust me, Laney?”
&nbs
p; “Huh?”
“You’re kinda a zombie when you wake up, aren’t ya?”
I’m coherent enough to take in Sawyer’s laughter at my disillusioned state. “Where are we?”
“Airport. Do you trust me?”
“Yes, Sawyer,” I bark, not appreciating the onslaught of weird vibes and questions upon just waking. “Why are we at the airport and why do you need my trust?”
“Come on, I’ll explain on the plane.” He grabs my hand and helps me out of the truck.
Oh, ok, sure, let me just board a plane with you to God knows where immediately following the most emotionally-charged day of my life.
Is he high?
“Sawyer, stop! Explain now, you’re freaking me the fuck out.” I snatch my hand from his and dig in my heels.
“I’m not kidnapping ya!” He turns with a smug smirk that desperately needs wiped off his face. “Relax, I’m trying to help you, all of you. I swear, sometimes it really seems like you and Dane are one soul split in two bodies. You guys even unknowingly play your major drama cards on the same day. But then again, you tell each other nothing; not the big stuff anyway. You guys confuse the hell out of me.”
He. Is. Exasperating.
“Can you try that again, in say, English?” My shoulders droop and I sigh loudly. “What are you talking about?”
“I found Dane. Should have clicked sooner, but, like I said, you guys both have major breakthroughs and shitstorms on the same damn day, so it didn’t. Your boy’s had a big day and he needs you. I’m taking you to him.”
“Where is he?’
“Connecticut.”
Just around the corner; sure, let’s go. I wonder if my current friends know there are actually people in the world who have to wait for other people to pick up a phone or drive home because they don’t have private planes on standby.
Seeing as how I am staring at a plane, stairs down and ready to whisk us to Dane’s rescue, I guess not. “We’re flying to Connecticut?”
“Yep.”
“How’d you find him? That’s his plane, isn’t it?’
“Group effort and yes, one of them. I called Tate, Whitley, you name it, while you were visiting, and we finally fit the pieces together. Tate got us the flight and a car waiting on us, Whit tracked down the address where I’m sure we’ll find him. Now all I need is you on the plane.”
I slacken my stance, letting him pull me towards the awaiting plane now. He didn’t say he talked to Dane, which tells me we’re swooping in unannounced. If Whitley knew, and he’s in Connecticut, this is something about his past; his life before Georgia.
Seems my love spent his day with his own ghosts.
“Okay, let’s go.” I square my shoulders and board, ready to go uncover another part of Dane.
CHAPTER 24
Haunted
***Dane***
Laney’s got to be worried sick. I’ve ignored her calls and texts all day, like the coward I am, sitting here in my car hiding from everyone. I simply can’t talk to her right now. I can’t be who she thinks I am, her strong and capable man. Not today.
Samantha walks out the front door of the house I’ve been staring at for hours and I fold down lower in my seat, praying she doesn’t see me. She hates me and I don’t blame her. I have a new life in Georgia where an unbelievable girl loves me, my brother thrives, and I have all that money can buy while she’s still here, dealing with the life I forced upon her.
So strong, resilient, loyal, loving—Samantha is an angel. Her brown hair is pulled back from her face, her beauty obvious even from here. She still looks as young and gorgeous, but her gait and carriage show she’s tired, strained from years of carrying my burden.
She won’t accept my help, my money, my calls; nothing. I’ve been buried along with everything else she can’t think about; the hurt, anger, and betrayal is too much. I want to jump out, run across the street, and beg her to let me help her, but instead I watch from afar, the shrinking coward, as she struggles to unload the wheelchair from the back of her car.
CHAPTER 25
Positive
***Laney***
I gasp as the wheels touch down on the runway; it gets me every time. We’ve just landed in Connecticut after the shortest flight ever, giving me not nearly enough time to drag any helpful information out of Sawyer.
He believes what he’s doing is right, of that I am 100% sure, but I can’t help but be apprehensive. I’m not real big on walking into monumental situations blindly and uninvited, and Dane obviously doesn’t want me to know, or need my help, seeing as how he didn’t trust me with the details of whatever it is he’s doing today. So yes, my mouth goes dry and my stomach rolls trying to guess what I’m about to find.
“Sawyer, are you sure about this?” I ask him for at least the tenth time.
“Do you love him, Laney? The stand by and support him through anything kind of love?”
I do, without a doubt I do. There are some things I wouldn’t stay through, though. If I find him with another woman, I’m gone, but I know bone deep that’s not what’s going on with him today. Dane wouldn’t do that, I know it just as I know I’m breathing right now. So whatever it is, yes, I’m beside him.
“Absolutely.”
“Then yes, I’m sure. Now come on, let’s go save your man.”
CHAPTER 26
‘Bout to Need Jesus
***Dane***
She reappears about thirty minutes later, Andy now in the wheelchair that she pushes to the car. Why won’t she let me pay for a nurse to help with these kinds of things? Does Andy even know I’ve offered? He’d accept, want her to have some help.
One of the wheels gets caught on the edge of the walkway, and as if in slow motion, I watch the chair tilt, tipping to one side on two wheels, as Sam fights with all her might to keep it upright. Unwanted but needed, I fly out of my car and across the street. Hold on five more seconds, Sam. I make it just in time to grab a handle and turn all four wheels flat on the ground.
Six eyes, three heaving chests, one heartache.
None of us speak, flinch or move a single muscle for long minutes.
But, much like a woman, she can hold it no longer.
“Why the fuck are you here?” Sam hisses, hatred radiating from her every pore.
“Honey, don’t,” Andy lays a hand on her arm, “don’t be someone you’re not.”
“You needed help. I didn’t want him to fall.” Even I wince at my poor choice of words, but Sam gasps, her head snapping back like someone just slapped her. “I mean, it looked like—”
“Shut up!” she screams at me. “You don’t get to show up once a year and play hero! We don’t need your help!”
“Sam, sweetie.” Andy, helplessly watching from his chair, tries to calm her. “Please go inside, let Dane and I talk alone. I don’t want you upset. Please,” he begs.
“No, no,” she shakes her head, “don’t listen to him, Andy. We have nothing to say to him, it’s you and me, babe. He’ll trick you, buy you. I won’t let him!” She’s screeching now, barreling around his chair straight at me. “This is all your fault, you asshole!”
“Not another step or you’re going down.” Her voice is eerily calm, slicing through the tension with the precision of a deadly sharp knife. “You touch him, I touch you.”
Sam stops mid-stomp, frozen by the other female voice cutting through the dusk. I turn around slowly, no sudden movements in front of the irate, protective girlfriend who has no idea where I’ve been all day or what she’s just walked up on, but knows she’ll protect me to the death regardless.
Love my badass girl so fucking much.
“Who the fuck are you? And why are you all even here?!” Samantha screams. “God, just leave us alone. Haven’t you done enough?” She pokes her finger in my chest with each last word.
Laney’s hand flies up and locks around Sam’s wrist, wrenching and tossing it from my chest. Let the face-off begin. Laney’s blonde ambition versus Sam’s dark an
d dangerous…but both women I adore. Both strong, protective and scrupulous. I know my girl and I trust her ability to react appropriately, so I stay still. Andy, well, his jaw is in his lap, his eyes flying nervously back and forth between the two girls.
“I’m guessing there’s a lot of past here, a lot I don’t know, but whatever you need to say, you’re gonna say without touching my man. Hear me, girlie? I’m not gonna say it again,” Laney warns in a deathly calm voice.
“Dane, get out of here and take your psycho bitch with you! We don’t need any more of your help.”
“Oh, Lord.” Sawyer steps from the shadows. “You need more than help, Sam, you ‘bout to need Jesus.” He turns to Laney. “Did she just call you what I think she called you?”
“She did,” Laney nods, “but I’m willing to let it slide, long as she keeps her hands to herself.” Laney smokes Sam with a deadly glare as she says it. “My daddy always said women who take that “man shouldn’t hit a woman” rule as their free pass to put their hands on men expecting to get away with it are manipulative and for sure too weak to handle things if it backfires. So probably too weak to go around hitting anybody in the first place. What do you think, Sawyer?”
“I think your daddy is a wise man.”
“Smartest man I know.” Laney cocks one brow at Sam, asking silently if she’s made her point.
Sam, wisely, remains silent, with her hands to her side, perfectly still.
“Good, now that we got that settled, why doesn’t somebody tell me what’s going on before things get out of hand again?”
“I agree with her,” Andy pipes in, pointing to the love of my life. “Samantha, I adore you, sweetheart, but you need to go inside and calm down, lest Sawyer have to carry you in and make you calm down.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Andrew? This rich prick ruins your, our, fucking lives and you’re threatening me?”
Her words pierce me, but they’re all true. Just look what I’ve done to this wonderful people, my friends, my comrades. Samantha is tough but kind, hardworking and admirable, yet I’ve turned her into an angry, bitter screecher. And Andy, all-American guy, heading to college with his girl, the only apple of his parents’ eyes, and I pulled him off the field and slammed him in a chair.