Take Me Home

by Lorelie Brown

  I have been such a bitch. So arrogant. Even if I was right about how closed off Brooke is, and how she lets her fear rule her, I can’t break her open because I want in. Relationships can’t be created by one half of the participants. That’s violation.

  I have violated her.

  I open the car door and puke onto the sandy, dusty road.

  For a hot, sweaty moment, I think about waiting for her after the service. Trying to explain myself and make it okay.

  But that would be more of the same. More of me trying to make her feel a certain way, and trying to make her accept my apology. It would only be for me.

  For her …

  For her, I have to let her go.

  Let her be.

  I drive away.

  I’m sitting in front of my parents’ couch, surrounded by piles of wrapping paper. Bennet is next to me, lying on her back and doing her best to wriggle her scent onto all the scraps. They’re the best thing ever, it seems like. So much for the Kong chew toys that I got her. I wrapped her cast in holly and red washi tape so she looks appropriately festive.

  Sierra hands me a box topped with a gold bow. “For my best sister.”

  “I’m your only sister.”

  “I’m not picky.”

  Mom and Dad are next to the window, where Mom is admiring the new sunglasses Dad got her. The fire-log channel plays on the TV and the lights from our Christmas tree seem to twinkle in coordination. The house smells like the cinnamon buns that Mom made this morning and that I ate entirely too many of. Plus a donut.

  Sierra nudges my UGGs. They’re new today, my present from Mom. I love the sparkly buckles up the back, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they’d be completely useless if I actually lived somewhere cold. “Open it,” she urges.

  “It’s my present, shouldn’t I be able to take my time?” My stomach flips because hello. Lesson I just learned and all. I guess my family has a thing about dragging people along faster than we should. I pull the ribbon off the top. It has a sticky backing, so I smush it to Bennet’s cast. She’s immediately distracted from her pile of wrapping paper. She spins a couple of times, trying to get a good look at it.

  “Nope. I can’t wait.”

  “Sometimes it doesn’t seem like you understand this whole Christmas concept,” I mutter, but we both know I’m just teasing her. I rip open the cream and gold paper, then the box inside.

  The purse is so beautiful. The leather is textured and supple, a taupe color that looks like it would go with absolutely anything. It’s big enough that the stuffed black yorkiepoo inside with black button eyes looks nearly life-sized.

  “If she doesn’t grow too much more, I almost think you can carry her around in it,” Sierra points out. She’s on her knees and practically bouncing with excitement.

  I start crying. The first sniffle catches me by surprise. By the time I pull the stuffed animal out of the purse and clutch it to my chest, I’m holding down sobs and completely done in. My crying catches Mom’s attention instantly and she comes right over. “Do you think I’m a follower?”

  “What?”

  Sierra isn’t a follower. She’s got her own sense of the world. It might get her ass in trouble someday, but she’s cool precisely because she doesn’t care if she is.

  “I’m wearing UGG boots with rhinestone buckles, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Well, I don’t know why you wanted those, but no, you’re not a follower.”

  “A year ago you wouldn’t have dreamed of giving me a pet purse. Now half my Christmas presents have revolved around Bennet.”

  Mom runs a soothing hand over my hair. “Because you stole a dog. It’s kind of a monumental occasion.”

  I choke on a weird combination of sniffles and giggles. “Good point.”

  “Next year, I promise not to get you anything dog-related.” Dad sits on the couch next to Mom. He gently bumps my shoulder with his knee. “I’ll give the goods right to Bennet.”

  She knows something is wrong with me too. She shoves her way onto my lap and licks my cheek. I squeak and pull my face away, but her tiny tongue just finds its way into my ear instead. “No lick!”

  She vibrates against my stomach instead, insisting that I pet her.

  “Where’s this coming from?” asks Mom.

  “I had a fight with Brooke.” I shrug as I pet Bennet’s little head. I scratch behind her ear the way she likes. “I’m not going to see her again. She said … Well, we both said bad things, but she said that I only like what other people like first, basically.”

  “That’s not true.” I love my mom. She’s my staunchest defender.

  Sierra lifts her shoulders a little. “I dunno. I remember Keighley in middle school. There was that terrible Justin Bieber phase.”

  “You swore you’d never mention that again,” I say, but I don’t have half the energy to put into the game as I normally do. “I didn’t even have a dog a month ago and now I want to get a tattoo of paw prints up my arm.”

  “A tattoo?” barks Dad.

  Mom waves at him as if to say this isn’t the moment. “If Trisha and Caleb showed up right now and gave you back your check and said they didn’t want the money, just the dog, would you give her back?”

  “God, no!” I clutch Bennet. “You distract them; I’ll go out the back.”

  “Mrs. Ptchinsky would hide you,” Sierra says with entirely too much assurance. How much thought has she put into hiding out, and why?

  “So see? You love your dog. There’s nothing unusual about that. If I can give you one piece of advice about relationships that sinks in, it’s this: make sure you’re actually fighting about what you’re upset about. It makes all the difference in the world.” Mom squeezes my shoulder.

  Dad chuckles. “Sometime your mom and I will tell you about the fight we had about rinsing soap off dishes that was actually about how your mom thought I was spending too much time golfing. And then we’ll talk about this tattoo idea when you’re not so upset and you can think rationally.”

  Sierra and I roll our eyes in tandem—but before the tension dissipates, the doorbell rings.

  “Oh shit, it’s Trisha!” I jump up, holding Bennet tightly enough that she yips.

  Mom and Sierra exchange a look. “I don’t think so, sweetie,” Mom says. “They cashed the check, remember?”

  “Maybe they’re bringing the cash back?” My stomach is in my throat, which tastes as disgusting as it sounds. I try to swallow down bile.

  “One way to solve this. I’ll get it.” Sierra hops out of the room. It’s only a moment later when she calls my name. “Keighley, it’s safe. Come out here.”

  Except it’s not safe. Not at all.

  Brooke’s at the front door.

  And at her feet is a pit bull mix with a fat red ribbon and bow around its neck.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Brooke is pale. Her green-and-blue hair is tousled into chunks that make the most of the color. She forces a smile. “Merry Christmas?”

  I look down at the dog beside her. It’s on a leash of thick leather. It would need to be to hold a dog that big if it lost its mind. I take a step back, twisting so that Bennet isn’t in its line of sight. She wriggles to peek over my shoulder and yips anyway.

  The dog flops over and shows its tummy.

  “Her name’s Roxie.” Brooke kneels and rubs Roxie’s tummy. She’s brown and white. Brindled? I think that might be the name. Her square jaw still freaks me out a little, and so do the masses and masses of muscle across her shoulders. But the rest of her is a little soft looking. “She’s a sweetheart. I made sure of it. You can put Bennet down.”

  I must still trust Brooke, because I do. Bennet hides behind my boots for a minute, but just as fast again pokes her head back out and peers at Roxie, who’s still an abject mess. Her tongue flops out the side of her mouth. Bennet wriggles forward three steps, then back one. Roxie whimpers.

  Bennet barks again. I’m at her side as she approaches. I
don’t know who’s most nervous about all this, Bennet or me. I could chew on my heart if I managed to shut my mouth.

  Roxie is a perfect angel. She lets Bennet hop all over her and sniff her. The closest she gets to bad behavior is a chuffing hint of woof when Bennet nips her ear. Then she rolls over and wiggles forward as flat as a pancake toward me. She sniffs the hand I hold out to her, then ducks her head under it so I’ll pet her.

  “She’s an omega, pretty much.” Brooke briskly rubs her back. “She’s had way too many broods and she’s been bred out. A rescue from a puppy mill. But she wants to mother anything that’s smaller than her.” Brooke’s eyes are wide. Her tongue runs across her bottom lip. “It’s one of the reasons I picked her. Because of Bennet.”

  I shake my head. “Say what you mean, Brooke.”

  “I want us to be in your life.” She stands. Roxie’s leash hangs limply from her fingertips. “You were right about a lot of things.”

  “I think I was wrong too.”

  “Maybe.” She smiles wryly, her lashes dipping as she looks down. I want to hold my hand against the side of her face, see if she’s real. If all this is real.

  I glance over my shoulder instead. Mom and Sierra and Dad are nowhere to be seen. They’ve given us privacy. They knew before I did that this wasn’t just two dogs getting introduced.

  I glance down. Bennet has established herself between Roxie’s huge paws. Roxie licks Bennet’s ear.

  If only things were so easy when people meet. Either you get along or one of you tries to eat the other. Simple enough. “Do you want to come in? Upstairs?”

  “Sure,” she says.

  It makes me a little nervous to lean into the space of such a big dog, but Roxie lets me scoop up Bennet without any objection. I lead the way past walls lined with my high school photos and Sierra’s awards, uncomfortable the whole time that it’s a little like showing off. This is the life you never had, Brooke.

  I take us to my bedroom—or at least, what used to be my bedroom. Mom’s turned it into a guest room and there’s no more Justin Bieber posters on the wall. Thank Christ. I put Bennet on the blue paisley-print duvet, but I’m not feeling relaxed enough to sit. I lean against the footboard instead and cross my arms over my chest.

  I think I’m trying to hold in my nervous, throbbing heart.

  Brooke stands next to the desk where Mom keeps her crafting crap. Lately she’s into floral arrangements. Brooke touches the silk petals of a poppy. “I’ve been hiding for a long time. You called it. Leaving home wasn’t as easy as I made it sound. It was a shitty battle and Mom and I had big fights and she threw my stuff out into the street in black trash bags.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I breathe. I hadn’t wanted to be right. It explained a lot.

  “It’s not like growing up with her was that great anyway. We bounced through a lot of trailers. Lived with my grandma for a while, and then Mom’s friends. For a while I had to take care of this guy named Larry after school every day. I was ten. He pissed himself almost every day.”

  I have to swallow down the impulse to tell her how sorry I am. I don’t think she’d like my sympathy, and if I start crying, it’ll be for me. Because I’m so sheltered and hearing about this stuff is scary as fuck. But I owe her so much. I can start with listening to her truth. “Then why didn’t she want you to leave?”

  “No one ever got out. She didn’t get out. She got stuck with me.” Her mouth twists into something that’s maybe supposed to be a smile, but doesn’t look much like one. “Being a lesbian gave me an advantage on that one, at least, unless I was raped.”

  The air sticks in my throat. “Were you?”

  “No.” She’s not looking me in the eyes. She pulls the poppy out of its bunch and twirls it.

  I’m figuring odds are about fifty-fifty that she’s telling the truth. I’m not going to ask again, not now. She’s telling me lots of truths. I don’t have to have all of them at once. It would be another violation.

  Brooke shakes her head as if she’s pushing off bad memories. “Mom wasn’t all bad. I don’t want it to seem like that. We had really good times too. Once she took me out of school and we went to Dollywood on a random Tuesday.”

  “My parents never would have done that. School wins over spontaneity.”

  “Spontaneity means no one stays. No one’s around for long. It was me and my mom, except when she’d drop me off at my grandma’s house for weeks at a time. And then Gran died when I was twelve and Mom figured I was old enough to be on my own sometimes.” Brooke’s eyes are glowing with tears that haven’t fallen yet. “But do you get it? No one ever stays.”

  “Lots of people have abandonment issues.”

  “No. That’s not it. Not all of it. I didn’t even stay.” She taps her sternum. “Life was shitty, so I left Mom behind. And then she died and I didn’t even know.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  She shrugs. “It was a chronic meth overdose. If I’d been around, it might have been different.”

  It’s not my job to fix her. It’s not. I can’t.

  I can sure as hell recommend a therapist though.

  “I made it to California, and I’ve got friends, but I keep my distance too. Because it’s safer like that. If I ran, then everyone else is going to run too, I thought.” Her eyes are big, ringed with dark shadow and mascara. Her defenses and her armor and her weapons as well. “I don’t want to keep living on the defensive.”

  “I miss you,” I find myself saying, and I’m crying. Again. How festively Christmas. Or not.

  “I missed you too. I thought I saw you this morning, at church.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I take another step toward her. “I was intruding. I know I shouldn’t have been there. I left when I realized.”

  “I was so happy to see you though.” She grabs my hand. “I go to church because it’s impossible to be alone in the middle of them all, but I never take it away with me. If that makes sense? So when I saw you … I knew. I don’t have to hide anymore.”

  “I don’t deserve that.” I shake my head. “I wasn’t really seeing you. I wanted us to be in love, so I saw what I wanted to.”

  “You saw the truth. I just wasn’t great at actually following through.”

  “Don’t say that! You’re perfect. Perfect because you’re you. You can do whatever you want. Be whoever you want.” I touch her cheek, scoop my hand around the side of her neck. Her heartbeat slams into my palm. “I’m sorry. I won’t push. I won’t be grabby. I scared you off.”

  “I needed scaring, baby.” Tears well in her eyes. “I almost lost you. I don’t want to run anymore.”

  “But you haven’t. You won’t. I’m right here. I’m not the running type.” I kiss her then, because I can’t help it. We’re gravity bound, together inevitably. Her mouth is sweet with sugared gloss and salty with her tears. Or maybe they’re my tears. Both. We’re crying, and then Brooke laughs and I do too and we’re giggling around our tears.

  Brooke holds my face, kissing me and kissing me. “I knew from the first look that you were going to claim my heart. The first time I saw you. So sweet and normal and wide-eyed about a tattoo shop. I knew. Even if I couldn’t admit it to myself.”

  I pull away far enough to look at her. “But why a dog?”

  “Roxie’s my Christmas present to myself.” She runs her fingers through my hair. The hand at my hip is still holding the leather leash. “I’ve held myself away from things I love so long. I love dogs. I deserve one. I love you. I deserve you.”

  “Me and the dog.” I laugh. “You’re lucky I understand dog love now.”

  Bennet gives one of her especially high-pitched barks and comes to the edge of the bed. I don’t want her to jump, so I pick her up and hold her in the crook of my elbow. She licks first my cheek, then Brooke’s. Roxie lumbers to her feet and leans against our calves.

  “Oh fuck, she’s heavy.”

  “Too big?” Worry sparks in Brooke’s expression.


  “I’ll get used to her.” Our lips find each other and catch again. “I’ve got incentive. After all, if I love you, it’s probably best if I love your dog too. You know. Just to be fair.”

  Brooke nods. Her smile is amazing. I love her new hair. Her cheeks are pink and round. “Fairness is important. Since I love both Bennet and you. Especially you.”

  “Especially you,” I echo because I’m so happy I could float. “Always you.”

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