by Sadie Allen
It was comfortable sitting in the quiet with Sunny, letting my mind roam and wonder about the girl sitting beside me. I wanted to get to know her better, so before I could stop myself, I blurted out the first question that came to mind.
“What did she die of?”
“Who?” Sunny asked, her brows furrowed, eyes to what she was doing with her hands, which was trying to scrape the last spoonful of broth out of the bowl.
“Your grandmother, if you don’t mind me asking. It’s cool, though, if you don’t want to talk about it,” I said uncertainly, turning my eyes back to my own bowl.
I knew her grana’s death was still fresh, and that she had been living in the trailer alone since November, according to what she had told the sheriff. I just hoped I hadn’t stuck my foot in my mouth by asking about her death.
“No. No, it’s okay … It still hurts, but maybe talking about it—well, her—might help.” Taking a deep breath, she said on an exhale, “She died from COPD. Or, well, that’s what her doctor thought. They didn’t do an autopsy or anything since she was diagnosed with it this summer. She still smoked a pack a day; said if she was going to kick the bucket, it would be doing something she liked because the damage was already done.”
That sounded a little selfish, but I guessed she didn’t think it would kill her less than a year later.
“Sorry. I know it must’ve been hard.”
“Yeah, she was the only parent I really had. My dad’s not really the fatherly type, as you can tell. And my mom died giving birth to me, so Grana is—well, was—the only mother I ever knew. She took my dad and I in after we left the reservation. Well, took me in. My dad more or less dumped me on her doorstep.”
There was no resentment in her voice; just acceptance. I guessed she didn’t know any differently since she had still been a baby when her dad had left. Maybe not knowing what you were missing was better than having it than losing it. I still felt resentful of my father’s abandonment.
“Sometimes I wish my dad would’ve just died. I know that probably makes me a bad person, but I just get so angry at him.”
“I can understand the anger; believe me. I’ve never been a real big fan of my own father, but I also know what it’s like to have a dead parent. And even though my dad isn’t the greatest and he’s done some terrible things to me, I wouldn’t want him dead.”
I hung my head. I had again just opened my mouth without thinking. I was about to apologize when she started talking again.
“You’re not a bad person, Judd … Just a hurt one. You didn’t really mean that, and if you look deep down, you’ll know you didn’t. You just got caught up in your father’s mess. He left town, and left you to deal with the fallout.”
“I guess.”
I could feel warmth hit my cheeks. Vulnerability wasn’t something I had the luxury of being these days, and that was what her words made me feel, like she had exposed all the wounds that had been a living breathing thing inside of me, festering and eating away anything that was good.
“You ever hear the story of the two wolves?”
“Yeah … I think I read that story on Facebook a while back. Isn’t that a Cherokee proverb?”
It had to have been a while back since I didn’t do social media anymore.
I heard what sounded like a snort and looked at her from the corner of my eye. She had her head tilted back against the cabinet, her eyes rolled up to the ceiling.
“My culture reduced to a Facebook meme. Grana would lay down and die if she wasn’t already dead.” She closed her eyes and exhaled a hitched breath.
“You didn’t know that? Don’t you have Facebook?” I made sure my voice was laced with enough ladylike shock that got my desired reaction.
Sunny laughed, which was the best sound on earth in my opinion.
“Shut up.”
“The story isn’t even Native American, but the premise is still true. Whatever emotions you feed, that is what you will become, and they will dictate every choice, every word, every action you take. Don’t let the hurt and anger turn to fear and bitterness. You’re too good for that.”
We were quiet again, lost in our own thoughts, I guessed. I know I was. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe I was contributing to my own misery. I dwelled on my father’s betrayal of our family and all the things that had happened to me at school. I never let it go or moved on, just steadily kept a tally of wrong doings, the anger always simmering just beneath the surface.
“I’ll give you a real Cherokee proverb that my grana used to say a lot. It’s funny, because she wasn’t even Native American. When she fell in love with my grandfather, though, she said she fell in love with the Cherokee culture. So, everything I know about being Cherokee comes from a little old white woman,” she said the latter on a chuckle. “All right, here it goes: don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you mean, that’s it, pretty boy? I thought that was very profound!”
Pretty boy?
“I guess …” I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. It was just too easy to rile her up.
I leaned toward her, studying the side of her head, and when she gave me a wary yet confused look, I reached out to move the shiny curtain of black hair away from her face.
She froze and asked, “What are you doing?” so quietly I could barely hear her.
I cleared my throat, fighting back a laugh. “I’m checking to see if your ears are green and pointed. I thought that maybe you were Yoda in disguise.”
When she reached out to swat my shoulder, that was when the pounding and screaming started, making us both jump.
“Sunny Blackfox! You better open this door!”
Sunny’s eyes widened, and her eyebrows shot straight toward her hairline, making her flinch. The swelling had gone down on her eye, but I bet it was still sore.
“Who’s that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low, not knowing if friend or foe was assaulting the front door.
“Molly,” she said, sighing.
“Molly?”
“Molly.” She said it like I was supposed to know who Molly was.
“Oh, Molly … Who’s Molly?”
Sunny rolled her eyes. “Molly McEntire.”
I was still drawing a blank. I didn’t know anyone named Molly McEntire.
“She was a year older than us … Graduated last year …” Again, she was saying it like it should ring a bell.
I just shook my head, still having no idea who this girl was.
Sunny held up one finger and turned toward the door to yell, “I can’t open that door. You’re going to have to walk around the back.”
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I heard a sigh so loud it could be heard all the way in here, followed by some muttered curse words, and then the sound of feet stomping down the steps.
Sunny moved to the back door, unlocked the lock that she had forgotten about the night before, and opened it.
I couldn’t see much, just the top of a blonde head on the other side of the door. The Molly girl was really short.
Sunny started to bend down to help her friend up, but I quickly got there and put my hand on her arm. “Let me help her before you hurt yourself even more.”
“She’s hurt?” asked the voice below us.
I didn’t answer. I just looked down at the petite blonde who had her head tilted back, looking up at me. She had small, delicate features in a rounded face and short, pixie-like, bright blonde hair. I bent down and grabbed her under her arms, preparing to lift her up.
“Hey,” she cried as I hauled her up and over the threshold.
When I let go, she shot me an annoyed look as she straightened her blue sweater, then smoothed her palms down her jeans.
Now seeing her, I recognized her. I think I had a couple of classes with her last year. I had never spoken to her, or her to me, but I remembered the short, spiky hair because no one else in school had worn their hair that bright
or that sharp.
“You’re Judd Jackson,” she practically snapped.
“Yep.”
Then, not taking her eyes away from me, she asked, “Why is Judd Jackson in your trailer?”
I knew she wasn’t talking to me, but it was like she couldn’t trust herself to take her eyes off me, like I might steal something if she wasn’t watching.
It was then she got a good look at said trailer, and then at Sunny’s face, and let out a shriek.
“What happened?” she yelled.
Again, Sunny sighed. “Long story.”
After staring at Sunny with her mouth hanging open and eyes practically falling out of her sockets, she turned back toward me with a suspicious look before cutting her eyes back to Sunny and saying out of the side of her mouth, “Oday youay eednay elphay?”
Was this chick for real?
“I amay otnay upidstay.”
“That’s debatable.”
I couldn’t help it. I roared with laughter at the absurdity of the situation. I didn’t know how I could have not known who Molly was. She was so loud and crazy. It made me think that maybe I had been a blind person last year, and now I was beginning to see. That the scales had shed from my eyes, and I was now seeing people and things for the first time.
I had to agree with Molly; maybe my intelligence was debatable since I didn’t remember her, and that I never took the time to get to know Sunny in the past. I also had never seen the secrets that my dad had kept hidden. Maybe I had never taken the time to notice. On that thought, I felt all the humor that Molly’s antics brought on fade.
“So, Molly, why are you here?” Sunny asked.
“Can’t I come by and see how my girl is doing?”
“Yes, but usually you’re at work on a Saturday night.”
She made a face, and I had a feeling Sunny wouldn’t like what came next.
“Sally called.”
Oh, man, I had forgotten to call her back.
“Crap.”
My sentiments exactly. A wave of guilt washed over me for making Sally worry and for her having to send someone else out of their way to come check on Sunny.
“She heard your dad was arrested for a B&E and something to do with you, but the sheriff was pretty tight-lipped when he was in the diner earlier, she said. So, she called me to come out and check on you since this one here”—she pointed at me—“didn’t call or answer any of her calls this afternoon.”
I was pretty sure my cheeks were on fire.
“I better call her before someone at the sheriff’s office blabs,” Sunny mumbled, pulling out her new phone from the pocket of her jeans as she walked away toward the kitchen.
That left Molly and I standing in what was probably the dining area, just looking at one another. Her eyes were narrowed, and her mouth was pinched tight in a straight line. The awkwardness made an uncomfortable hum in the air.
“I’m assuming you didn’t do that to her face or this trailer, and that it was that good-for-nothing Lonny Blackfox. That this was the incident that Lang mentioned to Sally.”
I just nodded once, not sure what to say. She almost sounded mad that it wasn’t my fault.
“Why did Sally call you to come out here? I thought she’d be out here by now if she hadn’t heard from me.”
“She ended up getting a migraine and closed the diner early tonight.”
I had a feeling that was my fault.
“You know, I thought you just blew her off and went home.”
I raised my brows at that. It wasn’t a very flattering assessment.
“Well, I didn’t. I just got caught up helping Sunny. I had to convince her to call the sheriff’s department; and then we had to go get her a new cell phone, which is why, if you called, she didn’t answer; and then we were cleaning up the mess Lonny made of the kitchen.” I patted my pockets, looking for my phone to check for any missed calls, but then I remembered I had left it charging in the Jeep. Hoped it was still there when I left.
“Hmph,” she huffed, sounding disbelieving.
I didn’t know what to make of Molly McEntire. She was loud and pretty nutty, and I didn’t like the hostility that was practically coming off her in waves. Maybe she was mad that she had to miss work and blamed me. Or maybe it was because I didn’t call Sally, which was probably the reason she had the migraine. Hell, she might even blame me for the trailer getting ransacked and Sunny getting beaten. Who knew? I had the feeling she didn’t want me around Sunny.
“You don’t like me, do you?” There I went, blurting things out again.
“No.”
I was confused. I didn’t think I had ever done anything that warranted her dislike, unless … Maybe she had a problem with me because of what my father was.
At that thought, my body froze and my blood ran cold.
“Get that look off your face right now, Jackson. My beef with you has nothing to do with your daddy.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. I didn’t know why it mattered if she didn’t like me for that reason, but it did. I didn’t even know her, didn’t remember her, yet I found myself wanting her to like me, and I suspected it had something to do with her being Sunny’s friend.
“So, what is it, then? I don’t think I’ve ever said a word to you before tonight.”
She made that huffing sound again and rolled her eyes. “Of course we’ve never said a word to each other. Your ex-skank of a girlfriend made sure of that.”
Huh?
She must have read the look on my face because she said, “You really are clueless.” Then, acting like it was the biggest inconvenience in the world, she proceeded to explain, “We had a class together last year, along with Ashley. Mrs. Fritz’s Speech class …”
I remembered that class … barely. I slept through most of it.
“And? Did I snore too loudly? Because I slept through that class.”
“Yeah, and when you weren’t sleeping, you were all over Ashley.”
“So?” I wasn’t understanding this.
“So?” she parroted with more attitude.
I was getting really tired of this game pretty quickly.
“Molly, Ashely was my girlfriend and … Well …”
“You were boinking her,” she stated matter-of-factly.
I had blushed more this year than I ever had in my entire life.
“Can you just get to the point? Did you have a crush on me or something?”
Rolling her eyes, her words dripped with sarcasm as she said, “Oh, yes, I had the hots for you so bad that I turned to women after feeling the sting of your rejection of my unrequited love.”
“Oh,” I replied, not sure what else to say in this situation.
“Yeah, oh,” she said with so much sarcasm that it dripped off the words. “I’ll just put you out of your misery. I don’t like you because your last girlfriend was a horrible person. Really. She’s the dog poop on the bottom of the shoe of life.”
That was a pretty creative way of describing Ashley, but what did that have to do with me?
“Did you know she spent most of that class throwing notes at my table that called me a dike and other nasty names? She also spread a rumor about me asking her to prom.”
I felt my mouth drop open. I had no clue she had been done that. I didn’t know why I was surprised, though, since she was basically doing the same thing to me now. I just hadn’t had any idea she had that in her when we had started dating, yet she had been doing that stuff right in front of my face and I never noticed. I really must have been blind.
“So, her doing those things made you not like me?”
“Well, sort of … It’s that I don’t trust your judgment, and since I don’t trust your judgment, I’m not too thrilled about you being in my friend’s space.”
Sunny walked back in, wiping her face, and I felt my stomach drop.
“You okay?” Wanting to focus on Sunny, I tried to ignore the annoyance I felt at Molly’s words. She had sai
d some things that I probably should think about, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t like the idea that I had been that much of a self-absorbed asshole that I hadn’t noticed things that were going on right in front of my face.
“Of course she’s not okay,” Molly said, shooting me a disbelieving look as she made her way to her friend.
“I’m okay, y’all … Just tired. It’s been a long day.” When the timer on the stove beeped just then, she looked over at Molly and asked, “You want to stay and eat a brownie with Judd and I?”
I liked the way she had said “Judd and I” a little too much. I could feel my chest puff up a little bit.
“No, I better not. I have to be at work at”—she pulled out her phone and looked at the screen—“right now. But I’ll come by soon and help you”—she waved her hand around the trailer—“do something. Maybe we can hit some garage sales next weekend?”
“Judd thought we should do the same thing, so we can all go together.”
“He did, did he?” Molly asked, shooting a fake, megawatt smile in my direction. “Fun.” Then she clapped her hands together and said, “Welp, I better head out. I already told boss man that I was going to be a little late, and I don’t want him docking my tips because I’m a lotta late.” She gave Sunny a smacking kiss on the cheek then walked to the back door and jumped down to the ground with a, “Catch ya’ later,” and a backward waggle of her fingers.
Sunny went to close and lock the back door, and when she turned back around, I had to ask, “You know your girl’s a nut, right?”
“Oh, I know.”
With that, I followed her back into the kitchen to eat brownies warm out of the oven, which were the best thing ever, and they came from a box.
Judd
MONDAY MORNING CAME QUICKER than expected. I spent most of Sunday with Sunny after work, cleaning up the rest of her trailer. Sunny was given the day off to rest and recover. Sally was pretty upset with me when I walked into the diner that morning, but I apologized and explained that Sunny had needed my sole attention. That I didn’t even think about her until she sent Molly over to check everything out. I begrudgingly earned Sally’s forgiveness, but was warned never to let it happen again. Then Sally had marched around the kitchen, calling Lonny Blackfox every name under the sun, cussing a blue streak.