by Hughes, Maya
Marisa gasped and covered her mouth with the tips of her fingers. “Oh God, Liv.” She wore the same face people had at my parents’ funeral, like she was watching me lose them all over again—and she was. I was losing the mental picture I’d built up of them assembled from boxes of photographs and slivers of their time. Colm hadn’t even wanted to keep these pictures. Maybe he’d been right. These weren’t the truth; these were part of the fabricated past I’d tried to create for myself to get me through my broken future.
Everything in there was a part of the old Liv. Some of the recent pictures would still be saved on my phone, and I could make new memories not weighted down by the past I’d always been trying to measure up to. I dropped the boxes from my numb fingers. Swallowing back against the thickness in my throat, I wiped my eyes. This was it. The last of them I’d carried with me since the day they died. The house was gone, and now the pictures I’d clung to in order to preserve those memories were gone. It was hard to catch my breath. Where did this leave me? What happened now? “Let’s go.”
“There’s nothing you can salvage?”
“There’s nothing here for me. Let’s go.”
The car ride to LJ’s was pin-drop silent. Marisa and I stared straight ahead like we’d both just run away from our own weddings, shell-shocked and trying to figure out what came next. While I’d never really thought money mattered to me before, part of the reason was that I knew it was always there. Colm was there to bail me out if I ever screwed up royally. If I needed anything, it was a matter of when the money reached my account, not if.
I had ten shirts, five pants, a couple of pairs of shoes, some socks, panties, a couple bras and textbooks. My entire life fit into the duffel bag on my lap. After years of wanting a place to call home and trying to build a stable life for myself, I was sitting in the back of a taxi with no money, no home, and almost no belongings.
“I put in the renter’s insurance stuff, but I have no idea how long it will take them to get us a check.”
“Once school’s over, I can work more at the dance studio, pick up as many classes as I need to.”
She turned to me with her eyebrows sky-high. “Why the hell would you need to do that? I’d have thought Colm would get you everything you need.”
“It’s a long story.” The cab pulled up to the front of the Brothel, and we climbed out.
“Spill.”
Standing outside LJ’s house, she paced back and forth like a fighter preparing for the heavyweight title. Throughout the recounting of what had gone down that morning, Marisa let out a string of familiar curses and a few newly invented ones.
“I’ll kill them both. Seriously, I’ll wrap my fingers around both their necks at the same time and choke the life out of them.”
A few people walked by and stared at her, likely trying to figure out if they needed to call campus security. The few items retrieved from our apartment sat on the steps to the Brothel, and she threw her hands up in the air.
“No, that’s too good for them. I might just tie them both together, cover them with honey, and leave them right beside an ant hill.” The intensity of her expression and the fact that her brain came up with that scenario sent a laugh leaping from my mouth.
“Is she promising to bury someone up to their neck and smear peanut butter on their head to attract woodland creatures and bugs?” LJ walked down the last couple of steps and sat on the bottom one behind her.
“Close.”
“These types of punishments are only for people who really deserve it, and right now Ford and her brother deserve it.”
“Remind me never to get on your bad side.” I leaned against the railing leading up to the front steps.
“She’s all bark, no bite,” LJ stage-whispered.
“Her brother cut her off. One year before graduation and he pulls the rug out from under her unless she goes to med school. That’s total bull in my book.”
Pushing off the bottom step, I raised my finger in the air. “I agree.”
“That blows, Liv. Sorry about that.”
I shrugged. “Marisa mentioned you might have a spot for me here? If not, that’s totally fine, but if you do, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Of course.” He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun. “The couch is free.” He held up his hand as Marisa tried to interrupt. “And we can get you new blankets for it.”
“Why don’t you want to stay with the other hockey guys? The Kings?” Marisa peered over at me.
“It would be the first place Ford or Colm would come looking for me. I need some space.”
“Let’s head inside. Nix and Reece are grilling out back.”
“Grilling?” It was barely spring.
“They grill even if there’s two feet of snow on the ground.” He held the door open for us.
We gathered up our stuff and went inside. The house looked a lot different when there weren’t two hundred drunk bodies packed wall to wall. There was a leather lounger that looked like it had seen better days, two couches covered in more stains than I cared to think about, a TV mounted on the wall, and a few video game consoles. LJ went out back to check on the food.
“You can keep your stuff upstairs.” Marisa stood at the base of the steps. “I’ll show you.”
“I’ll get you two some burgers and drinks.” LJ came back into the living room.
“I’m going to let Liv stash her stuff in our—your room. We’ll be right back.”
We climbed the steps. A guy with shaggy brown hair walked out of the bathroom with steam billowing out behind him. His towel was wrapped low around his waist, showing off that killer V and abs for days. I averted my eyes and glanced over at Marisa.
“Hey, Berk.” She rolled her eyes and pushed open a bedroom door, dragging me inside. There were a couple posters up on the wall and a desk in the corner. Marisa plugged her phone in on the table beside the bed. The sheets were rumpled and balled up in the corner of the bed.
“You can put your stuff in here.” She opened the top dresser drawer. “LJ cleared it out for me but I don’t have any stuff yet, so you can use it.”
“You can wear any of the stuff I have. What’s mine is yours. So, where do you sleep?” There wasn’t a couch or futon or anything up here.
“The bed.” She made herself busy taking my clothes out of my bag, folding them—even though they were already folded—and putting them in the drawer.
“And where does LJ sleep?”
“It’s a big bed.” She shook out a shirt and continued folding.
“You two are sleeping together?” I couldn’t hold back my smile.
“Not sleeping together, but sleeping together. We did it all the time back in middle school.”
“Back in middle school he wasn’t a hottie with a rock-hard football body.”
“He’s okay.” She shrugged and her eyes darted to the rumpled sheets.
“I feel like after nearly dying together, I deserve the truth. Plus I could really use some fun gossip right now. Please? I need this.” I squeezed her hand.
She sighed and peered over at me. “Okay, it’s a little different than middle school.”
We were huddled together, and she gave me the rundown of the few late-night surprises that had poked her in the back during their sleepovers. And there was the time she’d walked in on him in the shower. Let’s just say that was a big surprise—huge. She told me how his roommate, Berk, had a secret sex pen pal, and how Nix kept disappearing now that football season was over. We’d long since finished putting away my limited articles of clothing when LJ knocked on the door.
We jumped at the sudden intrusion.
He leaned in, swinging from the doorjamb, his brown hair ruffled just right and his light eyes twinkling with amusement. “Burgers are ready, ladies.”
“We’ll be right there,” Marisa chirped way too loudly.
He knocked his knuckles against the door and smiled before running back downstairs.
“Seems I’m
not the only one making waves lately.”
“Don’t get me started. It’s nothing. Nothing at all. Come on, I’m hungry.”
She grabbed my hand and dragged me down the stairs. Those few minutes had helped me forget what awaited me afterward.
37
Ford
Not even the smell of the cookies in the oven could drag me from the thoughts I hadn’t been able to outrun, didn’t want to outrun.
Liv had disappeared. Every call and text went unanswered—not that I’d thought she’d pick up, but I’d have welcomed an earful right then. None of the guys knew where she was. It wasn’t like I could ask Colm, though I doubted he’d heard from her either. I’d staked out the dance studio for a few days, and she hadn’t even shown up there.
She was hiding, going to great lengths to make sure I couldn’t get down on my knees and beg her forgiveness, which I would’ve done without a moment’s hesitation.
A plate of piping-hot cookies slid across the table and stopped right under my nose. I looked up at my mom. She pulled out a chair and sat down opposite me at the table.
“It looked like you could use those.”
“Am I that out of it? When did you even make the dough?”
She smiled and jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the fridge. “I make big batches and then freeze them, ready to go for moments just like these. One of the kids gets a bump or something and these do wonders for their mood.”
“Is that what you’re doing for me?” I picked one up. Warm chocolate coated my fingers.
She shrugged. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. What’s going on?” She covered my hand with hers, that little gesture of love and comfort. My first memories were of her crouched down in front of me when I picked myself up off the ground after my first attempts at the big kid slide. Her eyes softened around the edges, crinkling in the corners, and my chest tightened.
“I screwed up.” I swallowed and looked down at the plate.
“Tell me something I don’t know. You didn’t even come in here looking like this when you got knocked out of the playoffs.”
I dropped the cookie to the plate and leaned back in my chair. “Couldn’t even get that right.”
“Stop it. That wasn’t a dig, but what I’m saying is you weren’t even this upset when your season ended. What is going on?” The laughter of kids filtered in through the walls. “It’s Liv, isn’t it? Something happened? I talked to Grant, and I thought he was okay.”
Nodding my head, I stared at the chocolate and cookie crumbs on my fingers. “He is. This time it’s all my fuckup.”
“I’ll go get the pliers if I need to, or are you going to tell me willingly?”
“Do you think you’d have been happier not knowing Dad was having an affair?” I peered up at her.
Her face transformed. The small smile disappeared, swallowed up by those hard memories from our past, and then just as quickly as the stricken sadness had appeared, it vanished.
“Do you wish I’d never told you?” I whispered the question I’d never been brave enough to ask, the words catching on the way out. I truly wondered if she wished I hadn’t imploded our family by telling her what had happened. My dad had promised it would never happen again, but the anger that had burned inside of me when I’d seen him kiss that other woman had been all-consuming. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d wanted to—and I hadn’t.
The noise Mom had made when I’d told her still haunted me. I’d never known what it was like to break a person, but standing beside her while she was on her knees planting the new flower bed of begonias, I’d found out.
I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to let the tears fall.
She shot around the table and crouched beside me, holding on to my hand just like I was five years old again.
“Honey, none of what happened with your dad and me has ever been your fault. Of course I’m glad you told me. I know things were hard for a while, but I never would’ve wanted to stay with your father after that. I couldn’t handle it again.” Her voice was hoarse with emotion, just like it had been when she’d sat me and Grant down and told us Dad would no longer be living with us.
Then her words clicked in my head, like a key turning the lock of a door that was nearly rusted shut. My head jerked back. “Again?”
She patted the back of my hand, grabbed her chair, and slid it back toward me. “Again.” She shook her head and ran her hands over the backs of mine. They were soft and a little dry, showing her age, even if her face didn’t.
Nodding slowly, she looked up at me. “You probably don’t remember, but it wasn’t the first time. While I was pregnant with Grant, we went to live with Grandma for a while.”
Vague memories of playing in their backyard one summer trickled in. “It was over the summer?”
“Your dad cheated. I caught him and I left.” She let out a deep breath, the kind you exhale like you’re breathing out a part of your soul. “And then I went back.” Her lips pinched. “He came back after a couple of months, begged for my forgiveness. He made promises and professed his love, said it would never happen again.
“You were six. I was pregnant with Grant and I wanted us to be a family, so I went back. Things were good, great even, for a while. That’s why when you told me—when you told me, it broke my heart.” Her eyes snapped to mine, and her grip tightened. “You did not break my heart. Do you understand me? It had nothing to do with you, nothing at all. You did nothing wrong, but your father broke my heart.
“When you told me—when someone rebuilds your trust, that break hurts even more because not only are you hurt and betrayed, they also make you feel like a fool. I needed to know, though, and thank you for being brave enough to tell me.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and squeezed me tight. It was the kind of mom hug that threatened to break your back. Even when you’d long since dwarfed her, she still showed you who was boss.
She patted my back and rubbed it like the late nights when I was a kid and had been up all night with a fever. “That was one of the proudest moments in my life. You knew what was wrong, and you came to me and trusted me with what you’d found out. That’s all a mother can ask for.”
Guilt pounded harder against my ribs. I hadn’t done that this time, not for Colm.
She sat in her seat and picked up the plate until I took a cookie. “Now will you tell me what’s going on?”
I started spilling out the entire story, and Mom stopped me halfway.
“Okay, this calls for milk.” Two short glasses of chilled milk later, she sat back in her seat. “Wow, well that’s quite a pickle you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Dragging my fingers through my hair, I sat back in my chair. “After what happened with Dad, I defaulted to keeping secrets locked up. I locked them down tight and tried to protect the people I care about.”
“The pain doesn’t just come from the thing, sweetheart. Some of it comes from the lies, from the secrets and second-guessing you dismiss because you don’t want to be that paranoid person who can’t open their heart up to the people around them.” I hung my head, and she ran her hand over my shoulder. “Now you’ve got some fences to mend and promises to make. It’s not often people get a second chance, but if there’s anyone who can, it’s you.” She cradled my cheek with her hand, rubbing her thumb along my scruff.
“I don’t know if she’ll even want to talk to me. It’s not just that I told him about med school. I hurt him. Even if she’s pissed at him, he’s still her brother, and worse, I lied to her about it. She asked me flat out what had happened between us, and I said nothing.”
“You’re going to have to get her to believe it will never happen again.”
My head snapped up. “It won’t. This secrets thing…” I squeezed the back of my neck. “That’s finished. I’d rather face the fallout than have that panic, guilt, and worry in the back of my head.”
“You’ll be okay, then. It might take time, but eventually she’ll see straight i
nto your heart and know you mean it. You’re both still so young, practically babies. You’re almost to your twenty-sixth birthday, and Liv’s only twenty-one. There’s so much more to learn.”
I left Mom’s house and drove the streets. Without meaning to, I ended up back at Liv’s dance studio. I gravitated there more than I should have, like a stalker hoping for a glance of her. Pulling up to the curb, I kept my eyes trained on the people coming and going. I shut off the car and stared out my windshield. People floated in and out of the building in body-hugging clothes. The warmer temperatures meant winter coats were no longer needed. I rested my head against the headrest. What am I doing here?
I turned the key in the ignition, and the engine purred. I threw it into drive, swinging my car out of the parking spot. A horn blared from a car beside me, and I slammed on the brakes. The golden wisps of her hair stuck out from under the hat that was way too warm for the temperature disappeared into the dance studio. She looked like someone in the witness protection program, someone hiding—from me. I threw my car back into the space, bolted from the car, and crossed the street. I raced after her into the building.
Bypassing the front desk, I shot up the stairs. Taking them three at a time, I made it to the second floor. A door swung closed, and I rushed to the small window. Peering inside, I watched her take off her hat and stick it in her bag, shaking her hair out. Swallowing against the rising fear clawing at my gut, I opened the door. How did I keep going if she was out there and never forgave me? My sweaty palms nearly slipping off the doorknob, I walked inside.