Part 25 (2/2)

With another curse, I'm out of the truck, slamming the door to p.i.s.s Pigpen off. He follows as I go up the stairs, then brushes past me when I pause.

He grins at me from over his shoulder before opening the screen door. There's a loud round of laughter and, in a house as small as ours, it doesn't take long for the noise to be unruly. The scent of meat loaf teases my stomach and I turn away. That's my favorite and I'd bet this new girl is trying with me...again.

My heart clenches and I bend over to rest my arms against the railing. Attached to it are the flower boxes that have remained empty since Mom's death. Every fall she'd plant mums. Different colors and sizes. Every year I'd help. I never got enough of being beside her.

The screen door creaks and Dad steps out. I focus on our property and the surrounding woods darkened with the fading evening light. He leans on the railing beside me and the creak makes me wonder if the failing wood can handle both of our weight.

”Proud of what you did out there, son. Eli said you had his back and shot true, even when you were injured.”

I join my hands together and continue to scan the woods. I'm not quiet because I'm proving a point. I'm quiet because I have no idea what to say to the emotions tearing me up.

”You scared me.” His voice is so low I can barely hear it. ”There were a few minutes this weekend I was scared I was going to lose you...like I lost your mom.”

There's hurt in his tone. The same agony mirrored within me.

”I don't want that.” He talks like the words are a struggle. ”I don't want to lose you. Not to death... Not in life. I miss you here... I miss you at home.”

”Do you remember when Mom would laugh?” Because I'm not sure I can continue to listen to him. He's saying what I want to hear, but it's stuff I'm not sure how to process.

”What?” He's confused and I understand why.

We don't talk about Mom... I don't talk about Mom. ”Do you remember when something would hit her as funny and she would laugh?”

Because sometimes when I dream, I remember, but as each year pa.s.ses, the memories become foggier and her laughter seems too far away.

”She'd get the hiccups, then she'd laugh harder.”

I smile at the memory that's a mixture of a balm and acid on my heart.

”Your mom liked to laugh,” he says.

She did, and I hate I can barely recall the sound. ”She cried that last month she was alive.”

Dad drops his head and doesn't deny it.

”I tried to make her better before she left for work that day.” I clear my throat as I tell Dad something I never told anyone. ”I gave her flowers I had picked outside.”

I half expected her to be mad. Three of them were from her flower box, but they were red and that was her favorite color.

Mom hugged me. Longer and tighter than she had before. She hugged me like she'd never hold me again and I held on to her believing that a ten-year-old's love was enough to fix any wound. There's a burning in my eyes and I f.u.c.king hate the loss of control.

Mom peeled me off her, grasped my shoulders and said those last words. Words that have haunted me since. Your father is a man worth forgiving.

I lower my head and scrub my hands over my face. I don't know how to forgive him, Mom. Not if he hurt you. I don't know how to forgive him for disrespecting the memory and love I had for you by bringing a parade of trash through our house. He kicked and spit on every good memory I had, and if you left me on purpose, then you destroyed anything that was good in me to begin with and I'm not sure I can forgive you for that.

”I miss her,” Dad says. ”Every d.a.m.n day.”

”Then why did you do it?” I demand. ”If you loved her, why did you bring those women to her house? To my house? To our home?”

Dad grimaces and the fading rays of the sun hit the red in his hair. Mom loved his hair, saying they should have another child-a girl-so they could have one with hair like his.

”I wanted to forget the pain,” he says like he's broken. ”I wanted someone to erase the hurt, but the sad part was, they never did. Not one of them did.”

”Until now?” The pain leaks out of my voice before I can stop it.

There's hurt in his eyes and I'm not sure why. Because he's still in love with my mother, because he's fallen in love with someone else, or a combination of both, I don't know and after what's taken place between us it's hard to find a reason to care. But f.u.c.k me, I do. I do care about my father. He's all the blood family I have left.

”Can we put away the s.h.i.+t that's between us?” Dad asks. ”For tonight. I promise our problems will be there in the morning, just like they have been since your mom died.”

I nod, and when I straighten, Dad hugs me high. Hands off my patch and he's careful of my arm. It's fast and strong and I hug him just as quick and with the same amount of emotion.

Dad keeps a hand on my neck as we walk in, and if I didn't know better, I'd say he had wiped his eyes. The door shuts behind us and Dad calls out, ”Let's eat!”

Breanna THE DEFINITION OF AWKWARD: riding home with a girl who knows my boyfriend better than I do and yet we have absolutely nothing to talk about on the twenty-minute drive.

Violet is pretty. Fire-red hair, a bit taller than me. She has this bohemian look I've envied since middle school. Why it works with her-the ton of bracelets on her wrist, the whimsical way she can wear a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top with gemstones in a way I can't pull off-is because she has the I-don't-care-if-I'm-not-going-the-same-way-as-the-world outlook.

Pathetic thing? I just now realize it's not the clothes she's wearing that make me envious, but the att.i.tude. I wish I could be in every aspect of my life what Razor says I am-I wish I could be fearless about telling Kyle that his pictures have no power over me, but in this area, I'm drowning in defeat.

”Can I ask you something?” I probe.

Her car is old, possibly older than me and her combined. The windows of this overly large bucket of metal are rolled down because either the car was built without air-conditioning or the system is broken. Because of the age, either is feasible.

”Sure. It'll beat the h.e.l.l out of ignoring each other.”

”It's personal.”

”You saw my mother's bra on a wall. It doesn't get much more personal than that.”

I choke and she smirks. It's true. When Rebecca and I raced past the main room, I spotted bras hanging on the walls of the clubhouse. ”Is your bra on the wall?”

Violet breaks out into a full grin. ”No. I've never decided to donate one, and even if I did, I'm not sure they'd accept it. As much as I try to push them away, they still consider me a child of the Terror, which means each man in that club tries to act like my father. It would creep them out if their 'daughter's' bra was on display.”

”So those bras...” I drop off.

”Are a contribution to the cause-whatever that means. There're different stories of how and when the first bra went up, but since then when women come to party, they see the rainbow of colors and want to add theirs to the mix. It's become a thing. A thing I don't get, but a thing.”

Violet glances over at me and her hair blows wildly in the wind. ”I would love to have been in your head for thirty seconds when you saw it. What horrible story did you invent for how the bras got there?”

Honestly, none. When I first darted by, I was too sick at the thought of getting caught, and the second time, I was still numb from Razor declaring me done with the code.

”Half the stories about the Terror aren't true,” she says. ”Some of them are, but most of the real bad ones aren't. I still don't think you should hang with the Terror, but that's not my decision to make.”

”You didn't have to bring me today.”

”True.” She hesitates. ”I hurt someone recently because I was too dead set on making them think the Terror are evil. Call this my penance.”

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