What happened next, I didn’t expect. The hands and mouth pulled back as though I’d shocked them before I felt the whoosh of a body whisking away. Right before I fell back into my stupor, I heard what sounded like another bottle breaking against something.
I fell asleep to the sound of breaking glass and woke up to the sound of raised voices. They weren’t really raised. They were more like exploding.
“Didn’t expect to see you around this place ever again, Walker. Were you in the mood for slumming it?”
“So help me God, Garth! If you touched her . . . If you did anything to her, I will finish what I should have months ago.”
I knew the voices were Jesse and Garth, and I could tell they were behind me, but I was incapable of anything else. I couldn’t open my eyes, I couldn’t open my mouth, and I certainly couldn’t get up and go break up the on-the-horizon fight.
I was somewhat aware but totally immobile. The alcohol had been especially potent after my month of sobriety.
“You were a lot more fun to be around when you didn’t treat me like I was some bottom feeder preying on girls. I’ve never touched anyone without them wanting it, asking for it, or in a case you’re aware of . . . begging for it.”
“You son of a bitch!” I heard some shuffling and a dull crack that sounded like a fist connecting with flesh and bone.
Garth’s throaty laugh sounded next. “I like this whole anger thing you’ve got going on. You were boring when all you ever did was smile and play the part of Mr. Perfect.”
I heard Jesse take a few slow breaths before replying. “What is Rowen doing here?”
“She came to see me. She wanted to shoot the shit with someone who wouldn’t put her to sleep after thirty seconds of conversation.”
Jesse made some sort of noise between a huff and a snort.
“I know it must blow your mind that a girl would prefer me to you, but it wouldn’t exactly be the first time. Would it?” Garth’s voice was cool and removed.
I knew it was coming before I heard the next crack. Garth chuckled again before spitting. Jesse must have nailed him in the jaw.
“Stay away from Rowen. And stay away from me.” Jesse’s voice quivered with emotion.
“I have no problem staying away from her. She’s nothing but your regular, dime-per-dozen girl, but I can’t promise she’ll stay away from me.” After a long pause, I heard footsteps heading up a couple metal stairs. “Oh, and one more thing,” Garth said, his tone so overly innocent it sounded just the opposite. “If this trailer’s arockin’, don’t come aknockin’. Oh wait, you already know that, don’t you?” Another dark laugh sounded before a door screeched closed.
So much silence passed, I was almost passed out again when I heard a pair of footsteps shuffling my way. A moment later, two muscled arms glided beneath my body and lifted me out of the chair.
Jesse didn’t say a word and I still couldn’t, but even if I could have, I didn’t know what to say. I was drunk. I’d messed up. Jesse had been the one to find me eyeballs deep in both. It was what needed to happen. He needed to see who I was because that made everything easier. I could only push him away for so long before I caved, but after he saw what I was, I didn’t have to worry. His dimples wouldn’t be waiting for me at the kitchen table anymore.
That was what I did. That was how I protected myself. I pushed others away before they could do it to me. It was a self-preservation default, but as I nestled into Jesse’s arms for the last time, I knew pushing him away was the opposite of self-preservation.
There are headaches. And then there’s what I awoke to the next morning.
I was in my bed, and even though the curtains were drawn, the line of sunlight streaming through the middle made my head throb when I opened my eyes. I didn’t know what time it was, I didn’t know what day it was, but I knew I needed water and ibuprofen. STAT.
After prying myself up, I swung my legs over the edge of my bed. The motion hurt so badly, my stomach churned. I wasn’t sure I could make it over to the wastebasket in time if my stomach decided to unleash on me.
My boots and socks were off, and on the nightstand was a tall glass of water, three brownish, round pills, and a note with my name penned across the front. I went for the water and pills first, guessing I’d need them inside of me before I read whatever was inside of that note.
I couldn’t remember what had happened last night; I just remembered bits and pieces. Images, words, sensations. Garth’s dark eyes, Jesse’s heated voice, the burn of tequila trickling down my throat, stubble brushing across my neck.
Stubble . . .
Oh, shit.
One of the two men from last night always had a five o’clock shadow. Another one’s face was smooth as smooth could be. The one whose mouth had been on me last night was not the one I’d thought.
My stomach rolled again.
I tossed the pills into my mouth and swallowed them with a long drink of water. The coolness felt so good running down my throat, I finished the entire glass.
After dropping the glass back onto the nightstand, I went for the note. Jesse’s handwriting made me eager to read it, but after last night and the piecemeal memories I had from it, I was just as apprehensive.
Before I over thought it for one more second, I unfolded the note and read. I didn’t take long to finish. The note was short, concise, and heartbreaking.
What’s up?
Damn. I almost would have preferred a novel’s worth of rantings and ravings. What was up with me? I’d avoided that question most of my life. I knew the answers to that question, but I preferred to repress them because, really, the answers didn’t heal anything. They couldn’t erase the past. So what was the point of searching for the answers in the first place?
And why the hell was I still thinking about it?
I shoved the note inside of the nightstand drawer.
As I was deciding if I should just throw the blankets back over my head and forget about the world, or get up and get to it, a soft knock sounded on my door.
“Come in,” I said a bit too loudly. I applied pressure at my temples and squeezed my eyes closed. “Come in,” I whispered.
The door opened noiselessly—small mercies—and Lily slipped in carrying a tray. She smiled and headed my way.
“Hey, Lily,” I whispered.
She set the tray down on the nightstand and whispered a quick Hi back.
“What’s this?” I inspected the tray and sniffed the air.
“Breakfast,” Lily replied so quietly I barely heard her.
I could see that. It wasn’t what I usually went for, but that morning, it looked just right: a pile of thick-cut bacon, scrambled eggs coated in melted cheese, and a thick piece of bread with two large pats of butter melting on it. My usual breakfast consisted of oatmeal and fruit . . . Heart disease, you know? But I couldn’t get a piece of bacon in my mouth quickly enough.
“Thank you, Lily,” I said in between bites. I already felt the grease doing its work in my stomach. “You don’t have any idea how much better I feel already.” I didn’t feel the need to get into the nitty-gritty of excessive alcohol use and its morning after effects with a sixteen-year-old who, I would bet a million bucks, had never drank a single drop of it.
“Jesse said it would help,” she whispered just a hair louder so I didn’t have to strain to hear her.
I stopped chewing. “Jesse told you to make this for me?”
Lily shook her head. “No, he made it. He just asked me to carry it up.”
I dropped the remaining bit of bacon back on the plate. He’d come looking for me, carried me home in his arms—in his arms for two miles—tucked me into bed, left some water and ibuprofen on my nightstand, and had made me a greasy breakfast to ease my hangover suffering. I’d been so sure people like Jesse Walker didn’t exist in real life. I’d been so, so sure.
I’d been wrong.
If I’d been wrong about that, what else had I been wrong about? Add that question
to the mountain of others I wasn’t ready to answer.
“Why didn’t he bring it up himself?” I focused on the plate of food, a random act of kindness, and my vision started getting blurry.
“He and some of the guys are heading out for a week to keep a close watch on the cattle now that they’ve been moved higher up and farther away. They’re always a bit finicky when they get to a new pasture, so some of the guys set up camp for the first week or so.”
“Oh.” I shifted on the bed. Note to self: don’t wear tight jeans to bed. “When’s he leaving?” I wasn’t sure if he was ready to see me yet, or if I was ready to see him, but if he would be gone for a week, something needed to be said.
“He’s already gone,” Lily replied, lifting a shoulder. “He wasn’t really himself this morning. He was . . . grumpy almost. He couldn’t seem to get out of here soon enough.”
I didn’t need twenty guesses to know why Jesse couldn’t get away soon enough. So he was upset, but not so much that it had stopped him from making me breakfast. I’d hurt him, but not so much he hadn’t stopped himself from leaving water and pills on my nightstand. So much about the situation wasn’t making sense.
The longer I thought about it, the more my head hurt, so I shelved the whole working-it-all-out thing and grabbed the buttered toast. “What time is it?” My phone was over on the charger, which meant Jesse had done that, too.
“Time for you to go back to bed and get some rest,” Lily replied, sounding so much like Rose I checked the door to make sure she hadn’t joined us. “Mom’s orders.”
Rose . . . I hadn’t come home last night. I’d turned my phone off so no one could get ahold of me. Why wasn’t she in there shouting at me I was grounded for the rest of the summer?
“Is everyone . . .” I swallowed and looked down into my lap. “Disappointed with me?” I didn’t know why I bothered asking rhetorical questions, but I couldn’t seem to kick the habit.
“Why would anyone be disappointed with you?” she asked, giving me an odd look. “Jesse told us you’d fallen asleep out in one of the fields and couldn’t seem to shake that headache you told mom you had yesterday. It’s a good thing he found you before it got too late. You wouldn’t believe how many field mice are out there.” Lily shuddered like one was scurrying down her back. “And don’t get me started about the garter and bull snakes slithering around out there eating those mice.” When she shuddered again, it was more of a violent shake.
A tongue gliding up my neck flashed to my mind. It was my turn to shake. “I think I might have run into one of those snakes.” I popped the last bite of toast into my mouth. The grease and fat was doing its job, and the water and medicine was starting to work its way into my veins. I felt tired. Exhausted, really.
A guilty conscience had a way of tiring out a person. Jesse had covered for me. Lied to his family for me. Because I’d messed up the way I’d been born to do. Dammit. The day couldn’t get any worse, and I’d only woken up five minutes earlier.
“Thanks for breakfast, Lily,” I said, burrowing back down into my blankets. “If you’re sure it’s all right with everyone, I think I will rest for a little while longer.”
“That must be one nasty headache, Rowen,” she said gently before heading toward the door.
“It’s a nasty one, all right.” I threw the covers over my head and tried to shut out the world.
That next week, I tried not to think about Jesse, which was another way of saying I failed at not thinking about Jesse.
When I emerged from my monster “headache,” no one asked me any questions or suspected anything. Rose gave me a hug, said she was glad I felt better, and we got on with the day. It was such an odd concept to me: being trusted. People in my life just assumed that when I opened my mouth, a lie was about to come out. My mom had been the first one to take away the trust card, followed by teachers, counselors, friends . . . you name it. Most people in the past five years had found some reason to not trust me.
I wasn’t saying I was blameless in the whole denial of trust thing. Plenty of people had plenty of reasons to distrust me. What I’d grown tired of was everyone automatically assuming that because I’d done it before, I’d do it all the time. When people started expecting everything coming out of your mouth to be a lie, you just stopped trying.
But that’s not the way it was at Willow Springs. I was given the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t labeled a liar because I’d been caught telling one. I wasn’t labeled a good many of the names I’d been called before. I was given a fresh start.
Maybe that’s why I made a vow to never tell another lie to another Walker. Or let one Walker lie to another Walker because of me. I wouldn’t repay their faith in me by disappointing them.
I didn’t know what the end of summer would bring, or what the kids at my new school would think of me when I showed up, but at Willow Springs, I was Rowen Sterling. Nothing else.
In one week’s time, I’d kept that vow. I hadn’t lied once to any of the Walkers, although I’d come close. Instead of answering Rose when she asked if I knew why Jesse had been so out of sorts the morning he’d left, I’d pretended my cell phone had just rung and dodged out the back door to take my imaginary call. Honesty through omission. It wasn’t the best case scenario, but it was a far cry from the worst.
Between chores and sleep, I spent my free time drawing. Anything. And everything. Rose’s hands as she kneaded bread dough in the morning, the hat wall beside the dining table, the girls picking strawberries, hell, I even sketched Old Bessie . . . I drew it all, but mostly, I drew Jesse. I never meant to, but halfway into my sketch, I’d realize his eyes were shining back at me, and even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t scrap it and start again. So I finished those sketches, and then I had a book full of Jesse. It made the week without him pass a little faster.
It was Saturday night, and I was anxious about that for several reasons. One, because it was the night of the big dance and barbecue everyone had been talking about nonstop. Two, because it was the night Jesse was scheduled to come home. And three, because I didn’t want Rose to freak out when she saw what I’d done to her three daughters who were the very definition of natural beauty.
We’d been stowed away in Lily’s room for a couple of hours, spraying, swiping, and curling the heck out of each other. Well, I’d been doing the spraying, swiping, and curling. The girls, except for Clementine, had managed to sit still and endure it.
“Curly or straight?” I asked Lily once I finished powdering her nose and highlighting her brow bone.
Lily made a face as she considered it, trying not to smear her pale pink lipstick. She looked older but not offensively so. When Lily mentioned that morning she wasn’t super excited to go to the dance, I of course asked her why. She said she felt ordinary and overlooked whenever she went to one of those things. She said she didn’t feel like she fit in. After giving her a hug and telling her she should have her head examined, I suggested we turn her bedroom into a makeshift salon so I could give her a few makeup and hair tips.
Once Hyacinth and Clementine saw what we were up to, they refused to be left out. Clementine was easy, except for her bouncing around like a rabbit on speed. I curled her hair and let her slick on a coat of lip balm. Done. Hyacinth was a teenager, but just barely, so after doing her hair, I let her talk me into some mascara and lip gloss and prayed Rose or Neil wouldn’t skin me.
Since Lily was sixteen, I took a little more time with her eyes and added a touch of blush. I found myself chuckling a few times as I anguished over using a light hand with the girls’ makeup. I usually used the opposite with my own makeup.
Lily’s face flattened as she finally made up her mind. “Curly.”
I almost sighed. The Walker girls had some long, thick hair that took forever to curl.
“Rowen!” Clementine called to me as I grabbed the curling iron. “Will you put some of that eyeliner stuff on me, too?”
“I most certainly will not,” I replied as I wrapp
ed the first chunk of Lily’s hair around the iron. “If you keep bouncing like that, those curls are going to bounce right out of your hair.” I tried to give her a stern look as she bounced on the end of Lily’s bed, but it didn’t work. Staring sternly at a little girl with perfect little ringlets bouncing up and down in a dress that was five sizes too big for her was impossible.
Her bouncing stopped immediately as she patted her hair to make sure those curls were still in place. “Lily!” We were less than ten feet away, but Clementine was big into shouting. “Can I pick out another dress to try on?”
Lily sighed. “Yes, just not the one I’m wearing tonight.”
“Yippee!” Clementine dive-bombed from the bed and rushed toward Lily’s closet where Hyacinth was looking for her own dress.
“Okay, I could smell the hairspray fumes and burning hair from the porch.” The door swung open and in stepped someone I hadn’t expected to see right that minute. The curling iron almost slipped from my hands.
“Jesse!” Clementine went from running to the closet to sprinting toward her brother. She tripped on the dress right as she made it to him, but he caught her before she crashed and burned.
After giving her a quick hug and greeting his other sisters, his eyes shifted to me. Everything about him seemed hesitant, unsure. I knew I mirrored the feeling.
“Hey,” he said, staying firmly planted in the doorway.
“Hey,” I said. My heart thundered to life with two lame words exchanged between us.
“How was your week?” His voice wasn’t quite cool, but it wasn’t warm either. It was almost . . . conventional. Maybe that was worse than cool.
“All right,” I said with a shrug. “How was your week?”
“All right.”
We had that repeating each other thing down.
“Don’t we look beee-u-teee-ful, Jesse?” Clementine asked, tugging on his hand to get his attention.
“Positively,” he replied with a smile. So he could still form one, just not for me. “Did a fairy godmother come wave her wand your way or something?”