12. Lincoln
TWELVE
LINCOLN
I had never hated driving around in Andrew’s Wrangler until now.
A dizzy spell hit me like a Mack truck. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the world around me to stop spinning.
Motion sickness was not something I suffered from often.
Maybe the occasional rollercoaster or spinning teacup ride that Sadie would drag me onto.
But it was not something I experienced going to and from campus. Even with Andrew’s erratic driving.
We were parked across the street from my house. From where we sat, I could see the glint of the front porch light. I had hoped Cali found the place okay, and that my mom didn’t give her too much of a hard time.
“Let me help you in,” Andrew offered from the driver's side.
I cleared my throat for the hundredth time that evening. It was all I could do to stop the bile rising in the back of my throat. “No, I can make it inside just fine.”
I didn’t need to have my eyes open to know that he was staring me down, giving me the third degree in his mind .
“You’re a stubborn prick, you know that?”
Peeking one eye open, I waited until my vision focused on him. “Would you be my best friend if I wasn’t?”
Andrew liked his friends like he liked his women; hard to get.
Back in high school gym class, I had shot down his request to partner up for badminton so many times that the man made it his personal mission to be my partner in everything after that.
I was convinced it was the only reason we were so close.
Andrew shook his head. “You’re lucky you’ve already got a head injury, or I’d give you a switch kick to the jaw.”
“Like you’d even be able to reach.”
He tilted his head, regarding me. “Maybe you don’t have a concussion after all, your smart mouth seems to be working just fine.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Then it looks like I’m good to go, doc.”
Sitting up in my seat, I placed one hand on the door handle. Before I could yank it open, Andrew was barking orders at me again.
“If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me.”
The concerned tone in his voice stopped me in my tracks.
“I will.”
Andrew shook his head, curls bouncing with the movement. “No, like actually call me. Don’t make any stupid excuses and talk yourself out of it if you need something.”
“If I need anything, you know you’re the first one I always call.”
Without another word, I popped the passenger door open. I slid down from the Jeep, ensuring I had the proper footing before moving to grab my gym bag from the back seat .
Andrew rolled down his window to yell at me once I began to cross the street. “And keep your ringer on. I’m calling you every two hours, on the dot.”
Waving a hand over my shoulder, I trudged up the front steps and placed my key into the lock. Only when I had the door open did I hear Andrew’s engine roar to life as he sped down the street and out of sight.
I shut the door behind me and welcomed the darkness.
All the lights in the house were off, except for one little nightlight my mom kept in the foyer under the entrance table and the light emitting from the kitchen.
Leaning against the front door, I drew in a deep breath.
It caused my chest to ache, a searing pain that told me I had definitely bruised, if not cracked, a couple of ribs.
Trying to find a comfortable position to sleep was going to be interesting.
I stepped further into the shallow hallway, not even bothering to take off my sneakers. If I tracked any dirt through the house, I would deal with it tomorrow. My body was heavy. I lowered my gym bag off my shoulder. It landed on the ground with a dull thug as I turned toward the kitchen.
I was met with Cali’s lean figure sitting at the kitchen table. She peered at me with those familiar big, brown eyes.
“Your face,” she whispered, standing. I immediately wanted to turn away. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I uttered, joining her in the kitchen. “Is Sadie upstairs?”
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing at her arms as if she were cold. I wouldn’t have been surprised; we typically didn’t switch on the heat until the dead of winter. “Your mom is just putting her to sleep.” There was a beat of silence. “Can I get you something for that?”
“There’s a bag of peas in the freezer,” I muttered, slipping into the closest available seat and closing my eyes for a few seconds. I was running on fumes.
I forced them back open as Cali rummaged through the freezer. It was odd seeing her here, inside this house. I was even more stunned that my stand-offish mother had invited her in.
Cali returned with the chilled bag of peas in a dish towel.
I took it from her, gingerly placing it on my cheek and wincing from a mix of pain and cold.
When I peered back at her, she searched the rest of my face.
I allowed her to inspect me, as much as I wanted to send her home and forget that tonight had ever happened.
“You still have a bit of blood on your brow,” she whispered. “Let me get it for you.”
She didn’t wait for me to refuse her help. Within seconds, she returned with a paper towel that she had dampened at the sink.
I sat there reluctantly, permitting her to fuss over some dried-up blood on my forehead as we continued our hushed conversation.
“Did you clean this properly?” she asked, referring to the gash in my eyebrow.
“Drew used disinfectant on it earlier,” I muttered, keeping my voice low enough to avoid any eavesdropping from the upper level.
Cali hummed in acknowledgement, the chill of her hand seeping through the paper towel and soothing away the pain.
“Thank you.” The sound was so quiet, I thought she might miss it.
“You’re welcome,” she said, brown eyes curious as she regarded me.
I turned my head towards the doorway of the kitchen. “ Drew has picked up more shifts at work and can’t watch her as often.”
I didn’t know why I was trying to explain myself.
“Do you…” she trailed off. “I can watch her from time to time if you need.”
“No.” My tongue brushed against my bottom lip. It was rough and chapped, mirroring how I was feeling on the inside. “It’s fine. I’ll have to be more on top of things.”
When she didn’t respond, I pressed on. “I don’t think you realize how much you’ve helped me out tonight.”
The vulnerability in my voice had me wishing I had just kept my mouth shut. Why was I acting like a pubescent teenage boy? Had I really been hit in the head that hard?
“It’s no big deal. She’s not exactly the most difficult child to keep an eye on,” she said, throwing the bloody tissue in the trash by the counter.
I nodded, silence engulfing the room.
“I should probably get going.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. She didn’t belong here.
Cali stepped back into the foyer, leaving me alone in the kitchen. The laminate floor creaked under her feet as she reached for her jacket. “Goodnight, Lincoln.”
“Goodnight, California.”
She didn’t even bother correcting me as she slid the material over her shoulders and slipped out the front door.
When she left, I was back to being alone in the house that fed my nightmares.
“You’re home late.”
A jolt rushed through me as I realized someone was at the doorframe of the kitchen.
“You scared the shit outta me,” I breathed, a hand over my chest.
“Sorry,” my mother’s voice croaked. “I heard you come in while I was putting Sadie to sleep. I figured I’d come and grab a glass of water.” She moved around the kitchen. “Why are you getting home at this hour?”
I fiddled around with my makeshift ice pack, not wanting to put it on my face until she was out of sight. I settled into one of the chairs around the cramped kitchen table. “Late match.”
She filled her glass up with tap water. The sound of the open faucet flooded the room.
When the glass was half-full, she cupped it with both hands and leaned her back against the counter.
Mom was in her usual bed attire, baggy track pants, and a sauce-stained T-shirt, all wrapped up in her favorite robe.
The oversized clothing dwarfed her, making her tall frame look considerably shorter.
There was a hollowness to her face. Her already sharp cheekbones were pronounced, and her eyes were puffy from working overtime. She was exhausted.
“You know how I feel about Sadie being on campus at all hours of the night,” she reminded me.
I turned away from her, peering across the hall and into the desolate family room.
This was not a conversation I wanted to rehash.
It was no surprise that she wasn’t a fan of having her preschool-aged daughter on a university campus past midnight.
It wasn’t an ideal situation for me either.
But unless we could scrape together enough money to find a regular babysitter, our hands were tied.
We hadn’t been in the financial position to do that for a very long time.
“And you think I do?” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “We don’t have too many other options right now.”
Silence engulfed us for a moment. “You didn’t tell me you were being tutored. You also didn’t tell me that your tutor has been watching Sadie while you’ve been out.”
“Mom, now is not a good time?— ”
“No,” she said. Her cold eyes snapped to me, freezing me in place. “Now is the perfect time. How close are you and this girl?”
“I barely know her.”
“Yet you trust her enough to watch your baby sister.”
My train of thought stalled. I knew what she was insinuating—that I knew her better than I was leading her to believe.
My mother knew how hard it was for me to let others get a glimpse into my life.
It had taken me years to get comfortable enough even to have Andrew help me out with Sadie.
Now I was letting a perfect stranger I had known for less than two weeks babysit one of the people I cared for most? I could see why she wasn’t buying it.
I didn’t know how my trust in Cali formed in a matter of days. Maybe it was simply out of desperation. But something told me it was deeper than that. Something innate. Something inside told me Cali was one of the good ones—someone I could put my trust in and not get burned.
I wiped the back of my hand over my forehead. “Sadie came with me to a couple of tutoring sessions, and Cali seemed good with her.”
“I thought Andrew was watching Sadie.”
“He was,” I admitted.
There was a long pause. Even in the moon-lit kitchen, I registered the tension in her shoulders.
It was as if our lives had only ever spiraled out of control.
Blow after blow that we had to endure. We had to overcome obstacles in life or allow them to devour us.
This was just one more thing she couldn’t control.
“Look,” I started, the exhaustion seeping in. “I’m doing the best with the cards I was dealt.”
“I understand that,” she whispered, bowing her head to stare into her still-full glass of water.
“I do. You do a lot for Sadie and me. Don’t think I have forgotten that.
But you have to do one more thing.” She drew her eyes back up to mine.
The moisture on her lashes glistened. “Promise me you won’t allow this young girl to get more involved than she already is. ”
“You don’t need me to promise that, Mom.” My head was pounding, and this was not a discussion I was keen on having.
“Promise me.” The desperation she carried in her voice forced me to pause.
I swallowed, forcing myself to look at her again. “I won’t involve her. That was never the plan.”
“Good,” she said. “She has a lot going for her. Don’t put that at risk.”
I raised an eyebrow, soon regretting it when the scabbing skin began to burn. “How would you know?”
“Did you know she’s trying to get her master’s?” Her eyes dropped back down. “She and I aren’t so different.”
My chest seized at the thought. The life I lived was one big black hole.
It engulfed me and everyone else who dared to come close to me.
I had decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t drag anyone else down with me.
Andrew was the exception as the fucker wouldn’t take no for an answer.
But Cali? I could never live with myself if any harm came to anyone else because of me.
“This is my last year at Fenton,” I reminded her. “A few more months and we can finally put everything behind us and move on.”
She paused to stare at me for a moment, her tired eyes meeting mine from across the kitchen. Time stood still. When she finally moved, she headed towards the cabinet by the fridge. She shuffled the half-used vitamin bottles with one hand before grabbing a small vial of ibuprofen .
Quietly, she closed the space between us, setting it down in front of me.
“You don’t move on from your demons,” she whispered. “You either destroy them or they consume you.”
Then she left, disappearing from the room like an apparition.
My head fell back, and I let out a sigh. Tension was building all over my body, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the fight or from the recent disparaging conversation with my mother.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, popping a pill from the bottle I was just handed. Forget the ice bath I was planning. What I needed was to fall asleep and pretend my life wasn’t a shit show.