14. Holly
FOURTEEN
HOLLY
Shoot me your address. I’ll be there as soon as we get in.
I stared at the text for far too long after it came in. Graham had already landed, and while I’d planned for him to come to my place so we could talk, I changed my mind.
Being able to leave his place would be easier than trying to kick him out of mine, so I sent him a text a half hour before he was supposed to get back in town.
I’ll meet you at yours.
So you can run when you want?
His response came almost instantaneously, which meant he’d been staring at his phone. I didn’t bother responding. He’d learn soon enough.
The air had a warm thickness to it, odd for late March, but it was nice enough I didn’t have to cage myself in my Jimmy. Instead, when a newer model black Honda pulled up, I was already pacing back and forth on the sidewalk in front of his building.
“Hey,” he called as he climbed out of the back seat.
The trunk popped open at the same time the driver’s window rolled down, and Tanner poked his head out. “You should listen to him, Holly! Piper’s lying, and I never liked her anyway.”
“Shut up, Tan,” Graham grumbled and slapped the button to close the door, although he did it with a ferociousness, like he was pissed he couldn’t slam it closed or shut Tanner’s mouth.
“I speak the truth!” Tanner called out as his window started to rise, and he drove away.
“I was worried you’d stand me up.” Graham had a large green duffel bag flung over his shoulder. He held the small hand strap of his backpack loosely at his side.
“I said I’d be here.”
“And yet you don’t look thrilled about it.” My eyes widened in surprise at the anger in his tone. I couldn’t exactly blame him considering how I treated him this last week. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “It was a crappy week, and thinking about you was only part of it.”
I cringed. “I’m sorry. I really am, but we should talk.”
“Yeah. Never heard those words before and had a good outcome from it.” He walked past me toward the stairs to his place. The landing was covered, and four apartment doors were at the top. He went to his, the first door on the right, and opened it.
Compared to all the other times I’d been here, when he’d stood in the doorway and held it open for me, this time was different. He walked in, flung his backpack to the floor, and barely held the door as he walked through. I skirted around it as it started to close on me, and once it did, he dumped his bag on the floor with a thud.
I tossed my purse on the kitchen counter and put as much space between us as I could.
Graham read the move too, because he flinched. “I have to tell you, I’ve been wrestling all week between feeling incredibly guilty for not being fully honest with you and pissed you took off and haven’t let me explain. I’ve called you, Holly, and I’ve texted. And you practically ghosted me.”
“I know, but…”
“You’re a hard enough girl to get to know, you know? It feels like you have one arm stiff-armed out, only dropping it occasionally, but you know, when you do, it feels like I’ve won something special. And I get you were mad, hell, I don’t blame you for that. But hell, I don’t know…” He turned and shoved his hands through his hair. His ball cap flew off, and he spun, grabbing it at the last second.
Gone were his cocky smirks and disarming grins. There was pain on his face, and I was only going to make it worse.
“I needed to think.” I swallowed, and as I did, my phone rang from my purse.
Dread curled my gut at the familiar sound.
“Is there a reason why every time your phone rings you look sick?” he asked.
Oh, the irony of the moment. The horrifically perfect timing. For the first time since this had happened, I actually answered. “Yeah. Let me show you.”
I unzipped my phone, the ringer stopping, but it was my dad. He’d call right back. I hadn’t answered his weekly call in months. No doubt the first words out of his mouth would be filled with venom.
“Who is it?” Graham asked. He was smart. He had to see the way my hand shook.
“Hold on. He’ll call back.”
“He?” Oh, there was jealousy in that tone, a hint of it, but it was there all the same.
Right as rain, my phone rang. Barely glancing away from Graham, I hit the call button and then the speaker button.
The tinny, computerized voice came through. “Collect call from Durham Maximum Security Prison from inmate—my dad’s voice came through—Marvin Jones. Would you like to accept?”
“Holly,” Graham whispered, his voice thready, like he was expecting a monster to jump through the phone. His face was pale, but there was no way he’d made the connection because his thick brows were tugged in, almost knitted together, and his hands were on his hips, fingers flexing.
He was mad, but not at me any longer, more for me. Oh, how that would change in a second.
“I’ll accept,” I said into the phone.
There was a beep. Then the familiar pause where I hoped he’d either hang up or become the dad I had when I was seven. But nope, he ended up being himself.
“’Bout time you answer the damn phone. You know how long I’m stuck in here? I’ve been waitin’ for you to send me money.”
“Hi, Dad.” And because this was already bad enough, and because this had to end and end now so I could get out of there, I continued without taking my eyes off Graham. His lips had parted, and there was worry there, for me, sure. But I wasn’t the only one who could feel the weight of the ticking time bomb. “I’ll send some later tonight. But, Dad?”
“What?”
“You remember the name of the girl you killed? The one you ran off the road?”
A gasp and then a curse came from Graham. “No.” He shook his head. “No…it’s not…how could…”
“Stuck up rich little thing. That’s the only reason I’m here. Governor’s daughter. You think I forgot a name like that? Sophie. Damn stupid name haunts my dreams. Woulda gotten off with a slap on the wrist if her daddy didn’t run the state. Bad luck for me.”
Yeah…bad luck.
“Bye, Dad.” I ended the call and grabbed my purse.
“I didn’t know,” I told Graham. “I didn’t know until Piper said anything, but as soon as she did, I knew exactly who she was talking about. That’s why I took off the way I did and why I haven’t talked to you.”
“Your dad…he…”
“He’s a drunk and ran your fiancée or friend or whoever she was to you off the road and killed her. Now do you see why I said it didn’t matter if you were engaged or not?”
He swallowed and shoved his hands over his face. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I’m sorry.” My chin shook, and tears burned my eyes, but I forced them down. “I’m sorry for everything he took from you.”
I turned and opened the door.
Behind me, his croaked and tortured voice asked, “Where are you going? You’re just leaving? After dropping that? We have to talk, Holly.”
He closed the space between us in three long strides, but I held up my hand, shaking my head. “We don’t.”
“I have questions. Give me a damn minute to think, would you?”
I took a painful moment and memorized all his hard lines and muscles and that floppy curly hair I liked so much and the depths of his eyes. “What else do we have to talk about? Think this through, Graham. Are you going to tell Piper who I am? Your dad ? He’s friends with Sophie’s dad, right? That’s what you said? You can’t be with me and be honest with everyone else you know, and you’ve already been through enough. And you might not have put it together who I am, but somebody you love would.”
His jaw dropped, like he hadn’t considered. He probably hadn’t since I hadn’t given him time. But I’d spent the week moving pieces, trying to make the puzzle fit, and every time I did, I came up with a giant hole in the middle.
We would never fit. Never work together.
It was time we both accepted it.
“Goodbye, Graham.”
The sound of the door shutting behind me paled in comparison to the pain of my breaking heart cracking in two.
Crappy luck had always been the card I drew in any game. I shouldn’t have dared to hope this would end any differently.
* * *
Roaring thunder jolted me from where I’d somehow been able to fall asleep on my couch. I threw off the blanket, and it took a moment to realize where I was. What had happened. How I’d gotten back home. Hard to see with tears blurring my vision on the twisting and winding mountain roads, but somehow I’d made it.
Another rumble of thunder rocked the trailer, and I whipped my head toward the door.
No. Not thunder.
I jumped from the couch, catching my foot in the blanket I’d thrown over me when I got back home after shattering Graham’s pretty illusion of what could have been between us. I stumbled at the thought, fell into the coffee table, and righted myself before I toppled over it as the furious pounding came again.
“Hold on!” I shouted at whoever was knocking on my door so loudly they could crack the glass.
The microwave clock showed it was one in the morning. Hopefully it was morning, and I hadn’t slept through an entire night and day. The last thing I needed was to miss a shift at the diner.
It had to be Tracey. Graham probably called her, and she was coming to check on me.
It wouldn’t be Graham. Tracey wouldn’t tell him where I lived, and I doubted even his aunt would give him that information.
The pounding started again, and then another sound quickly followed it. Sounded like squawking chickens or screeching raccoons. Something feral.
“I said,” I started to shout as I opened the door. “Stop —”
My voice froze in my throat. The squawking wasn’t chickens. Or raccoons.
It was a baby. Red-faced and screaming.
The woman holding it had pockmarked scars on her cheeks. Stringy, greasy hair that not only looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks but also hadn’t been cut since the last time I saw her. Her collarbone poked out from the worn and frayed collar of her sweater.
Her dark blue eyes had once been a warm, rich color, and now there appeared to be no life in them.
“Mom?”
She shoved her way past me, making me jump back before the baby in her arms slammed into me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Where’s your father?”
She rocked back and forth as she asked, deadened, drug-addled eyes flicking every which way but at my face, at the daughter who stood in front of her.
“Prison,” I said, before I could filter myself. Who would expect it?
What was she doing here?
She jolted, and at least she hadn’t known. Caroline’s earlier warning rushed back to me. She’d called. She’d been looking for us.
Looks like she found us. “Why do you have a baby?”
She flinched again and looked down, eyes widening like she’d forgotten she was holding anything in the first place. How could that happen when the baby’s face was now a deep shade of red and screaming, filling the air in the trailer?
“Oh. Here.” She shoved it at me so fast I almost dropped it before my arms grabbed for it on instinct.
“Can’t take care of him. You do it. All this shit I have is here.” She dropped a weathered, worn, and disgustingly dirty bag onto the floor. “Tell your dad I stopped by.”
She skirted past me. My mind was still frozen. This baby was screaming. My addict of a mother was leaving?
“Mom? What are…”
“Don’t got time. Ride’s leaving. And I definitely don’t have time to take care of that. Needs his family, though. So there…you and your dad can handle it.”
“What?” I rushed after her, but for being high as a kite and frail, she moved quickly. “Mom!”
She didn’t stop rushing down the stairs, out to the gravel drive. She wasn’t joking about having a ride.
It was dark, and I couldn’t see who was driving, but she climbed into the passenger seat of a rusted, maroon car, far older than me. It peeled out so fast that gravel kicked up and hit the side of my Jimmy before it turned and disappeared.
The baby screamed again, and my jaw dropped as I watched my mother take off, leaving me again…
With a brother ?