CHAPTER 2 - BRYNN
“For real?” Jovie asks, her eyes wide as we sit in the school’s empty parking lot, the dim glow of the dashboard lights painting her face in soft shadows.
She clutches her school bag on her lap, her favorite one with frayed straps and a doodle of a sunflower she’d drawn in Sharpie last summer. “Like for real, for real?”
She’s skeptical as hell, but she wouldn’t be my kid if she wasn’t.
I’ve tried to protect Jovie from the walking liar that is my mother, but she’s unfortunately faced a lot of disappointments during her short life, and it’s hard for both of us to see the light at the end of what always seems like a very long, very dark tunnel.
I swallow tightly and try to force a smile.
“For real,” I say, and my shoulders relax as if even I needed to hear the words out loud.
“We’re done with this place. Done with the bull—” My throat closes up as the words tangle in a knot of anger and exhaustion.
“We’re starting over, kid. Just you and me.
No more looking over our shoulders. No more waiting for things to change. ”
All we have is a bag with a few clean clothes and a few hundred dollars that will hopefully pay for enough gas and food to get us across the country.
“So we’re going to Atlantic City?” Jovie asks, her voice soft, as if saying it too loud might shatter the fragile dream.
“Yup,” I confirm, finally feeling a smile on my face.
“Right now?”
“Aunt Scarlett’s waiting for us,” I tell her, though the truth is, I haven’t called Scarlett yet to confirm. But I can already see the elation on her face. “It’s gonna be better there, I promise.”
Jovie bites her lip, glancing out the window, and for a second, I’m worried she’s about to tell me she doesn’t want to go. That she’ll miss her school and her friends—this tiny corner of her world that has thankfully always been pretty stable compared to the chaos she deals with at home.
But then she looks back at me and nods, her eyes filling with a quiet determination that makes my chest burst with pride.
“Okay.” She starts tugging at her long blonde hair, pulling it back into a ponytail and wrapping a holder around it. Once it’s securely in business mode, she nods again. “Let’s go.”
A relieved laugh bursts from inside me, and I throw the car into drive, pulling out of the parking lot and taking the shortest route toward the highway before I can change my mind.
The silence in the car is thick, and it’s barely ten minutes before Jovie finally shares what’s on her mind.
“Did you and Nan have a fight?” she asks, scrunching her nose. “She was drunk, right?”
“Jo…”
She scoffs loudly, shaking her head. “Did she fall over this time?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” I answer, my tone a little sterner, indicating the end of this conversation. “You don’t need to worry about any of that.”
It’s always been hard for me to decide where the line is between openness and honesty, and protecting Jovie from problems she doesn’t need to be making her own.
I know I’m not perfect.
But I have no regrets about the relationship her and I have built.
“I guess we better call Aunt Scarlett, right?” I tell Jovie, reaching for my phone that sat on the passenger's seat and holding it over my shoulder. “You want to be the one to give her the news?”
“Yes!” Jovie grins, eagerly taking my phone and hitting call on Scar’s number—like she’s done a million times.
Scarlett and I grew up together, the both of us coming from shitty homes with shitty parents—hers being a controlling ex-military father who was trained in torture techniques, and believed in using them as punishments.
We were both fucked up.
And it just so happens that trauma builds strong bonds, so while our lives took different roads, we still spoke weekly and visited when possible.
My thoughts are still running wild as Jovie dials Scarlett’s number, but with every mile we put between us and my mother, I’m finding it a little easier to breathe.
Jovie strums her fingers on the seat beside her as she waits impatiently, the dial tone echoing in the car. “Hey! You’re calling late—”
“Aunt Scarlett! We’re coming to Atlantic City!”
There’s silence for a few seconds, and I almost burst out laughing, practically able to see my best friend’s mind ticking over, processing the little information she’s been given, and attempting not to jump to conclusions.
“Is that so?” Scar finally replies, her tone a mixture of happiness and confusion. “You’re coming for a holiday?”
“No! Like for real,” Jovie goes on, and as I look in the mirror, seeing the bright smile on her face solidifies the choice I’m making. It’s a smile I haven’t seen for months, maybe years. “Mom said she’s sick of Nan’s shit—”
“Jovie!”
“—and now we’re driving to your place. Is that okay?”
Scarlett scoffs loudly. “Is it okay? It’s the best fucking—”
“Scar!” I scold with a grin.
“—best damn news I’ve heard all year!” The emotion in her voice almost gets me, tears building in my throat. “Is Mom crying?”
“She was,” Jovie answers, trying to lower her voice as she outs me. “Her eyes were all bloodshot, and she was all croaky like.”
She never misses a thing.
Even when I try to hide things from Jovie, she has a way of figuring it out.
It’s not just her sharp eyes or her knack for reading me—it’s something deeper.
Like she’s tuned into every crack in my armor, every shift in my voice, every sigh I try to swallow down before it escapes.
Whether it’s problems with Nan, or money, or just general upset about the way my life is turning out, Jovie always sees through me.
She’s my partner in this chaotic life we’ve been handed.
And while it breaks my heart that she’s had to grow up faster than she should’ve, that she knows things about life and its struggles that most kids her age couldn’t fathom—at the same time, it gives me hope.
Because if I ever doubted that I could get us out of this mess, all I had to do was look at her. She’s proof that something good can come out of all the bad. And she makes me want more—for both of us.
“Can I talk to Mom for a minute, just to check she’s okay?” Scarlett questions softly, and Jovie reaches forward with the phone.
I take it, settling it on my lap as I focus on the road ahead. “Guess we’ll see you in a couple of days,” I tell her, my laugh crackling as I fight the wave of emotions hitting me.
“Hell yes!” I’m almost deafened by my best friend’s excited shriek when she answers. “Holy shit, Brynn!”
I shake my head. “I know. I’m still not sure what’s going on,” I tell her, my voice catching as I swallow hard.
My grip on the steering wheel tightens, my knuckles white against the cracked leather.
It’s almost painful, but I refuse to let go.
The wheel is my lifeline, the one thing keeping me grounded in that moment—knowing we’re in the car, heading toward the east coast, and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that’s going to stop us from getting there.
Nothing.
“Just keep driving,” Scarlett insists, her voice lowering just a little into a more serious tone. “Don’t turn back, Brynn. There’s nothing back there for you.”
Scarlett had been my best friend since we were in middle school.
She’s the person who would lift me up when I was down.
The person who was ready and waiting to have my back every single time I said I was done—and the one who still supported me when we both knew I wasn’t.
“Are you sure it’s okay if we com—”
“You cut that shit out right now,” she cuts in, and I just know she’s shaking her head—black hair whipping from side to side. “You know I’ve got my own place and a spare room. I’ll try to keep work stuff away from Jovie as much as possible.”
I can’t help but grin, shaking my head. “That’s the last of my worries.”
Scarlett is a stripper.
But not just a stripper.
She works for a Motorcycle Club in Atlantic City, and while that sounds scary for many people to have around their young kid, she’s only ever talked about how loyal and protective they are of their inner circle.
“Honestly, I can’t wait to have your snoring and the kids' smart mouth right here with me,” Scar teases, and I gasp loudly.
“I do not snore!”
“You sound like a freight train!” she exclaims, followed by a completely maniacal laugh which is instantly echoed from the backseat of the car. “Jesus, the two of you are going to gang up on me, aren’t you?”
Thank god I’d decided to make the call and not just show up on her doorstep in a couple of days, because this was the energy I needed. Positive, uplifting excitement that makes me want to keep moving forward.
“You know, if you need cash for a flight, I can just send you some and you can be here like, tomorrow,” Scarlett suggests, but I’m already shaking my head.
“I think the time in the car will be good. We can talk about what we want for the future, and how we’re going to get it,” I tell her, watching Jovie in my mirror as her eyes begin to droop a little.
The weight was slowly beginning to ease and allow us both to breathe for what feels like the first time in forever.
And if it’s feeling this good after only a few hours.
I can only imagine how much relief we’ll feel in a few days when we arrive in Atlantic City, at Scarlett’s apartment—over one thousand miles away.
We need this drive, the slow pull away from that life, and the ease into a new one.
“Okay, but you’re going to call me every few hours to check in,” she demands, covering a yawn.
“I will,” I promise. “I’m still wide awake, so I’m going to probably drive for a few more hours. I don’t want to pull over until I really have to.”
“Do not fall asleep at the wheel, Brynn.”
“I will not fall asleep. When I find a motel, I’ll stop and get some sleep.” Hopefully, in a small, quaint town as opposed to some side of the highway, Bates Motel type of situation. “I’ll call you in the morning before we set off again.”
“Alright,” she answers, though I can hear the reluctance in her voice. She wants to stay on the phone until we walk in her front door, just so she can make sure we get there safely.
When we hang up, I crank the air con a little to keep the cold air on my face, letting the hum of the engine and Jovie’s soft breathing fill the silence. I tighten my grip on the wheel, and a smile tugs at my mouth.
We’re really doing it.
Just me, my girl, and a future that we have control of.
The further we drive away the knot in my chest begins to ease, and while my mind is racing, for the first time in a long time, I don’t try to fight it.
Because it’s not filled with panic.
It’s filled with possibilities.