Chapter 26 May 20 #2
Yes, I’d lost two best friends and the love of my life so far.
I’d been cast out of my lifelong group of friends.
I’d spent a good part of senior year eating lunch alone, with an outcast freshman or the fallen gods who couldn’t even eat in the café at lunch.
I’d lost my faith in the one man I had always trusted in some instinctive, unspoken way, a man I trusted to have my back the way he had since elementary, to love me at least as a friend, to do what was right for me.
In some way, that was the last thread holding me to Faulkner, the last of my faith in humanity, or at least the male half of it.
It wasn’t all bad, though. I’d survived my senior year on my own, even without my group of friends to fall back on, by following my motto—What would Destiny do?
I’d made new friends, found a splash of internet fame, and even had that threesome Destiny had warned me wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
She’d been right, as expected. Still, I was proud of myself for doing something bad.
I’d liked it, even if it wasn’t something I wanted to do again.
More than that, it was the perfect rebound to help me get over Devlin.
After graduation, I’d decided to do something just for me, something that had nothing to do with marriage or babies or even love. I had decided to move to LA and follow our dream of becoming famous. I knew I didn’t have Destiny’s singing chops. I’d never be a Beyonce.
I could, however, see myself as a Baby Spice.
I didn’t have a band, but I could get a job out there until I found one. So, with butterflies swarming in my tummy, I headed for the bus station the week after graduation.
When I’d told my parents earlier in the year, they’d been shocked, but they couldn’t make me stay.
I was eighteen, and I had no husband waiting to put a ring on my finger, no life in Faulkner already planned out.
In the end, they’d come around to supporting me, telling me they knew I could be a star and that they were proud of me.
They were happy I’d blossomed into my own person.
It was the last thing anyone would have expected from me two years ago.
Even Destiny wouldn’t have believed it if she could see me now.
For the first three years of high school, I’d been so content on Devlin’s arm, but I’d been a scared, timid person, always afraid to be myself for fear that he’d leave me.
All those years, I’d been too blinded by love to pursue my own dreams, to even consider what my dreams might be.
I’d given so much of myself to someone else that it had left me depleted and small.
I hadn’t even seen that I’d disappeared into my love, become nothing but a big beating heart for Devlin.
I wasn’t mad at him for it. Love had done that to me, not Devlin.
But he was gone, and as long as I kept my heart free, nothing could stand in my way.
“I just can’t believe my baby girl is all grown up,” Mama said, dabbing at her eyes. “It seems like yesterday I was watching you push Preston Darling in the dirt for stealing a kiss.”
“Well, that’s what you get for kissing a girl without her permission,” I said, feeling happy and reckless and scared as the tiny bus station came into view.
“He did bring you flowers first,” she pointed out.
“Still doesn’t give him the right to take what he wants,” I said, raw pain scraping away at my heart when I thought of what else he’d taken without my permission.
So much more than my mother knew, so much more than a kiss.
I had to fight tears every time I thought of what he’d done, what he’d stolen from me, how savage he’d been.
At least I hadn’t slept with him later, not knowing what he’d done.
He’d only gone down on me that one time.
I was glad nothing else had ever happened between us.
I was ready to leave him and this town behind forever.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Mama said with a giggle. “They were weeds, anyway.”
I felt a little flare of protectiveness in my chest. I didn’t like anyone talking bad about Preston, especially after his accident, even knowing what he’d done to me.
My feelings were way too complicated to untangle, even now.
In truth, I was a little worried that he might just take the whole bottle of pain pills he’d gotten after his accident.
I didn’t like to think about him in his Grampa’s mansion with all the old man’s guns.
He’d moved there after being released from the hospital instead of going home.
He said it had more security, was protected from the Dolces, but I suspected it had something to do with his dad, who hadn’t visited him a in the hospital a single time after he woke up.
All I knew was that it was unhealthy for him to be locked up there, basically alone with his misery and anger.
But I couldn’t fix him, couldn’t change the past no matter how much I wished otherwise. He had his own life to figure out, and I had mine. I wasn’t going to stay in Faulkner and live for anyone else anymore. It was time for me to spread my wings and fly.
Dad met us in the parking lot and gave me a hug before pulling my suitcases from the trunk of Mama’s car.
He pointedly ignored her and didn’t mention where my stepmother was, but I wasn’t surprised she hadn’t come to see me off.
She was probably having a cocktail with her friends in celebration of my departure.
Mama had taken Peanut Butter, who I couldn’t stand to take with me into an unknown future.
As much as I wanted to, I knew it was unfair to bring her to California just to leave her in my apartment alone all day while I’d be out working and finding auditions.
She’s be happy at my mom’s, where my younger stepsiblings loved her and she could go out in the backyard any time she needed.
After saying my goodbyes to my parents at the bus station, I turned and saw a tall, elegant figure climbing down from a white Escalade truck.
My heart did a little flip before he turned, and I was reminded, as I always was, of what he’d become.
Most of the scars were centered around the eye he’d lost, with the burns only on that side of his forehead and down onto his cheek.
I’d gotten somewhat used to them—they were just part of his face now.
But I knew that after living seventeen years with a face that made panties drop, it was a devastating loss for him.
“Want us to stick around?” Dad asked, his brows lowering in a frown. He’d become close with the Dolce patriarch and distanced himself from the Darlings now that legal troubles and family scandals plagued them at every turn.
A mayor’s gotta do what a mayor’s gotta do.
“Y’all can go on home now,” I said, gulping down my nerves and giving Dad a brave smile. “He’s just here to say goodbye.”
I hugged each of my parents, and they went their separate ways, although Mama said she’d wait to wave goodbye to the bus.
When they were gone, I turned to face Preston, who was standing on the hot pavement outside the bus station.
The bus was already running, the smell of diesel exhaust hanging heavy in the suffocating late-May heat.
“You’re leaving,” he said.
“You came to see me off?” I asked, a lump in my throat.
“Some things are worth having people look like they’re going to vomit when they see me.”
“Preston,” I said, my heart aching for him. “No one sees you like that.”
His lips tightened. “How would you know? You don’t have to walk around this town with everyone knowing you’re a disgrace and pitying you for it.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I get to look the way I’ve always looked.
But this town knows who you are, Preston.
You’re not a stranger to them. They understand you.
They know what happened, but you’re still you.
You’re still a Darling. Some of them may feel bad for you, but they’ll get used to it. It’s not that bad.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Dolly,” he said, crossing the space between us. “You can lie to this whole town, even your parents, even yourself, but never to me.”
“What does that mean?”
“This isn’t your dream, and we both know it. This is Destiny’s dream.”
I stepped back, shaking my head. “It was our dream. I want to honor her memory.”
“Or maybe you’re still hung up on Devlin,” he said bitterly. “Maybe you’re still trying to prove yourself to him.”
“Not to him,” I said. “But maybe to myself. I have to do this, Preston.”
“Why?”
The question was so simple, but the answers were too complicated to explain on the front stoop of a bus station where an old man was smoking a cigarette and a woman was sitting on her suitcase, waiting to board and studiously avoiding looking at Preston’s burned face.
How could I tell him that Faulkner wasn’t enough without it sounding like he wasn’t enough?
I knew how that felt. Devlin had done a number on me, and now I didn’t know if I’d ever feel like enough.
I never wanted to make Preston feel like that, but I knew I had to do this.
I had to find out if I was enough on my own, and the only way to do that was to be truly on my own.
It was terrifying to set out like this, truly alone for the first time in my life, but it was something I had to do.
“I want to be something bigger than I can be in this town,” I said at last.
“You’re already something amazing in this town,” he said. “Everyone knows you too, Doll. They love you, all of you. The pink truck, your losses… This town understands you. You’re their queen.”