30. Delia
Thirty
Delia
L ying in bed, I crack open Mom’s journal. A pang of shame claws at my belly. I’d be so upset if she read my words. It feels like a violation of privacy. If she wanted me to know this, she would have told me but at the same time, she’s disappeared. Abandoned me and I miss her. Reading her words makes me feel closer to her in a weird way.
Journal of Jennifer Brickell
October 2004
He proposed! Only Anna knows. She’s the only friend left that I trust to tell and mostly because she’s not at school anymore. Everyone else tattles. There is no privacy in a small town like this.
Obviously, my parents have forbidden us to see each other but we can’t. Won’t. What would I be without his love? Would life even be worth living? He’s started building a small house all by himself on the west side of town, where there’s nothing but woods and the bend in the river.
He said he’s building it for me; for us, until we have enough money to get out of here and go somewhere else. I cried when he pulled out the braided sterling silver ring.
A band only, but it suits me just fine. After graduation, Jesse says I can work full time. we’ll be able to save so much more money.
We’re going to get married on the beach, where we met, in the water during the summer. He even offered to come to church with us, but my parents weren’t having that.
They had the pastor come over to have a ‘chat’ with me. It didn’t end well. Why does everyone think we’re too young to know what we’re feeling? Teenage rules are boring and screwed up. At this point, I don’t give a shit what my parents or the Pastor says. He is life and I’m sick of drowning in useless adult warnings.
It takes me a minute to do the math, but I’m certain that if I told Mom I was engaged during my senior year, she would kill me. I can’t even imagine what Gramps and Gran were thinking or feeling. But my mother has never done anything the way the rest of the world does so it sorta makes sense to me that she felt so certain.
But what happened? If she was going to marry this guy, is he my dad and why the hell doesn’t she have the common courtesy to use his name ever and make my life easier? I flip through some blank pages until I find the next entry.
Journal of Jennifer Brickel l
November 2004
I’m pregnant.
This throws our plans off a little bit, but it seemed like fitting news to tell my parents that we were engaged and then tell them about baby Bean. That’s what I’m calling it for now.
Baby Bean, you were made in so much love. All the love in the whole world came together and created you. You will be magic and kindness and joy. We’re set to marry in April. I might have a baby bump by then, but it won’t bother me a bit.
Mom and Dad didn’t take the news well. It was more than a shock to them. There wasn’t even a sliver of joy at the prospect of a baby. They screamed and sent him away and me to my room. Dad said the most awful things. Things I will never be able to unhear. Things that make me feel like I couldn’t possibly be made from any part of him.
Mom came into my room while I laid face down sobbing into my pillow and rubbed my back. She told me I didn’t have to have the baby. That everything would be okay and that once the pastor came over and went over my options with me, she’d help me make the right choice.
I sobbed harder. How could she even think that let alone say it?
Mom informed me that seventeen is too young to understand what having a child entails. That I’m not ready and I’m ruining the rest of my life. I don’t care what they say. He and this baby are all that matters and I’m keeping them both.
They sent the pastor to his house first.
“Goodnight Delia,” Gramps voice calls through my bedroom door. A chill ripples down my spine.
“Night,” I call back .
The clock says half past ten. The next page of the journal is blank. I take it as a sign to stop for the night even though I’m dying to blast through the rest of the entries. I tuck the notebook under the bed. It’s an okay place to pause. A lot to take in.
She was in love. I was made in love. I was barely a formed being, yet Mom vehemently stated that she wanted me—loved me.
I honestly don’t know if I’d feel the same way in the same situation. Two things stand out as I turn off my light; Anna knows who my dad is and was the last person to allegedly see my mom and Gramps said unforgivable things to my mom.
Pulling out my own notebook I begin to write.
I am gold and glitter and sparkles and fun and passion. I want to leave a heart-shaped mark on the world, create smiles and laughs and memories. But lately, I’m cranky. What is wrong with me? Where is my mothertrucking joy? Why is it intrinsically tied to my mother? Why would she leave me here with her old journals and music? I feel like I’m following a breadcrumb trail to nowhere.
There’s a small anger in my belly and slight resentment and a dollop of fear. I’m moody, tearful, and feeling directionless.
***
Lyra and Miles were basically foaming at the mouth when I updated them on the new journal entries, I’d read last night. I had a brief feeling of joy as I filled them in .
Two friends who were happy and excited to help me figure out where I came from and genuinely cared about me. It wasn’t something I was used to having but it felt really good.
I also may have spilled the beans about Langdon ravishing me Sunday night and that Danny had asked me on a date, to which I got wide eyes and a lot of requests for more details.
Lyra invited us both to her house so we could talk more but I was scheduled to work to which she said, fine, I’ll pick you both up at six at RootBound and we’ll do dinner instead. Everyone agreed—it was a date. I seem to have fallen into quite the nice little social life here.
“What was up with you today?” Langdon asks. It snaps me from my thoughts.
I crane my neck to see him over a giant-leafed plant. “What?”
“You kept staring at me but like, in a weird way,” he says headed for me.
He’s not wrong. Every time I saw him today I kept staring wondering what his mom knows. How I can get her to talk to me. What Langdon might know.
“I was definitely not being weird. You’re imagining stuff.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?” He looks genuinely concerned.
Sighing, I remove his hand from me and nod. “Fine. Just dandy. Why?”
A smirk quirks his mouth up. “If you’re not—I’m good at distracting.”
My eyes bug out for a second. He has some audacity. “Who told you that?”
He shrugs. “Just a gut feeling,” he says smugly.
He is a total flirt. And I’m totally here for it. Only four more days until Sunday. Maybe we can sneak away again. Or maybe I’ll have to throw another tantrum and get sent to my room.
“You should have your gut checked.” I push past him, on to the next plant.
He looks wounded. “I see. So you and Danny?”
“What?” I throw my hands in the air. “Me and Danny what?”
He looks away. “Are dating? That’s why you’re not interested in being distracted ?” he poses it as a question and I almost laugh.
“Can you hand me that watering can please?” Langdon looks deflated but he hands me the can.
“Danny and I are not dating for the record. He gave me a ride home and asked me on a date. That’s it.”
“So have you two been… distracted together?” he asks.
I watch him from the corner of my eye as he shuffles his feet. What does he think happens on drives home? That I just devour every guy I hang out with? Am I a maneater or something? Does he think I’m easy? But also, what’s it to him? We’re not dating.
“What’s it to you? Why do you look like someone kicked your puppy right now?”
Langdon bites his bottom lip then releases it. “Cause, I like you.”
I let out a laugh. It just bubbles up and slips out without warning. “Yeah, in private,” I scoff.
I don’t know what possessed me to say that, but I almost want to take it back.
“That’s not fair. Private is mostly where I see you,” he says.
I plant my hands on my hips—mad. “Is that so? So school, when you don’t speak to me, or lunch when you don’t sit with me, or the halls when you can barely look my way… that doesn’t count? It’s convenient that at my house you’re basically a horndog and at work, you’re all about flirting and being nice and then miraculously in school I. Don’t. Exist. And for the record, no, Danny and I haven’t messed around but I did tell him I’d go on a date with him. Unlike you, he acknowledges my existence in public.”
“Delia,” Langdon starts, but I hold up a hand and turn back to my job. “This is public,” he mumbles while walking away.
I scoff. Butterflies tumble in my belly even though I’m pissed. Langdon Nash likes me . Ugh! Why does everything have to be so complicated? Half of me wants to smooth things over with Langdon and the other half wants him to stew in the truth for a while. My pride wins out and we don’t speak for the rest of our shift, although I do catch Langdon slyly staring at me every time I look up.
As I make sure the shop’s clean, and everything’s all buttoned up for closing, I realize I’ve shot myself in the foot with my little outburst. If I don’t have Langdon, I don’t have a valid reason to go to his house and talk to Anna and I need to know what Anna knows.