Chapter 28
JO
“Josephine, what’s going on?”
I step away from Nico, a giant weight off my shoulders that the truth is finally out there. We can finally stop pretending, and I can stop feeling so inadequate.
Or, more honestly, settle into that inadequacy.
Being back home, after burying my great-grandmother, I feel so out of place.
Out of my head, and it’s all too much. The pictures, Nico here, grief weighing so heavily on my body that it would feel easier to lie down next to her than to step forward—the only thing that makes sense right now is to leave it all behind.
Shed every part of this fairy-tale lie.
Start over.
“You better tell me what is going on right now,” Mom says, voice loud enough that it carries through the backyard and bounces off the surrounding trees in the quiet afternoon.
Loud enough for Danny to poke his head out the back door. “What’s going on out here? Why are you yelling?”
Mom motions to me. “I don’t know. Your sister won’t tell me. She and Nico are out here arguin’ about a fake engagement or something.”
A few feet away, Nico releases a noisy breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him drag his hands through his hair, roll his head back to the sky, and set his hands on his hips.
Like he’s catching his breath after sprinting across the ice.
“Fake engagement?” Danny laughs like the asshole he’s always been. “I knew it. I knew it!” He disappears for a moment, only to return with the rest of my family. Even Mamaw.
They all line up. Mom and Dad, Lizzie, Danny, Waylon, and Mamaw with her glass of wine. She is halfway to drunk, smiling when she asks, “So what’s this show we had to come see?”
I swallow past the stinging lump in my throat, while Nico spins toward them. “There is no show. You all need to go back inside to give Jo and me some privacy.”
It’s Waylon who speaks up. “Nothin’ doin’. I knew not to trust you, and I want to find out exactly what you did to hurt Jo.”
Nico crosses in front of me, protecting me even now.
After I’ve acted so cold toward him. “You think I hurt her? Me? It’s you!
You hurt her. You all hurt her.” He sweeps his arm in a big arc, calling each one out by name, starting with Waylon.
“You broke her heart when she got up the courage to tell you she had feelings for you, only for you to turn around and hook up with her sister. Which you, Lizzie, should be ashamed about. I can only guess you’ve been jealous of her your whole life, which is why you’ve made it your mission to constantly wear her down. ”
Lizzie glares slack-jawed, her cell phone put away for once. “I am not jealous.”
“Well, you sure as shit act like it. And hitting on me at your great-grandmother’s wake is just really embarrassing.”
“Elizabeth,” Mom chides, which sets Nico off on her.
“And you, Tonya. What have you done every time Lizzie has purposely hurt Jo? What have you done to make it up to Jo every time you put Lizzie above her? Every time you showed Jo she wasn’t as important as Miss Teen West Virginia over there?
How have you made it up to her, because from where I stand, you never did. ”
“Hey, fucker.” Danny barrels off the porch, fist clenched. “Don’t speak to my mother that way.”
But before my brother can take a swing, Nico does, popping him in the jaw, sending him back a few paces. Mom shrieks as Mamaw drops her wine, the glass shattering.
May as well have been my heart for how Nico points his finger at Danny, practically frothing at the mouth. “That’s for calling her Bucky Beaver her entire life. Come at me again, it’ll be for being a shit brother and bullying your own sister.”
Dad holds Danny back from attacking again, but Nico has words for him too.
“My dad died when I was twelve. He wasn’t at all interested in knowing me as a person, didn’t care what I did.
I was basically a prop to him. It was that way for both of my parents, and I can tell you from experience, my life has been better without them in it.
Jo’s still here. She’s still giving you a chance.
She’s giving all of you a chance, but I wouldn’t blame her if she gave up completely. In fact, I think she should.”
Mamaw takes a few steps forward, indignant. “That’s not very nice, Nico. I thought you were a good boy.”
Nico snorts. “One quick Google search will tell you I’m not, but even I know not to touch anyone without their consent. So keep your hands to yourself from now on. It’s not cute, especially for an eighty-five-year-old.”
“I am seventy-seven.”
He lifts a careless shoulder. “Coulda fooled me.”
She gasps. Out of everything, that’s what she’s most offended by, being mistaken for being “old.”
“I cannot believe this,” Mom says. “Never in my life have I been talked to like this.”
Nico flicks off an imaginary piece of lint from his coat as if he didn’t just take every single one of them down. “It’s a few years too late, in my opinion.”
Mom glowers at him. “Thank god whatever this is isn’t real.”
“It is real.” He turns to me. “Tell them. Tell them how much I love you.”
I do. I know he loves me. And I love him.
But the words are all jumbled up in my brain. My limbs feeling as if they are full of concrete, my mouth completely detached from my mind.
And my heart…
My heart is broken.
“Jo.” The single syllable from Nico contains so many words, entire dictionaries. And all of them heartrending.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, then step forward to face my family. “But we are not engaged.”
“Fucking ridiculous,” Danny spits, and Dad slaps him upside the head.
“Watch your mouth.”
“I never meant to involve Nico in this. He only is because he walked into my hospital room that day to visit me. He accidentally knocked me out with a puck, and he came to apologize.”
“You can’t be serious right now.” Waylon throws up his hands. “He knocked you out, and you let him hang around?”
“It was an accident, and he has more than made up for it.”
“By pretending to want to marry you,” Lizzie says with a smug, victorious laugh.
“But you told me you were engaged in the summer,” Mom chimes in. “You’ve been lying to me that whole time?”
I nod. “I was never even dating anyone. I only told you so because you wouldn’t leave me alone about it. You treat me as if I’m nothing without a boyfriend.”
“That’s not—”
“It is, Mom. You’ve always made me feel like my only purpose in life was to get a boyfriend.
Marry and have kids, but how can I find anyone when you’re constantly cutting me down?
” I meet all of their eyes, trying to keep my voice from quavering.
“All of you cut me down. Day after day, you bullied me, and if you didn’t outright pick on me or call me names or make me think I was worthless, you didn’t stand up for me.
You didn’t tell anyone to back off. You let it go, told me it was a joke.
Told me I needed to simply keep my chin up, but how can I keep my chin up when everyone in this town calls me names? ”
Mom sighs like I’m being dramatic. “No one has bullied you, Josephine.”
It doesn’t hurt. Not anymore. Not when everything is laid so bare. There is nothing left to do. Nothing they can take away from me anymore, when I’ve been stripped of all my dignity.
So I do keep my chin up this time. “No, I’ve only been called Bucky Beaver my whole life by every single one of you.
By the whole town. But I’m sure you didn’t mean anything by it.
You didn’t mean to make fun of me for what I looked like.
You didn’t mean to make me feel worthless with every comment about my photography as my ‘little hobby.’ You didn’t mean to make me feel ashamed for being born into this body every time you told me to cover it up.
You didn’t mean to make me feel insignificant every time you let my siblings make fun of me relentlessly until I wished I wasn’t a part of this family.
Until I wished I wasn’t a part of this world anymore and considered what it would be like if I simply downed a bottle of pills to make it easier on everyone.
On me and all of you. It seemed like you would be happier if I weren’t around anymore. ”
The family stares blankly at me. I’m not sure if any of this registers.
If they even care, but I go on. “My whole life, I was the butt of every joke. I hated myself for a long time, and finally—finally—I find my place in the world and have started to be confident, but I can’t even have that, can I?
Because anything outside of this town is terrible.
Me living on my own is unacceptable. Being single, what a nightmare!
So, yes, I made up a story, so you would leave me alone to live my life.
But I can’t do that. I can’t ever be happy living my life, because none of you will let me.
None of you will ever let me live Bucky Beaver down, so I guess…
congratulations. You win. You did it. You’ve officially crushed Josephine Atkins. ”
Truly, there is nothing left.
Merely a shell of a person.
Bucky Beaver.
I wipe at my eyes to clear them and plaster on a placid face, the one I’ve perfected through the years, pretending I’m not dying inside.
Then I push past them to walk back into the house.
I hear all hell break loose behind me, people shouting my name and arguing with each other, but it’s all white noise. All except Nico, calling my name.
I don’t answer or turn around. I need to get out. I need to get away. From all of them, but him especially.
With my rental keys in hand, I bypass the whispers of my name by strangers around me, the threats to Nico from my brother, and Mamaw asking for more wine. I ignore it all and run out of the house, intent on escaping.
But I recognize the quick footfalls behind me, the soft pants. “Don’t run. Please, Jo, don’t leave. I love you.”
I break away from his loose hold of my elbow. “No! Don’t. Don’t say that to me. Not right now.”
“I have to.” His cheeks are flushed from the cold, but his eyes are red with tears. For me or him, I don’t know.
And it makes this all so much harder. “Please don’t do this.”
“I have to. We gotta have this out, Jo.”
I shake my head, each breath rougher than the last until I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. Like I’m being buried alive. “I can’t. I…can’t.”
When he tries to pull me toward him, I jerk back so fast, I fall backward to the pavement. Scrambling to get up and away from him and this crushing feeling, I hit his hand away. “Please, you need to leave.”
“No. I’m not going to leave you. Not now, not ever.”
Finally standing, I use my coat sleeve to wipe away the tears, snot, and spit from my face, no longer afraid of being degraded. I cannot go any lower. “Just leave, please. Go to your game.”
He takes a step to follow me when I cross the street, but I point at him with one last plea. “Please, Nico. Do not follow me. I need time. Go home.”
Whatever he sees in my face keeps him locked in his place, and I rush to my car, so on edge that I unthinkingly try to put it in drive before I’ve even started the engine, but I get it together enough to pull away from the curb.
With Nico in my rearview mirror.