Chapter 20
twenty
CHRISTY
I’d worn my arms out over the last two weeks, but I’d finally conquered the rings.
Holden had texted me every day, begging my forgiveness.
And he’d even offered to skip the competitive heat and run the open heat with me.
But I didn’t know if that’s what I wanted.
I wasn’t even sure I wanted to run the race.
But I wasn’t a quitter. I was raised to see things through.
If I’d taken Knox up on his offer to meet up during the day, when the rest of the group wasn’t there, I might’ve gotten it faster.
I also might’ve gotten myself scandalized by a very large, tattooed firefighter whose gaze said he had a thousand ideas of what we could do in those woods when no one was around.
So no. It was Lemon, of all people, who’d helped me figure things out.
I’d been killing my momentum, by letting go too soon.
I needed to let myself get as far back in my swing as I could before letting go with one hand and reaching for the next ring.
Honestly, it was a leap of faith the first time I’d done it, convinced I was going to fall. But then when it worked and I realized I was swinging like a monkey, a fire had lit under me. I had no idea how I’d do in the race but I knew I could do those dang rings. And they were really fun.
I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel of my truck, pondering the race as I tried to get up the nerve to walk inside the high school.
The school board had let me know that morning that I was allowed back inside, finally.
Still not allowed to coach or work. But come inside, yes.
And twenty-five of the Lady Stallions had texted today asking if I was coming to the big game tonight.
The only one who hadn’t was Mari and that’s because she didn’t have a phone yet. Her parents said she had to be sixteen.
They said it was all over school that I was allowed back in. And it was their last game of the regular season. Ming specifically said she needed her coach to be there for her last game, ever. Maybe. Unless they won and went to the Riverbend District playoffs. How could I turn that down?
But the school board was also meeting tonight, in the auditorium, to discuss my fate. Silas was invited to come. I was not. But I was allowed to write a letter of explanation, which I’d given to Silas a few hours ago.
The school loomed in front of me and it almost felt like if I stepped inside, I’d jinx everyone. Me and the girls. My luck had not been favorable since moving to this place. Or maybe I was just the unlucky type.
My phone rang and I let out a breath before answering. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, Christianna. Your father and I just wanted to wish you good luck tonight,” she said, a sadness in her voice. “You’re on speaker.”
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, darling. How’re you holding up?”
A small exhale. “I don’t know. Okay, I guess.”
“I don’t know why you don’t just pack up and come home,” Mom said. “No one here would treat you the way they have?”
I rolled my eyes. “I got caught on camera, making out with a shirtless man on top of my desk in my office. Laramie probably would’ve reacted much worse.”
Mom huffed. “Do you really have to put it like that?”
“Like what? Plainly and truthfully? I’m not going to make excuses for what I did. It is what it is.”
“Well. I still think it’s abominable that Silas was made—”
“How’re the cows, Dad?” Rude? Maybe. But I didn’t want to argue about how Silas was principal now. Honestly, Silas was ridiculously proficient at administration. And from what Mrs. Ross had told me, he was killing it.
While my dad went on a tangent about cattle prices, water rights, and the drought they’d been in for the past two years, I massaged my temples.
“Dallen,” Mom interrupted. “She doesn’t actually care.
She just gets you off on a tangent so she can say she ‘did her time’ on the phone, and then hop off without telling us anything that’s really going on.
You fall for it every time.” I heard her smack him with something.
A magazine or a newspaper, I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t like it.
“Mom. Be nice to him. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” But my blood was simmering a bit. Yes, I did those things, but only to keep my nerves from exploding every time she called.
“Whatever I want to know?” she asked, disbelief dripping in her tone. “Fine. Did you know Holden was fired from his job in DC and that’s why he’s in Seddledowne?”
I exhaled through my nose. “Yes, I knew right after it happened. But how do you know that?”
“Ari told us. But why didn’t you tell us?” she whined.
My fingers gripped the steering wheel. “And how did Ari find out?”
“On Giggle.”
A snort escaped but I was too mad to laugh. “You mean, Google?”
“She’s right,” Dad said. “It’s Google. Not Giggle.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mom huffed. “The point is that Christy is dating an unemployed man.”
My chest tightened. “So little miss nosey butt Ari decided she’s suddenly a detective?”
“Honey,” Dad said in a calm voice. “She was just on edge because Holden made her—”
“Shhhh,” Mom said in a deafening whisper. “She’s not supposed to know he called.”
My hand flew out, and I sat up, ramrod straight. “Excuse me, what? Holden called you guys?”
Mom whacked him again. “See what you did now?”
“Mom, if you don’t stop hitting Dad I’m hanging up. Did Holden call you guys?”
“Yes,” was all she said.
“When?”
“The other day,” she said barely loud enough for me to hear.
“Be more specific.” I was losing it with the teeth pulling. The game was about to start.
“Sunday, honey,” Dad admitted. “A couple of hours after Ari announced on that Facebook website that she was naming the baby Madeleine Rose.”
Two days ago. Which was twelve days after I’d shoved him off the mini-cliff. This was becoming more of a head scratcher the further it went.
“Why did he call?” was my next question.
“Well.” Mom started. “He had several things to say.”
I rolled my wrist, willing her to speed up. “Such as?”
“I can’t,” Mom said in her prissy voice. The one she got whenever someone found a dead mouse in the basement and she refused to be the one to remove it. “I will not repeat his words.”
My brow crinkled. What on earth? “Spill it. My girls are about to play. I want every word, verbatim.”
A couple of seconds of undecipherable hissing back and forth and then Dad started, “Basically, he said three things. First, that it was bullcrap—only he didn’t use that word—the way we handled things when Rowan and Gabby got together.
And that you should’ve been allowed to come home early and whatever the hell else you wanted.
” Mom hissed something in the background.
Dad continued, “I’m sorry but he definitely used the word hell.
I remember that very clearly.” My hand was over my mouth.
“And secondly, to make sure that Ari knew that she could use the name Madeleine Rose if she wanted—because you can’t copyright a name—but if she did, there would be two Madeleine Rose’s in this family whenever you two had your first baby girl.
And he didn’t care if it pissed her off.
And to get over it because she knew that was your name.
And she was just being a jealous…your mom won’t let me repeat that one. ”
My jaw was on the floorboard. “Hold up.” My brain was racing. There were so many things I wanted to pick apart. But first things first. “He said the two of us?”
“Like twenty times. Why is that surprising?” Mom finally spoke.
I’d never told them we broke up. I didn’t want to deal with the fallout.
But why would Holden say all of that like we had some kind of future together?
“Anyway, that man swears like a trucker. Are you sure you want to marry him? You’ll be washing your kid’s mouths out on a daily basis. ”
I never said I wanted to marry him. But her mention of it wasn’t a surprise.
Mom’s brain went straight to marriage no matter who we dated.
Are you sure you really want to marry a future game warden?
You’ll be poor for the rest of your life.
That had been Gabby’s freshman-year boyfriend.
Are you sure you want to marry a guy with the last name Tucker?
That could go wrong in so many ways. Ari’s first boyfriend in seventh grade.
Are you sure you want to marry a boy from Virginia?
That’s so far from Wyoming. She’d said when I first told her about Silas.
“He only swears when he’s really mad,” I said. He said the two of us like twenty times? I was still hung up on that. Had he not heard what I’d said before I walked away? I gazed out the window as people walked into the game. “Okay. What was the third thing?”
“Oh.” Dad chuckled. “The third was him threatening us with our lives if we ever told you that he called and said all those things. I guess we kind of botched that.”
“I’d say.” I smiled for the first time that day. “And what did Ari say when you told her about the baby name?”
Dad laughed loudly. “Oh, well, talk about swearing like a trucker.”
“Is she still using the baby name though?” That’s what really mattered.
“I doubt it,” Mom said. “But Christy, why didn’t you say anything when she told you she was using it?”
Seriously? The way she said it irked me.
Like she was in total shock. Like I was expected to express my feelings in this family.
Had she not paid attention all these years?
“Because, Mom. I’m Christianna. The oldest. The one who bends to what everyone else wants.
I always do the right thing. I always apologize first and bow out of an argument to keep the peace and give up my seat at the table and give up my bed when Grandma visits.
I fold the laundry, do the dishes, drive the youngers to all their lessons and I’m the one who had to get straight A’s.
Even while Gabby and Ari were flunking Biology and Pre-Algebra. ”