Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Scarlett
18 Years Old
Sitting at the dining room table with Colin should have sparked fond memories for Scarlett. Memories of chemistry lessons and early moments in their relationship. But when her mother, sister, uncle, and aunt, with a sleeping Lindy curled into the crook of her elbow, were sitting across from them in the dead of night, it was unpleasant, to say the least. The silence after her uncle got everyone to sit down was so loud, Scarlett was sure she was going to drop dead in front of everyone. Dying would be better than facing the ramifications of her and Colin’s failed attempt to sneak out.
“You want to take it away, Nora? She’s your daughter.” Uncle Marty gestured to his sister, who made a screeching sound with her chair when she scooted out from the table a bit.
“Give me a second. I’m barely awake, Marty,” Nora snapped and ran a heavy hand over her face. Eventually, she looked over to Scarlett’s partner in crime. “Colin Hartrick, I presume?”
“Yes, ma’am. Nice to meet you.” Colin stuck out his hand, but still didn’t make eye contact with her mother. Scarlett covered her face with both hands and peeked between her fingers as her mom and boyfriend traded introductions at the worst possible time.
“I thought you were her chemistry tutor,” Marty grumbled.
“He is,” Scarlett squeaked out.
“Chemistry and statistics. I tutor her every Tuesday and Thursday. She’s been doing really well on her exams. Her grades should reflect that,” Colin said, his hand finding hers under the table and squeezing. If her grades were their one saving grace in this reckoning, she was going to cling to that.
“He’s so helpful!” she pleaded. “Ask me about the laws of thermodynamics.”
“Don’t ask her about that,” Colin butted in. Scarlett turned to glare at him, and he shrugged. “You got that question wrong on the quiz. I was going to go over it again in our next session.”
“It’s safe to assume there won’t be a next session,” Marty said coldly.
“Not necessarily.” Nora shook her head. “They’re right. Scarlett’s grades in those two classes are much better now.”
“Well, he’s clearly not just her tutor, or he wouldn’t be pulling a Romeo in the middle of the night,” Aunt Eden sighed.
Marty pressed his hand down on the table as if to assert his dominance in the conversation. “No one is playing Romeo.” The glare in Colin’s direction made it clear that his statement was directed at a party of one.
“She’s not exactly a child, Uncle Marty,” Harper said. “She’s allowed to have a boyfriend. She’s eighteen.” If there was ever a moment Scarlett wanted to throw her sister a parade in her honor, now was that time.
“He probably means the general sneaking around and breaking the window more than the me being her boyfriend part of it,” Colin said.
“Yes, thank you—no, wait, no thank you!” Marty pointed at Colin aggressively. “You’re the problem here. And none of us even knew you were her boyfriend.”
“I did.” Harper raised her hand.
“I did, too.” Nora nodded.
Scarlett’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t tell you he was my boyfriend!”
“I know my daughter,” Nora said. “I might not have known it was official, but for the last two months your interest in AP Chemistry skyrocketed, and you brought up Colin every possible chance you could. You asked me to re-up your birth control that you barely kept track of before. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“To be fair, hun,” Eden patted Marty on the back, his face stuck in permanent disgust from the birth control comment, “you and Lindy are the only ones who didn’t know.” She smiled down at Lindy, who was still out cold in her arms.
Scarlett groaned. “Oh my God.” Colin was still staring at his lap, but there was a slight smile on his face, and his thumb started to massage the back of her hand.
“Well, that’s just great.” Mary huffed and looked at Scarlett. “You’ve been in my house since you were twelve, and I apparently don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”
“My uncle doesn’t know either, if that helps,” Colin murmured.
“Your uncle?” Marty questioned before his eyes slowly widened. “Colin Hartrick.” He pronounced every syllable like each new sound he formed with his mouth was another lock to unpick.“You’re Cole and Paisley Hartrick’s oldest son.” Scarlett saw the exact moment the realization set in because a sad expression crossed her uncle’s face, and his voice softened. It wasn’t a question anymore. It was a statement, and everyone in the room knew what that meant.
“The very same,” Colin confirmed.
“How long have you been dating Scarlett?” Marty cocked his head.
“One month, one week, three days.” Everyone, including Scarlett, was taken aback by his quick-off-the-tongue calculation. “As of midnight,” Colin added.
“And what were your intentions to come here tonight past midnight?” Marty raised his eyebrows.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Scarlett said quickly. She was somewhat fearful that Colin would straight up tell her uncle that he was planning on taking her up to the woods for sex, which had definitely been the plan before she started her period and got stuck in the bathroom with nausea and the worst cramps imaginable. When she had finally walked back into her room to grab her phone and call the whole thing off, her window shattered all over her bedroom floor. More than anything, it had scared the shit out of her, which in turn woke up the entire house. All their plans had been thwarted by something she could have known was coming if she had paid attention when she was taking her birth control pills.
“Are you okay?” Colin unlaced his hand from hers and placed it on her back, rubbing up and down as she hunched over. She had been trying to suck it up the whole time. The urgency of the situation didn’t seem like the right time to cry out in pain.
“Fine,” Scarlett squeaked out, shutting her eyes for a moment and squinting them hard. At the beginning of the conversation, she really had been fine, but she couldn’t help the new wave of nausea and the tearing feeling inside her that made her think she was either going to shit herself or sweat to death.
“Do you have Midol or something?” Colin asked the room. Scarlett’s head snapped up in surprise. “And water? I’m willing to make a large bet that she hasn’t drunk the amount of water she should have today.” The face Nora made was somewhere between pleased and shocked. Scarlett would be shocked, too, but she had lost track of the number of times Colin had surprised her by just knowing things about her. “My sisters always like heating pads if you have that, too?” And therein lay the explanation for this particular knowledge: his sisters and mother.
“We’ve got all three. I’ll grab them,” Harper offered, quickly moving toward the stairs.
“I think I’m gonna put Lindy back down and go to sleep,” Eden yawned. “Before she wakes up again in two hours.”
“I’m so sorry for waking her up,” Colin said sincerely.
“Sorry,” Scarlett chirped, gripping her middle even harder as another cramp made her entire body shake. She would always forget just how bad they were in the beginning by the time they rolled around again, and this time she had wanted to see Colin so badly that she had missed all the warning signs until it was too late. The underwear Colin liked so much were a casualty of that awful gushing feeling, and she doubted he would think they were sexy now.
“He’s a nice kid, honey. Don’t interrogate him too much,” Eden kissed her husband’s forehead, and off she went. All Scarlett wanted to do was lie curled up next to Colin in bed with his body acting as her personal heating pad. Instead, she knew her bed was covered in glass, and there was no way Marty was going to let Colin stay over.
“Nora? What are you going to do about this?” Marty asked.
“Scarlett and I will figure out a way to pay for the window, and?—”
“I’ll pay for the window,” Colin interrupted. “I broke it, and I can pay to get it fixed. I’ll come by tomorrow, and I’ll clean the glass up myself.”
“Are we supposed to keep this from Walker?” Harper asked, coming back into the kitchen and setting Scarlett’s necessities down. Scarlett took the water glass first and downed the pills while Colin continued talking and unwinding the power cord from around the heating pad.
“I’m not planning on telling him anything. He’s no longer my legal guardian, and he only ever was for less than a year. He’s not my parent. He’s barely old enough to be my little brother’s parent. I’ve been doing my best to help him, not add to his stress, and I went a little too far yesterday trying to help him, so I think it’s best if I just stay out of his business and he stays out of mine” Colin said resolutely. He held up the pronged end of the power cord and looked around for an outlet.
Scarlett pointed to the one behind her chair. With such care it was making her a little dizzy, he plugged in the heating pad, turned it up to the highest setting, and adjusted it across her stomach, pressing a hand on top of it to keep it in place until she pulled her shirt down to hold it there. It was the worst possible time to decide she was in love with someone, but mixed in with the period cramps from hell, the feeling tapped her brain like a fact. It wasn’t sexual in the way she wanted him earlier—with her womb wanting to part like cells during mitosis, sex was the furthest thing from her mind. This was more consuming than that. She wanted to be his. She wanted the number Colin recited earlier of months and weeks and days they had been together to become years that turned into decades of stories shared under a blanket and wrapped up in each other. Memories made while experiencing life together. She wanted every chart they made during their sexual awakening to be her own cheat sheet to his body. She wanted more of this: more of Colin noticing she was in pain and doing something about it. She wanted to hold her hands over his ears like she had done earlier when Eden and Marty couldn’t get Lindy to settle down. She was so sure that her life’s purpose shouldn’t revolve around a man, and yet every second she spent with Colin made her feel like she was special because there was no doubt in her mind that he was.
“This whole thing is my fault anyway,” Scarlett said, finding comfort in Colin’s hand sliding up and down her spine again, his free hand laced in hers once more. “If you want to punish me, that’s fine, but I’d rather be treated as an adult because I am one.”
“Nora?” Marty asked, somewhat resigned.
“I remember being young and in love once,” Nora said, a wistful smile on her face that Scarlett wished weren’t there. Even after everything, her mom held no ill will toward her dad, even though she should. She should hate him for leaving the way Scarlett did. “They’re both adults, and I think whatever decisions or mistakes they make are theirs to make at this point. They’re going to do what they want to do whether we think it’s a good idea or not, and currently the only wrong thing these two have done was accidentally break a window. I’d rather them both know that they have people to confide in instead of people they have to hide things from.”
“But don’t you regret that our parents didn’t stop you from doing things when you were her age?” Marty demanded.
“No.” Nora shrugged. “It wasn’t all bad. Even the bad moments, when I look back at them, weren’t all bad. I got two beautiful daughters and one beautiful angel out of it.” A wistful expression crossed her face, and she reached over to pat Scarlett’s hand. “I’d endure the bad parts all over again for a chance to relive the good parts.”