Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
CALEB
The highway stretches ahead, road markers like a countdown timer.
Four hours to East Texas.
Four hours until I lose her.
My hands grip the steering wheel at nine and three—perfect form, like always—but my knuckles are bone-white.
I check the rearview mirror. Again. Nothing’s changed in the thirty seconds since I last looked, except maybe the tightness in my jaw has gotten worse.
Check the speedometer: 67 mph. Two over the limit. Adjust to 65. Exactly.
Check the rearview mirror again.
Check the side mirrors. Both of them. Left, then right.
Check the gas gauge: three-quarters full. Good for another 150 miles or so. Selbyville is 240 miles, so I’ll have to make sure to watch it.
Check the time: 7:34 a.m.
Check Harper in my peripheral vision: still quiet, still staring out the window.
Nothing’s changed in the thirty seconds since I last looked, except maybe the tightness in my jaw has gotten worse.
Harper’s curled in the passenger seat, feet tucked under her, staring out the window at the endless Texas scrubland rolling past. She’s been quiet since we left. Too quiet.
I should say something to break the tension. Is this tension? Is she rethinking last night and what she said to me? What I said to her?
Every potential conversation starter dies in my throat because they all lead to the same place: Why the fuck am I driving the girl I love to go marry someone else?
“So, like, this is weird,” Harper finally says.
A laugh escapes me—genuine but edged with something darker. “It’s not weird.”
She turns to look at me, and I catch the movement in my peripheral vision. “You texted them, didn’t you?”
There’s a suspicion in her voice. Like she’s already shoring up the distance between us, brick by brick.
I tip my phone toward her, showing the text I sent Mom and Silas this morning.
CALEB: Harper and I are taking off early for a day at the lake with the other seniors. Be back late. Love u
Rule #2: Don’t lie to Mom.
Rule #7: Don’t disappoint Mom.
Rule #156: Be honest and transparent.
Three major rules broken in one text message. Plus, if Silas checks Harper’s phone tracker, it’s not like it’ll show we’re at the lake. I disabled it this morning before we left.
“A lie? Boy Scout!” Her eyebrows shoot up. “They’re going to start deducting merit badges. Doesn’t that break one of your precious rules?”
So, so many. If only she knew.
I shake my head but can’t help a smirk. “I was never a Boy Scout, you know.”
“What?” She kicks her heels up on the dash and shoves a Cool Ranch Dorito in her mouth. “Why the hell not? You’d be a scout master’s wet dream.” She waggles her eyebrows.
She’s joking, but the question lands somewhere deep. “I don’t know. I guess when I would’ve been the age to start those things, Mom and I were...”
I glance over. Harper’s watching me, another chip hovering midair. Waiting.
“Eat your chip,” I laugh, but then I add, quieter, “I guess I never really told you about this part of my life.”
“Fuck. Sorry. It’s okay if you don’t want to—I’m not trying to pry.”
“No, I want you to know.” The words come out more intense than I intend. “I want you to know me. All of me.”
Before I lose the chance.
Silence. Then I force myself to continue.
“Mom and I weren’t always... I mean, I’ve always gone to a fancy prep school, but we weren’t always rich.”
Harper’s feet drop back down to the floor. The chip disappears back into the bag. “Yeah? So, were you like, on a scholarship like Marie when you were younger?”
I shake my head, swallow. “My dad paid for it.”
“You never talk about your dad,” she says quietly.
“Because he’s not worth talking about.” I swallow, teeth gritting involuntarily, and yep, my jaw’s going to be sore as fuck by the end of the day. “Not because there’s nothing to say.”
“Did he and your mom get divorced?”
“They were never married.” My knuckles tighten even more on the steering wheel.
Nine and three. Check position. Still perfect.
Check mirrors. Rearview, left side, right side.
Check speedometer: 64 mph. One under. Adjust to 65.
“Oh. Well, that’s not a big deal,” Harper quickly assures. “I mean... It’s more common lately for people not to get married, even when they’ve got kids together.”
My jaw clenches. Unclenches. Clenches again.
“Oh, he was married.” The bitterness in my voice startles even me. “Just not to Mom.”
“Shut the front door.” Harper sits up straighter. “The bastard was already married? Did your mom know?”
“Not until after she was pregnant with me.”
“Shit, I can’t even imagine. Helen’s so...”
I smirk, but there’s no humor in it. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“She’s just got such homemaker vibes.” Harper still sounds so surprised, it’s a little funny.
“Well, once upon a time, she was just a nineteen-year-old sophomore at Harvard when she fell in love with a visiting professor. And she only found out she was married after she was pregnant and dropped out of school and moved to Dallas to be with him.”
“Fuuuuuuuuuuck.” Harper draws the word out, long and low. “That’s intense. But she still...” She pauses, apprehensive. “She decided to keep the baby. Obviously.”
I let out a long breath, stare hard at the pavement. “It’s fucking weird. Wishing your mom had aborted you.”
Harper goes completely still.
“She didn’t want a kid,” I say, voice flat. Clinical. Like I’m presenting facts for debate team. “She was only a year and a half into her degree at Harvard. On scholarship.”
Mile marker 247 blurs past.
“I mean, I literally ruined her life.”
“Caleb.” Harper’s hand shoots out and squeezes my thigh. The touch electrifies every nerve ending, even through my jeans. “Caleb, that’s not true. Your mom loves you.”
I nod, stiff. “I know. I know she does. She said she’d make the same decision, no matter how many times she had to do it over. I just...” I shake my head, gutted the same way I am every time I think about it. “It’s not fair. Her future was so fucking bright. And that bastard basically groomed her.”
“Jesus, I will fucking kill Silas if it turns out he’s scamming her after all,” Harper mutters.
“You’ll have to get in line.” But I love her even more for the fierce protectiveness. For caring about Mom.
“What about your dad?” she asks. “Did he just nope out of the picture at some point, or what? I mean, clearly he still paid for your school and stuff, but...”
“They kept seeing each other.” Each word costs me. “He paid for an apartment for my mom to stay in. Paid for me to go to the best preschools. Then the best starter schools.”
“So even if he’s not that great a guy, he clearly... loves you?”
The bitter scoff escapes before I can stop it. “That bastard doesn’t love anyone besides himself.”
I pause. “I’ve got two half-sisters. Not that I’ve ever met them. But I looked them up once.”
Harper’s confusion is obvious even without looking at her.
“He only ever paid for my upkeep because I was a boy.” My jaw flexes. “A son. To carry on his—I don’t fucking know—legacy? I certainly didn’t take his name. He’s a misogynistic asshole.”
My glare could bore holes through the front windshield.
“He groomed my mom and then trapped her. He would literally just come over, barely even say hi to me, then lock himself in her bedroom.”
“Jesus,” Harper breathes.
“I was too young to really understand what was happening, but it was all I’d ever known. I had no clue about the financial manipulation he was holding over Mom’s head to keep her stuck there. I just knew I was so angry all the time.”
The admission hangs between us.
“I acted out a lot at school. I just had all this emotion, and I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“You? Acted out?” Harper shoots me a smirk. “What about the rules?”
My head tilts. “I didn’t have the rules yet. The rules saved me.”
“How?” Genuine curiosity in her voice. She’s hanging on every word, and it makes my chest ache.
“They helped me gain control over something when I didn’t feel in control of anything. Bit by bit, it felt like I was getting the ground back underneath me. Rule by rule.” I say it slowly, picking through unfamiliar territory.
I’ve never really talked about this to anybody. No one at school would’ve understood. And I never really let people that close anyway. I was too busy with my rules, achieving the next thing, trying to make Mom’s dreams come true... eighteen years too late and only vicariously through me.
But still. It felt like some sort of… I dunno. Righting of a wrong?
“So what changed?” she asks. “If you were never actually a Boy Scout... when did you start being such a goody two-shoes? And how the hell did Helen suddenly get rich and ditch the asshole?”
I uncap the Gatorade from the gas station and take a long swig to buy myself time.
“Well. Mom got cancer. That’s what happened.”
“What?” Harper’s whole body stiffens.
“What?” Louder this time. “Helen had cancer? Why didn’t anybody tell me? What the fuck?”
“Yeah... I guess it never really came up.”
“Never came up?” She throws her hands up. “What the fuck is going on with this family? How does my new stepmom having cancer not come up? Is she okay? Caleb, is she okay?”
God, I hate telling her this. Hate dragging her into the weight of it. “She’s five years in remission.”
“Okay, so that’s good, right?” Harper sounds freaked out but relieved, at least before prodding anxiously, “Right?”
I nod, but my throat’s tight. “Yeah, it’s good. We didn’t know if she would make it at the time. We didn’t catch it until late stage two, almost three. Lung cancer.”
“But Helen doesn’t smoke. Did she smoke?”
“Never lit up once in her life. It just... happens like that sometimes.”
“That’s not fucking fair.”
“Since when is life fair?” The bitterness in my voice is sharp enough to cut.
“Fuck. That sucks.” Harper’s silent for a long moment before demanding, “But she got better?”
“Yeah. It was a total shit time, but she got better. My father left her and withdrew all his financial support.”