Chapter 34
Eli
I was blasting a local country station while driving through Albuquerque when I got the call. My halfway point to frigging nowhere, Texas. But I didn’t wanna be in New Mexico. Or Texas. Or anywhere Ava wasn’t.
Nothing but a sad sap, stuck in a country song. I unpeeled another Reese’s and tossed the wrapper into the footwell with the others. I hated how the wind blew my hair everywhere. Hated all the hats for sale at the truck stops.
I hate this damn music!
I punched off the radio, but the silence was worse.
My fingers choked the steering wheel. I’d left a mess, and something didn’t sit right about Luke’s mom’s call. His mom never called. Not once in the whole time Luke worked the ranch.
Frigging-A.
I veered off the exit and flipped around, catching I40 west.
Six hours later, I was driving past remodeled houses with big trees, fancy paver driveways, and three-car garages. My butt ached from sitting, the road vibrations scrambled my brain, and I had no idea what to do when I got to Luke’s place.
I stopped in front of a gray house with a yellow door that screamed 2.5 kids and a dog. In the cupholder, my phone rattled.
Ava.
All I wanted was to hear her voice, even to chew me out for leaving without a goodbye.
Anything she could dish I’d already thought, or worse.
But the best I could do was to stay out of her way and stop giving her more to think about.
I let her call go to voicemail as I threw my truck into park, and stared out the passenger window.
Luke’s house wasn’t what I expected. But I knew a perfect exterior meant squat. Mom’s cancer didn’t care that we had clean shutters. Just like depression couldn’t be redirected with a fancy leaf-shaped downspout. I hopped out of my truck and walked up a slate stone path.
The front door opened before I could knock, and Luke’s mom rushed out, shutting it behind her. “Eli, thank you so much for coming. I didn’t know who else to call.” Her voice leaked hope like a broken pipe.
“No problem. What’s going on?”
She shook a prescription bottle of Percocet. It rattled like it had maybe three pills left. “I take these for my back, and last week this was full.”
I frowned. “You think it was Luke?”
She nodded.
A shadow in the front window caught my eye, but I pretended not to see it. “Did you ask him about it?”
“Yes. He started shouting all kinds of horrible things, then locked himself in his room.”
“What kind of things?”
“That he hated it here, and he wished he were dead.” Her lip quivered, and words started rushing out of her.
“I just … I don’t know what to do. My husband doesn’t have the patience for this kind of behavior.
Luke’s been in there all day. He hasn’t eaten, I don’t think he’s even come out to go to the bathroom, and now he’s not even responding when I go to check on him.
I don’t know if he’s okay. Or what he’s got in there.
His music is too loud to hear anything–”
“Okay. Okay, slow down. We’ll figure this out.” I scratched at my stubble while she caught her breath.
It was pretty clear the ranch plan had failed, and chances were, nothing I could say would make a difference. She’d be better off sending him to an actual program. But he’d think he was being offloaded onto someone else. “Let me see if he’ll speak to me.”
She did one of those baseball bobble-head nods. “Thank you.”
I followed her into a tidy house. Past a spotless living room, and around a giant rug scored with vacuum lines. I could just imagine the woman trailing behind her son to catch the dirt when he came home from the ranch.
We stopped at a white door that matched all the others; no band posters or handwritten “stay out” signs.
I didn’t expect much, but I knocked, anyway. “Luke?”
The reply through the door was a definite, “Fuck off.”
I ticked my head toward the front of the house, suggesting Luke’s mom step away. After eying me, then the door, she zipped off, and seconds later, the hum of her vacuum bounced down the hallway.
I knocked again. “Luke, I can’t hear anything. Your mom’s vacuuming. Can I come in?”
No response.
“Eventually, you’re gonna have to come out.” I couldn’t break down a stranger’s door. And barging in would only roadkill the kid’s trust. “Come on, man, talk to me.”
But did he trust me? Maybe I was being delusional. My hand reached for the hat I’d left behind. Where did I go wrong? I’d failed everyone. Luke, Dad, Ava. Mom.
Popping pills? Right under my nose? I leaned into the door. “Hey, Luke?”
“What do you want?” It swung open to the scowling teen. He wore his usual black, plus all the piercings, but something about him looked different.
“I want you to talk to me.”
“No.”
“Fine. You wanna talk at me?”
He scoffed. “How’s that different?”
“I just shut up and listen.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why? So, you can tell my mom? Fuck you.”
Come on, Eli. Fix this. What set him off? “What’s with all the cussing?”
He crossed his arms. “What’s with all the shit in your truck?”
He saw that? Of course, he did. I’d parked right in front of the house. My whole life sat in the bed of my truck. I linked my fingers behind my neck. “I need to go to Texas. For a job.”
“Bullshit. You said you’d be here all summer.”
“It was a last-minute thing.”
His face fell flat. “You’re so fucking full of it.”
My arms folded over my chest. “Excuse me?”
“You always tell me to go home and sleep on shit.”
“I did sleep on it.” Or at least, I tried to. “This isn’t the same thing. I’m an adult. I don’t live with my dad anymore.”
“Yeah. You don’t live anywhere.”
Ouch.
“I fucking hate it here,” he said, “but I stayed.”
I was losing an argument to someone half my age. Worse, he had a point. “Look, you gotta finish school. Plus, you can’t get an apartment as a minor.”
“Why did I fucking listen to you? You’re such a hypocrite. You have one fight with your girlfriend, and you run away.”
“That’s not–Ava’s not my girlfriend.” And it wasn’t even a fight, because I couldn’t argue against the truth. “Wait, how did you know about that?”
“The little kid told me.”
“When?”
“This morning, when I showed up, and you didn’t.” I could hear the hurt.
Shit. My fingers raked through my hair, then I remembered how Steven did that at the hospital, and I shoved my hands into my pockets. Luke found out from Nina?
“So, it is ‘cause she dumped you?” he said.
“No.” Not technically.
“Is it because you hate your dad?”
“No.”
“So, what? You got tired of checking on me?”
“No! Of course not.” Then I did the thing Dad used to do–the chin dip and the stare down. “Do I need to check on you?”
That made him pause. “Whatever. Just fucking go. I don’t care.”
I don’t care. The biggest load of crap ever spoken. When people said that you doubled down. “What’s going on? You promised you’d stay out of trouble if I gave you a job.”
“Yeah, well, you’re leaving, so …”
Damnit. I’d been so fired up about Ava, I wasn’t even thinking.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll go be someone else’s problem.”
“Luke.” No. “That’s not–you’re not a problem.”
That’s when I realized why he looked different.
Not once in the conversation did he flip his hair out of his face.
Shoulders hunched, arms crossed–he was shrinking.
Last time he’d been that small, I'd caught him sneaking out of a Circle K with booze under his sweatshirt. That was the day I met him. All those hours on the ranch, and we ended right where we’d started.
He thought everyone was better off without him.
Suddenly, I saw my younger self staring back at me, and I laughed.
This kid had my number in more ways than I wanted to admit.
He tried to slam the door in my face, but I sliced a hand into the jamb.
The temporary pain mattered so much less than proving to this kid that he mattered.
The effort spent helping him didn’t take away from my life or anyone else’s.
I thought back to what Dad said. It was true, having a worthwhile purpose pushed me through the daily grind when everything else hit the fan.
Ava called it a youth program. Maybe I missed how great the ranch was before she showed up, but Luke didn’t. He found a place he wanted to be. How could I take that from him?
The vacuuming stopped. Great. Just in time to overhear my confession. But I’d do it anyway. Luke needed an outlet. A place where he could get messy. Somewhere without grades and judgment.
I shook out my throbbing hand. “You’re right. I’m a hypocrite. This is about Ava. She has me in so many knots I can’t think straight.” Luke rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t shutting the door on me anymore. “It’s messing with me. But I’m doing my best.”
After a long pause, he said. “I'm sorta into Marley.”
I held back a laugh. Duh. “Did something happen?”
“We, uh …” His face turned candy apple red.
“You made out with her in the tack room?”
“What? How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess.” Why else would Marly go down to the stables in the mornings? I didn’t say anything because I’d figured they’d do it anyway.
“I thought she liked me,” he said. “But she got all weird.”
“Is that why you started stealing your mom’s pills?”
He shrugged. At least he admitted it.
“Girls are brutal,” I told him. “I don’t need more. I need less.” The truth of it split my chest in half. “Ava yeeted me, too.”
“No.” Luke shook his head. “Nobody says that. Never say that again.”
“What? Why? Isn’t that the slang?”
“You didn’t even use it right!”
“My bad.”
Luke shook his hair out of his face. Finally, we were getting somewhere. “Girls suck.”
I blew out a breath. “Yeah.” I would’ve stayed for her. Woulda done a whole lot more–fences, welcome mats, and good school districts. I scrubbed my hands down my face. “Luke, you’re not some problem I have to deal with. I like having you at the ranch.”