Chapter 17
When I was twelve, I stood outside on the front stoop of my school’s music portable and waited for my mom to pick me up.
I’d just gotten finished with the final after-school practice before our choir’s Christmas performance of “Silent Night,” and after spending weeks working on my solo, I finally impressed my teacher enough to draw a smile from her cranky face and for her to give me the one and only compliment she’d ever offered.
I remember being so excited to tell my mom and sing my part for her just one more time before the concert the next day.
She’d always given me a hard time about my singing, especially when I kept her up later than I should have rehearsing in bed.
The one-and-a-half-bedroom mobile home that Callie and I shared with her kept us in tight quarters, and with the long hours she worked, she hated being kept up by the “sounds of savage, hungry hyenas.”
That didn’t stop me from humming or whispering my lines so I didn’t forget them.
My old babysitter—Rena Lancaster—loved when I sang for her, but she was only sixteen and had no better taste than I did.
The only difference between us back then had been the four extra years she’d had to differentiate the sound of a dying street cat from a well-pitched voice of an angel.
I was clearly the former, despite my teacher’s minuscule approval.
Still, I had a gut feeling that day that I’d finally impress my mom.
I’d convince her that I wouldn’t embarrass her at the recital and that she’d be so proud of how much I’d accomplished that she’d even record it and send it to Nan, who I knew wasn’t going to make it due to her having her driver’s license suspended after running into one too many light poles.
The after-school bus was long gone by then, and Mom had mentioned that morning that she was going to swing by to pick me up on her way home between jobs. If she couldn’t make it, she’d send our upstairs neighbour on her behalf.
I didn’t have any friends at this school, and I didn’t mind that much because not even Paisley Kepner’s pretty voice could take away her nasty habit of spitting when she chewed gum.
They didn’t wave or say goodbye when, one by one, they were corralled down the steps and toward waiting cars. I waited, and I waited.
I think over an hour had passed by the time Ms. Colson started locking up the portable and noticed me standing there.
My nose was cold, but it had stopped hurting by then.
I was a pro at ignoring the burn in my lips from how many times I’d licked them.
I’d forgotten my ChapStick at home, but then again, I only ever used it for special occasions because I didn’t want to run out again and be reminded of my reputation as the girl with the dry, crusty upper lip.
The gloves on my left hand had a hole between the second and third fingers, so I’d shoved both of them into my pockets and blew on the thin fabric every few minutes to try to warm them up.
My music teacher jumped when she saw me before letting out a curse that I knew if I ever repeated it would lead to having a sore, bruised ass.
I tried to hide in the shadows of the overhang, but she just kept staring at me.
Glaring, really, like I was doing something wrong by standing here, waiting for my mom.
“What are you still doing here?” she’d asked, and the wobble that was always in her voice wasn’t there anymore. “Where’s your mom?”
I shrugged at her, too embarrassed to answer.
It wasn’t the first time Mom had been late to pick me up from school.
That’s why I took the bus when even the driver knew I still had to walk another twenty minutes home once I got off at the last stop.
She was too busy to get me, and I knew it wasn’t fair to make a stink about the walk when she was working so hard to pay the bills.
My teacher disappeared inside for a few minutes, and when she came back out, I couldn’t meet her eyes.
I sniffled to try to stop the snot from running, but I wanted to cry so, so badly, and having her looking at me wasn’t helping.
She wasn’t happy when she hauled me to her car and buckled me into the back seat, and she was even angrier when she parked in front of the trailer I directed her to and stared at it with this disgusted sneer.
I all but threw myself out of the car and ran along the rocky front path and up the porch steps without so much as a thank you.
My backpack slapped against me with the force of my steps, and once I pushed open the tiny wooden gate at the top of the porch, I nearly dropped it with the force of my sob.
I tasted the hurt and disappointment, the judgment with every salty drop that got in my mouth.
My key chain I’d made from some string in art class had already begun fraying a few days prior, and when I started digging through my bag and yanked it free of where it had grown sandwiched between my library books, the entire thing fell apart.
It was too much for my twelve-year-old heart to handle.
I held on to the key to the front door and jammed it into the lock with tears and snot running down my face, only to realize the lock had been busted.
The key cut into my palm when I hauled my backpack behind me and stared out past the porch.
I ignored the smell of cigarettes and the snarling voices from the couple who lived in the trailer across the way like I did every day before pushing the door open.
Mom’s singing voice was the angel to my street cat.
I heard it the moment I stepped inside and followed it through the house without bothering to take my dirty shoes off.
She was on the couch when I found her, slung across two cushions with one arm tying the blue band around her upper arm and the other . . .
I looked away when I noticed what she was doing.
It’s what my nan told me to do before instructing that I call her immediately.
Mom never noticed I was at home because she was too busy getting high again.
It was why she hadn’t picked me up, and I’d grown so used to the routine by this point that I knew this meant she’d lost one of her jobs.
The spiral was about to begin, and I needed to get Callie out of there.
She was in our room like she always was because Mom hadn’t enrolled her in school yet, despite her being five already. I knew that meant she’d be behind all the other kids, even though she was smarter than most of the ones in my grade already.
Mom was so out of it by the time I’d packed our things, called Nan, and tugged my sister by the hand outside and to the cab Nan had ordered for us.
We didn’t hear from Mom until after Christmas, and she never once brought up my concert or the one and only solo I ever had before I gave up on singing entirely.
I always say that I grew up fast. It wasn’t a decision I made, but one that was forced on me from . . . I don’t even know what age. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been this way. Focused, controlled, independent.
Letting people help you and see who you are beneath the appearance you give yourself in public?
That’s not something I’ve ever been able to do.
I don’t enjoy being vulnerable. It makes my skin itch and gives the memories I’ve shoved deep, deep down room to escape their cage.
I’ve done everything in my power to remain vigilant with myself all these years, yet it’s Beckett fucking Rourke who’s threatening to mess everything up.
I spaced out on the drive from my place to his, but I’m still aware of the looks he’s giving me.
While he doesn’t let his stray from the road long before he’s staring straight ahead again, he’s still stealing glances every chance he gets.
I don’t know if he’s just curious or if he’s feeling pitiful after getting a full-frontal view of how shitty my night has been.
Either way, it makes me unnerved. On edge.
“If you want to ask if I’m okay, I’d advise you that you don’t,” I tell him.
“How do you know that’s what I’m thinking about? Maybe I’m just curious why you called me tonight when I’m sure you’ve got others who would have come to help.”
“Should I have called someone else? You didn’t have to come. Or answer your phone, for that matter.”
Fuck, I’m being such a bitch.
Glancing across the dark interior of his car, I’m instantly relieved to see that he’s smiling. I let my shoulders drop and my exhale fall heavy. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, Quinn. You’ve had a long night.”
“So have you. It’s almost 4:00 a.m. I should have called someone else. You have a game at eleven.”
Looking out the passenger window, I swear I can see the sky warming up with the tease of sunrise. The sight does nothing to take away my guilt. It magnifies it instead, reminding me that not only am I being rude right now, but I’m also doing so when I should be thanking him a million times over.
I don’t know why I called him. It was a split-second decision that I’ll spend the next week mulling over.
But in all fairness, it’s not like there was anyone else I could have called.
Not someone who would have been able to help me, at least, let alone come running over to make sure everything got taken care of.
“Have a list of my games jotted down somewhere, do you?” he teases.
It’s the exhaustion that has me laughing. That’s got to be it.
“Who are we kidding? You had a thirty-pitch inning yesterday. The comments on the Instagram post the team made said you wouldn’t go out today because you’ll be ‘too tired.’”
He taps a beat on the steering wheel. “Oh? Is that what they said?”
“Mmhmm.”
“And what do you think?”
“Well, you’ll be too tired now.”