20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Then
“You can’t do it.”
Theo looked down at me, one eyebrow cocked in challenge. “I’ve done it before.”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
He stepped off the curb that I was perched on. In his hand was a full black trash bag from inside the store, practically bursting at the seams. The dumpster was across the back parking lot—a good fifteen feet away. “If I make it,” he said, “you let me sneak you out tonight.”
Reflexively, I glanced over my shoulder, making sure the exit door of the store was still closed. It was; we were alone. I tossed the remainder of my Red Vine into my mouth. “If she catches us, I won’t be allowed out of the house until school starts.”
“She won’t catch us,” Theo said.
“Or we could just hang out at a time when nobody will care.”
“What’s fun about that?” he asked, eyes twinkling, and I got that familiar swoop in my stomach. He was right; although I always enjoyed being with him, it was a special kind of thrill to be in a cocoon made up of the two of us, with not a single other person knowing where we were or what we were doing.
Besides, there was no way he would be able to throw that giant bag of trash into the dumpster from where he was standing. I didn’t believe for a second that he’d done it before. Theo was known to have misplaced bravado from time to time. “Alright. Go ahead and try.”
“And if I make it, you’ll sneak out with me tonight?” he clarified.
I leaned back on my hands. “Sure.”
Theo turned back to the dumpster. He squared his shoulders, gripped the bag by the strings, and flung it.
I watched the bag arc through the air as if in slow motion. It caught on the edge of the open dumpster, half in and half out.
We stared at each other. Then I catapulted myself off the curb and started sprinting.
It took Theo a second to catch on. “Hey!” he yelled. His steps pounded on the pavement behind me. “Sass!”
I reached the dumpster first, arm outstretched, reaching for the bag. I managed to snag a corner and was about to yank it to the ground when strong arms closed around my waist.
“Theo!” I shrieked as he picked me up and spun. I wriggled in his grasp, but he held on tight. “Put me down!”
I looked back in time to see Theo use his shoulder to nudge the rest of the bag inside. “I win,” he said. “See you at eleven.”
“This doesn’t count, you cheater!”
“Sure it does. It was mostly in, anyway.”
“That’s what she said,” I muttered, and Theo guffawed.
He set me down but didn’t loosen his grip. The contours of his front—chest, abs, hips —pressed into my back. His familiar scent, pine and just a hint of sweat, surrounded me. “Tonight,” he murmured against the back of my neck, sending goosebumps across my skin, “I’m gonna—"
“Nina Lynn.”
Theo’s arms dropped like stones and we sprung apart. The warm anticipation of the rest of his sentence faded away, replaced with an icy rock in my gut.
It was my mother who stood by the back door, covering us both with a hard glare. As much as I wanted to look at Theo, the ground, or the sky, I knew that failing to make eye contact with my mother would only anger her further. When I met her gaze, I swore I could see how pissed off she was.
“There are three customers browsing right now,” she said tightly. “It takes about ten seconds to put the trash out, Theo.”
“Yes ma’am.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “All done.”
Mom pointed at me, red nails bold against her pale skin. “And your break is over.”
I walked over to her and bent to retrieve my Red Vines. In my haste to beat Theo to the dumpster, about half of them had tumbled from the package. I scooped them up hurriedly and made to throw them away, but another glance at Mom’s face told me that heading back in Theo’s direction was not a wise idea.
“I’ll get on the register,” I said.
Mom stepped in front of me, blocking the door. “Actually, I’m headed out. You’re coming home with me.”
“But I have two hours left in my shift,” I said, startled. Usually when my parents were upset with me, that meant more time at the store—not less.
“Theo can handle it,” Mom said. For the first time since she emerged, she relieved me of her piercing gaze, settling it on him instead. “Can’t you?”
“Yes ma’am,” he said again. Part of me wished he would stand up to her the way he stood up to my father, but I knew that he was being deferential for my sake. While my dad might have been quick to anger, he was also quick to move on. Mom played a longer game.
“Thank you, Theo.” Her voice dripped with acid. She pulled open the door and held it for me. “Come on. And for god's sake, throw that candy away."
***
On the ride home, I refused to be the first to speak. It took a full five minutes for Mom to clear her throat, and I felt a surge of satisfaction at my minor victory.
“You cannot go down this road,” she said at last, and I was surprised to hear that her hard tone had dissipated. If I didn’t know better—and I did—I would have said that she almost sounded concerned.
“We were just messing around.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, unconvinced.
I didn't say anything, deciding that silence was my best option.
“I’ve always worried this might happen,” she continued. “Ever since you were little. I should have stepped in sooner.”
“We’re friends,” I insisted. “Like we always have been.”
“Whatever you were doing out behind the store sure didn’t look very friendly,” she snipped.
“Well, it was.”
We rolled to a stop at an intersection. I stared down at my thighs that were beginning to tan from the summer sun. Theo had kissed one of them the other day, just a quick smack while we reclined beneath a tree out by the pond, his head in my lap. Just the memory ignited that heat in my belly that was still new, but becoming more familiar by the day. I wished I were back there with him. Anywhere with him.
The only sound in the car was the ticking of the turn signal as Mom yielded to a red sedan. She liked to leave a lot of space between herself and other cars—one fender bender a decade earlier had made her permanently cautious—so she waited until it was halfway down the next block before following.
“You’ve seen your father and I struggle,” she said. “Theo’s parents, too. If they want to let him go down that same path, then that’s their choice. But I don’t want that for you.”
“What about Brock?” I asked. “You don’t want better for him?”
“Of course I do. He’ll get there. He has a job outside of the store. Theo doesn’t.”
I stared out the windshield, watching the leafy green trees pass by. “Theo and I like the store,” I said, my voice soft. Meek. In the same way Theo made me feel like I could do anything, nobody humbled me like my mother. “We’ve thought about—maybe—taking over someday, once you all retire.”
Mom gave a derisive snort. “When we retire? How do you suppose we’ll manage that?”
“I don’t know,” I said dumbly. “Social security?”
She shook her head. “Do you even know how social security works?"
I thought I did, but I wasn't confident enough to answer.
"It's based on how much you pay in," she told me. "it's a percentage of our profits—so, lately, not much at all. Not that the store will be around long enough to get us to retirement, anyway.”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She sat rigid in her seat, hands tight on the steering wheel. Bringing up my transgressions right now was risky, but the need to know won out. “Do you know about the rent?” I asked slowly, as if trying to get the words past a land mine.
“You mean the rent going up because of you and Theo? Yes, I do. Honestly, Nina, you should know what a bad state we’re in, since you’ve made yourself part of the problem.”
I decided then that it was in my best interest to keep my mouth shut, and I did so for the rest of the way home. By the time Mom pulled into our driveway, my seatbelt was off and I was ready to flee for my bedroom.
But after she cut the engine and used the remote to close the door, she didn’t budge. And from experience, I knew that meant I shouldn’t, either.
“Look,” she said finally, and the accusatory tone was gone from her voice. She sounded…tired. Maybe even a little vulnerable. “We never planned for things to be this way. The shoe store was supposed to be a starting point. We imagined expanding, selling other products, investing in properties.” Mom laughed without humor. “We thought that eventually we would own our storefront, and the ones around it. And here we are, getting the rent driven up instead.”
Things were beginning to click into place for me. My parents' discontent with their situation, with each other—even before the store started struggling—made so much more sense. They didn't want to live a simple life running a small business. They wanted to be big fish in a small pond.
Essentially, they wanted to be the new Reddings.
“Brock will do fine in construction,” she continued. “It pays well. He won’t live in that apartment forever. But if Theo’s only plan is to stick around the store, then that’s not a plan at all.”
“He’s thinking about other things, too,” I said defensively. “He just graduated, Mom. Let him figure it out.”
“As far as I’m concerned, he’s not my child, so I don’t care what he does. But you are , and I’m not going to let him drag you along while he ‘figures it out.’”
I should have doubled down on my insistence that we were nothing more than friends. Instead, I felt a surge of anger at her air quotes, her mocking tone, her complete refusal to see how important Theo was to me. “Nobody’s talking about getting married.”
“You will be soon enough,” she countered. “I’ve been trying to tell Randi for years that you and Theo are too close. Too codependent. She’s been no help; she thinks it’s cute. If you aren't careful, you’ll never be able to untangle yourself from him.”
I looked at my hands, folded in my lap. I thought about being literally tangled up with Theo after we made out in his bedroom the other day: his legs twisted around mine, heart pounding beneath my cheek, his warm laugh washing over my neck. Feeling safe and free and, when his parents arrived home and I got to jump off the windowsill and into his waiting arms, exhilarated. “Would that really be a bad thing?” I nearly whispered.
“Yes,” Mom snapped. “My god, Nina, I’m trying to help you see this now , when you can still do something about it. You certainly won’t be able to in five years, when you’re married and pregnant and living off whatever scraps he manages to bring home.”
“And that’s what happened to you, right?” Her eyes widened, but I plowed forward with the extremely questionable choice of vocalizing the math I’d done some time ago: the fact that Brock was an eight-pound baby born six months after my parents’ wedding. “You got pregnant, so you were stuck with Dad?”
Mom’s nostrils flared. In my entire life, she had never raised a hand to me. But for about half a second, I thought she might.
Instead, she pushed the button to unlock my door. “Nina Lynn Sullivan,” she said, low and dangerous, “go to your room.”