38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Now
Saturdays are always the busiest day for the Wilsons, and I’m glad for it. If it were slow, time would be crawling while I wait for my shift to end; instead, my mind is (mostly) too occupied to relive the past twonights in Theo’s bed, and every time I get a second to look at the clock, a nice chunk of time has passed.
Today was also supposed to be the day I married Daniel—something I had completely forgotten until I woke up this morning and saw a text from Brock that said, “Congrats from me and Dad.” I stared at the message for a while, trying to decide how to respond, but I didn’t even know where to start. I gave up. Neither of them had bothered to RSVP either waywhen I sent them invitations; if they wanted me to expend my emotional energy on them, there were opportunities prior to my would-be wedding day.
So, with all of that going on, I’m happy to be distracted at work today, and I’m glad to be going to Wilmington later. Theo dropped me off this morning before heading to his office for a while; when I finally hopped out of the truck after about ten minutes of making out in his front seat, Sage was standing on the sidewalk. Her smug expression let me know that she’d seen everything.
“Do you need my services before we open?” she asked, and cracked up when I responded by hip-checking her.
I’m on the register with four people in line—I've been meaning to ask Judith about the possibility of adding a second register, because this backup is frequent on the weekends—when the bell announces the arrival of a new customer.
“Your total is fifty-six ninety-two,” I tell the woman in front of me, then holler toward the front door, “Good afternoon!”
As I glance up, I realize who has entered the store: Quinton and Theo. Quinton is in uniform; Theo is in the shorts and non-work polo he was wearing when he dropped me off earlier. They’re standing just inside the door, speaking quietly and looking troubled.
My customer finishes paying and leaves. “You can start unloading,” I tell the next person. “I’ll be right back.”
Quinton walks off without acknowledging me as I approach. I come to a stop in front of Theo, feeling my heartrate kick up at his expression. “Hey. My shift isn’t over for another hour.”
“Quinton went to find Sage so she can get on the register,” he tells me, his voice tight. This morning, he fucked me in the shower; when he dropped me off, he was still riding the high. Now all of that is gone, and tension radiates from him.“I don’t know if...I think he should come with us. Just in case.”
“What?” I prop my hands on my hips, confused and started to feel a little panicked. “Come with us where? What the fuck is going on?”
“It’s Kelly,” Theo says quietly, and my stomach drops like a boulder. “She’s at my parents’ house looking for you.”
***
We drive in silence to the Hoyts’ house, all of our earlier buoyancy and excitement gone. Our overnight bags sit in the back, where we put them this morning. I’m not sure what’s about to happen, but I have the sinking feeling that we won’t be going to Wilmington after all.
“Theo,” I say, low and scratchy, as we approach the turn for our old neighborhood.
“Yeah.”
“Today was supposed to be my wedding.”
He inhales deeply, reaching up with one hand to adjust his cap. “Well,” he says flatly, “that might explain it.”
My mother’s car is parked in front of the Hoyts’ house, which ends the remote hope I’d been clinging to that this is just a misunderstanding. We climb out of the truck as Quinton’s police cruiser turns the corner, stopping a couple houses down. The sight of a police car still makes my heart kick, even though I know who it is and why he’s there.
“I’ll text him if we need him,” Theo says under his breath as we walk up to the front door. Our hands brush, and I expect his fingers to twine through mine. They don’t. “Hopefully she’ll just go away.”
I stop on the porch, short of the door. Something is off between us, and I want it fixed before we go inside. “Wait.”
He turns back, his hand on the doorknob. The living room curtains are open, but the sunlight reflecting off the windows prevent me from seeing inside. Our parents could be watching us right now. “What?”
I’m not sure if his tension is coming from the situation—if so, join the club—or if he’s upset with me for some reason. I don’t like the silence we sat in on the way over here; I don’t like how, after weeks of him taking every opportunity to touch me, he pulled his hand away from mine just a minute ago. “I haven’t talked to her,” I say desperately, unwilling to let him believe that I’ve double-crossed him somehow. “I have no idea why she’s here.”
To my relief, Theo’sface softens. He reaches a hand toward me, and I grab on, relaxing a little when I feel his warm touch again.
“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m pissed off because she’s ruining our trip, and this whole thing...it’s a little too familiar.”
“I know,” I echo, and squeeze his hand. “We'll see what she wants, and then we can go."
He glances pointedly at our hands. “You want to go in like this?”
“Yes.”
That gets me a small smile, and a bit of the cloud surrounding us lifts. I drift closer to his side as he pushes the door open, leading me into the house. The living room is empty, but hushed voices in the kitchen come to an abrupt halt when the door swings shut behind us.
My mom appears in the doorway a second later. Randi and Cecil flank her, their eyes wide in apology. Mom takes one look at our joined hands and throws hers in the air. “Oh, of course .”
“Something to say, Kelly?” Theo asks lightly.
She comes out of the kitchen, his parents following right behind. I instinctively step closer to Theo; she rolls her eyes. “I knew this was why you left Daniel. I should have come up here earlier. You should have intervened,” she snaps at Randi and Cecil. “Do you understand what she gave up?”
“I dumped Daniel because he very creepily stalked me with your help, and then put his hands on me,” I tell her.
She lets out an annoyed sigh, like this is such an inconvenience for her . “He said he touched your arm.”
“He left a bruise!” I yell, and Randi puts a hand over her heart. “I know now that I should have ended things with him for a lot of other reasons, but I definitely wasn’t going to stay with someone who hurts me.”
“As you shouldn’t,” Cecil tells me pointedly, and when my mom glares at him, he openly glares back.
“I’m not going back to him,” I tell my mother. “I’m just not. And he doesn’t want me back, either. He’s already shipped my stuff.”
“Shipped it where?”
I don’t say anything, but my eyes involuntarily dart in Theo’s direction, and her face clouds over with understanding. “Oh,” she says. “To your kidnapper’s house.”
“Alright, Kelly,” Cecil cuts in, exasperated. “You told us you wanted to have a serious conversation--”
“I am having a serious conversation!” Her voice goes high with fake concern. “If my daughter doesn’t want to be with someone who hurts her, Theo certainly isn’t a better option.”
Cecil waves a dismissive hand, laughing without humor. “You’re fuckin’ nuts.”
“Hey,” Randi chides him. “How about everybody--”
“I don’t care that he got away with it. She was only seventeen.”
“When you were seventeen, you got pregnant with Brock!” Cecil yells at her, and even Theo looks shocked that he went there. “You know what? Get out. We shouldn’t have even let you inside. You’re not going to stand in my house and disparage my son, who cares about Nina more than anyone on this planet.” He takes a step toward my mom and sticks his finger in her face. “And for the record, nobody cares about your daughter less than you do.”
“Dad.” Theo gets between Cecil, whose face is a shade of red I wouldn’t have thought possible, and my mother, whose face is quickly turning a similar color. “Back off, alright? Let Nina and Kelly talk.”
Cecil lets Theo push him into the living room. Randi stays rooted where she is, looking uncertain. My mother props her hands on her hips. Her face is tightly drawn as she looks me up and down. I imagine what she must be seeing: cheap clothes, chipped nails, the roots of my hair coming in dark.
“Well,” she says finally. “You seem to have made your choice.”
I envision myself on Theo’s balcony, counting the stars. “I want to be here, Mom. At least for now. Is there no part of you that can understand that?”
She studies me for a long moment, her face unreadable. “You know why Walk a Mile closed, don’t you?”
“What?” I ask, taken aback at the abrupt shift in conversation. I glance into the living room, where Theo and Cecil are watching us carefully. Randi is standing near them now, and her palm covers her mouth. I look back at my mom. “Yeah, everyone knows. You drained the store’s account after the Reddings raised the rent. You guys couldn’t pay it.”
“ I drained the account?” My mother presses her palm against her sternum, all wide-eyed innocence. “No, Nina Lynn, I most certainly did not.”
I stare at her, disbelieving, and then look over at the Hoyts. Their expressions have taken on varying degrees of guilt—including Theo’s. Slowly, the pieces come together, and I’m looking directly at him when I say, “It was you ?”
“It was me,” Cecil volunteers with a grimace, like he knows how this is hurting me. “I didn’t come clean to Randi until afterward, and we only told Theo a few years ago.”
“But why?” I ask. It doesn't make sense. “Why would you do that?”
Cecil and Randi exchange a look, and she nods her encouragement. Theo, I notice, is still looking at his feet. I think of Vince at the fireworks tent just a few days ago: you guys probably have a lot to talk about. The loaded looks directed toward Theo. This is what he meant.
“Nina,” Cecil says, his voice soft with apology, “I’m sorry you believed it was Kelly. Theo told me about what you overheard before you ran away, and that you thought it was her. It wasn’t. The business was tanking, and I wanted out. Frank wouldn’t let me. The rent raise was the final straw.” And then, as if my mind wasn’t spinning enough already, he looks back at my mom. “But your mom does know something about the rent.”
Her eyes dilate. “Excuse me?”
“We know you got Rick to raise it,” Randi tells her, and I nearly give myself whiplash snapping my head back around. “Everyone thought it was because of the fight Theo and Vince got into, but it wasn’t.”
“How do you know that?” Mom demands.
“Rick talked after y’all had been gone a few years,” Cecil says simply. “We aren't mad about it. We got out, you got out. Everybody got what they wanted, except Frank.”
“And the kids,” Randi adds, the regret evident in her voice. “We really hurt the kids.”
Theo is trying to catch my eye. I refuse to let him, turning away from all of them as I pace to the front door and back, just to release some of the excess energy building within me. All this time, I’ve blamed my parents for the end of Walk a Mile, and myself by extension. Very recently, I’ve stood in this house and felt guilty about it. I’ve wondered how Randi and Cecil could even stand to be around me.
It makes perfect sense now.
“So, to be clear,” I say, finding my voice, and everyone goes deadly still. “To be clear, everyone in this room has been lying to me.”
Nobody responds.
“Right.” I nod to myself as I pace back to the door that I last entered with Theo—the person I've always trusted more than anybody. Now I just feel betrayed and alone. “Alright.”
“Sass--”
I grab the door, yanking it open so hard it slams against the foyer wall. Randi winces; I don’t apologize. “Don’t,” I tell him, and then the rest of them. “Don’t talk to me. Don’t follow me.”
And then, under my breath as I walk outside, “I don’t need you, anyway.”