Chapter 10
TEN
Hollie
Seventeen years old
The flood lights were off.
Standing on the shadowy porch was my mother—arm in arm with a man who was not my father.
Dad was driving, of course. He was always driving. With six kids in the family, he was practically chained to his semi. The miles he drove week after week to fund us was nothing short of astounding—thousands. Sometimes I’d call him and he’d be in Vermont. Oregon. Or Florida.
Always too far away.
Peering through those blinds, something in me shattered. I blinked over and over, sure I was seeing wrong. Sure I’d fallen asleep at my computer and this was a dream. Maybe that was the first time I stopped trusting myself.
As my brain tried to rationalize, my heart drummed a war beat in my chest. Good, sweet Lynnette Thompson wasn’t capable of cheating.
She couldn’t be. But watching his hands grope her ass, my stomach turned.
My breath fell ragged and my hands began to tremble.
The blinds clinked against the window pane, and my mom suddenly pushed him away.
I let the blinds fall as softly as I could and pulled my fleece blanket up to my chin as she fumbled with the keys outside the front door.
A car door shut, an engine turned. A light popping sound filled the air as he backed out of our driveway—the aged, loose asphalt throwing pebbles under his tires.
My bedroom door stood right off the main foyer. Her heels clipped across our faded hardwood until she poked her head in. She whispered, “Holls? You up?”
I clenched my fist, squeezing the fleece. I willed my breathing to calm, my eyelids to stop fluttering. I faked a sleepy moan and turned my head into the pillow.
Silence.
“Hollie?”
More silence.
Then a long relieved sigh as my door quietly shut.
Certain my beloved family was about to blow to smithereens, I cried myself to sleep.
“Sit down please.” Mom motioned to the couch opposite where her and Dad sat on our faded, floral love seat.
“Can’t.” I swooped my duffle strap over my shoulder and flashed her my car keys. “I’m meeting everyone at the Handlebar.”
“Dance can wait.” Mom’s brown eyes flared at my challenge.
I opened my mouth to talk back, but let it snap shut because of Dad. If he wasn’t there, I would’ve charged out that front door.
I didn’t sit down. My response was sharp. “What?”
Dad chimed in, his soft blue eyes stern. “There’s no need to talk to your mom like that.”
I huffed. There was definitely a need. All things considered, I was being pretty damn nice because I’d seen that business-suit guy five times in the last two months and seen his silver BMW parked around the corner double that many times.
My mediocre grades were plummeting. I was a nervous wreck.
I kept biting my siblings heads off, screaming at them for doing things that made life feel more chaotic.
I hadn’t had a functional conversation with my mother in weeks.
I’d been grounded and had my keys taken away.
But I didn’t know how to act right when a horrible secret strangled me.
I was terrified of what would happen if I told my dad what I saw.
Or told my mother that I knew. What if my family fell apart?
What if three of my siblings went with mom, and three went with dad?
So I bottled it up.
My mind was a prison. And the only thing that made me feel good was dancing.
I danced more hours those last two months than I did the entire previous year.
My feet were blistered and I’d worn down my best pair of tennis shoes, but the minor discomforts acted like a buffer, protecting my heart from the real pain—the horrible truth that I would have to blow the lid on this thing.
I couldn’t keep it buried forever.
I blinked, rolling my tongue in my cheek. “Yes, Mom?” My tone was no better, but they couldn’t pry a respectful tone out of me with pliers and threats of death.
“We have to talk about your attitude. And your grades.” She pressed her lips together, fighting her own rage. “I’m afraid it’s all this time spent dancing.”
“Hollie,” Dad warned. “We’re concerned about you.”
“You don’t need to be,” I bit out. “Dancing is the thing that makes me happy.”
“And that’s a problem,” Mom said. She went on a spiel about responsibilities and blah, blah, blah. I gaped at her. Was she deaf? Could she not hear her hypocrisy? “Life isn’t about doing what makes us happy all the time.”
“It isn’t?” I blurted, staring right at her. “That’s funny, because last I checked, you do whatever makes you happy. So why can’t I?”
Mom’s brow furrowed in confusion as Dad came to her defense. “Hollie, what has gotten into you? We do not speak to each other like that.”
The truth beat so loud against the door of my heart that it spewed out like lava.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Mom’s friend?
” The words scorched my lips as they escaped.
But the way her face twisted—the immediate waves of disbelief, horror, fear, and regret—cooled the burn.
As her eyes filled with tears of betrayal, I knew I would never have a relationship with Lynn Thompson again.
What goes around comes around.
She was a good mom. There were many things I loved about her, even admired, but nothing could make me overlook something this egregious. My lips twitched as we stared each other down.
Dad scrunched his nose in confusion. “What friend?”
I never looked away from her eyes. “Oh, you know, the one who makes out with her on our front porch now and then.”
Mom blinked, wrenching her gaze away and letting them roam our wall-full of happy family photos.
Dad sat, dumbfounded, unable to speak or move.
Likely using every ounce of strength he had to read me.
When I looked at him, tears filled my throat so suddenly I thought I might throw up.
My heart ached for him so badly I wanted to tear a hole in the wall and scream.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. Mom’s…” I looked back at her as she placed a trembling hand over her lips.
“Mom’s…cheating on you.” I sucked in a breath as tears fell from my face to my oversized sweatshirt.
I didn’t stay to witness the truth’s damage.
I tucked my thumbs around my duffle strap and said once more. “I’ll be at the Handlebar.”
I never went to the Handlebar. After slamming our front door, I burst into tears and didn’t feel like hanging out with friends.
So I drove—anywhere and nowhere—until I found myself in front of Strike Zone, the old bowling alley where Dad used to take me on daddy-daughter dates when I was in elementary school.
A CD with indie-folk music my dance troupe leader, Brit, burned for me vibrated my speakers. Each one had fluid rhythms, long pauses, and lyrics to break your heart. Perfect for a contemporary team or late night heartbreak.
New, hot tears filled my eyes as I remembered my dad finding two of the tiniest bowling balls to make sure I would never have to wait for the ball to return. He always let me play in the arcade and bought nachos with jalapenos and a coke.
Minutes ticked by as I cried, wondering how my life would change.
Would Estelle and Jackie ever have bowling dates with Dad?
Would the divorce be my fault? If I had said something sooner, maybe they could’ve worked it out or stayed together.
But I let it go on for weeks without uttering a word.
I cursed my cowardice. I had probably made it worse.
I swiped my sleeve over my nose, dabbing my eyes with the inside of my collar.
When I didn’t think I had any more tears left in my body, I drove around the back of the building to loop into the front parking lot and get back on the road.
But behind the building, my headlights washed over a dumpster.
The dumpster’s shadow shot up the back of the building, dancing across the wall as I accelerated past.
I hit the brake then reversed, the shadow reappearing and moving the opposite direction.
Holding the car still, I stared at the shadow on that huge illuminated wall.
Then I parked and got out, leaving the door open wide.
Wearing my thin-soled tennis shoes, I strode out and let the headlights wash over my back. My shadow loomed like a dark giant over the ground and wall, jagged where the two connected on earth. Watching my shadow, I lifted my arm over my head and twirled, my spinning toe crunching over the pavement.
I couldn’t put my finger on why that lonely movement made me cry again, but it released my second floodgate. To Build a Home by Patrick Watson filtered into the night, lifting above the repetitive ping-ping-ping of the car’s door-ajar alert.
And I danced.
Watching myself the entire time.
Her movements, her aches, her hopes. The way she took up space. The way she didn’t need anyone to be beautiful, confident, and purposeful. She moved with the words, even with silences. Every beat had a pulse, a meaning, a reason.
She could be strong, brave.
An anchor for the ones she loved.
I wept as the music moved me—Patrick Watson’s lyrics a painful knife in my chest. But as quickly as I grieved, I recalibrated.
As I deconstructed, I rebuilt—bar by bar.
In a way, I found strength and courage for the days ahead.
But I also found other things—isolation, bitterness, pride.
I was strong, but so angry. I stopped trusting anyone but myself.
And even that would eventually be taken away.