fighting.”
The scars on his knuckles and broken nose made sense now. “Tall, dark, and brooding isn’t enough for you? You get out of the suburbs and have to go all Fight Club on us, too?”
“ I was a fucking mess,” he said in a voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear it.
My heart cracked further apart. This wasn ’t going to work. How were we supposed to start over when everything was still raw? I looked helplessly back at him but there was no blame in his expression. He relaxed his mouth, and shook his head slightly.
“ What about you? You just went ahead and took off with no plan like you wanted? Wait—” The dimple appeared on his cheek as he grinned. “I know how your stories go. You can’t tell a straightforward story to save your life.”
He ’s right. I can’t.
“ Tell me about the first place you went.”
I gazed past him. He had unknowingly picked the hardest part of the story to tell. The skyline was changing before my eyes with the movement of the sun. The outlines of the buildings stood out in stark relief from the growing orange light. He moved his head and blocked my line of sight, a question on his face. He wasn ’t just asking for one of my rambling stories, but for me to let him back in. Just a little.
“ I found my mother,” I said. “Or, at least, where she’s buried.”
“ What?” He jerked his head like I’d struck him. “Are you absolutely sure?”
I tilted my head to the side and frowned at the water. I wouldn ’t lie about finding my mother. All I knew about her already was based on lies.
“ As much as I can be after spending a couple weeks talking to relatives I didn’t know existed. She was in West Virginia the whole time before her death.”
My mother ’s family was huge. I couldn’t keep them all straight. Aunts, uncles, cousins. None of them knew I had existed, either, and no one would tell me why the big secrecy. Another big question mark in my life. I tossed a pebble far over the water, and a seagull swooped down with a shriek to go after it. I should’ve been excited to have a whole undiscovered family, but instead, it felt like another exercise in being the outsider looking in.
“ Her sister said she was killed in a fire. When I was five.” I rested my chin on my knees again.
“ I thought no one had ever heard from her after she left, like she completely vanished.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. His eyes went unfocused as he stared down at me, trying to figure it out like it was a complicated problem.
What was so complicated about it? She left. And then died. It seemed pretty simple to me.
“Does your dad know?”
“ I don’t know.” But I needed to know. Anything to explain why things were the way they were in our dysfunctional family. It was the real reason I’d agreed to come back and deal with the foreclosure. I had to make one last try to find out where the truth began before I could completely walk away from my father. If he showed up next week.
Ash put his arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“ I didn’t exactly have a fantasy I would find her and then she would welcome me with open arms or something crazy like that.” I nestled into him, despite my best intentions to keep my distance. I told myself it was because of the cold. What was another lie? The scent of citrus surrounded me. I smiled a little into the fabric of his t-shirt. He still used the same body wash.
His arm moved behind me, and I almost thought he was going to reach up to play with my hair. Instead he said, “So do you think you’re going to Michigan this fall?”
“I don’t have a choice.” I pulled away from him. His question came out of nowhere. “I have to, they won’t hold my spot for another year. It’s time to be a real adult, instead of playing pretend.”
“ I think you only pretend when you feel like you have no other choice.”
“ And maybe I still make the wrong choices, and wish I made different ones,” I said softly,
The scars on his knuckles and broken nose made sense now. “Tall, dark, and brooding isn’t enough for you? You get out of the suburbs and have to go all Fight Club on us, too?”
“ I was a fucking mess,” he said in a voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear it.
My heart cracked further apart. This wasn ’t going to work. How were we supposed to start over when everything was still raw? I looked helplessly back at him but there was no blame in his expression. He relaxed his mouth, and shook his head slightly.
“ What about you? You just went ahead and took off with no plan like you wanted? Wait—” The dimple appeared on his cheek as he grinned. “I know how your stories go. You can’t tell a straightforward story to save your life.”
He ’s right. I can’t.
“ Tell me about the first place you went.”
I gazed past him. He had unknowingly picked the hardest part of the story to tell. The skyline was changing before my eyes with the movement of the sun. The outlines of the buildings stood out in stark relief from the growing orange light. He moved his head and blocked my line of sight, a question on his face. He wasn ’t just asking for one of my rambling stories, but for me to let him back in. Just a little.
“ I found my mother,” I said. “Or, at least, where she’s buried.”
“ What?” He jerked his head like I’d struck him. “Are you absolutely sure?”
I tilted my head to the side and frowned at the water. I wouldn ’t lie about finding my mother. All I knew about her already was based on lies.
“ As much as I can be after spending a couple weeks talking to relatives I didn’t know existed. She was in West Virginia the whole time before her death.”
My mother ’s family was huge. I couldn’t keep them all straight. Aunts, uncles, cousins. None of them knew I had existed, either, and no one would tell me why the big secrecy. Another big question mark in my life. I tossed a pebble far over the water, and a seagull swooped down with a shriek to go after it. I should’ve been excited to have a whole undiscovered family, but instead, it felt like another exercise in being the outsider looking in.
“ Her sister said she was killed in a fire. When I was five.” I rested my chin on my knees again.
“ I thought no one had ever heard from her after she left, like she completely vanished.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. His eyes went unfocused as he stared down at me, trying to figure it out like it was a complicated problem.
What was so complicated about it? She left. And then died. It seemed pretty simple to me.
“Does your dad know?”
“ I don’t know.” But I needed to know. Anything to explain why things were the way they were in our dysfunctional family. It was the real reason I’d agreed to come back and deal with the foreclosure. I had to make one last try to find out where the truth began before I could completely walk away from my father. If he showed up next week.
Ash put his arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“ I didn’t exactly have a fantasy I would find her and then she would welcome me with open arms or something crazy like that.” I nestled into him, despite my best intentions to keep my distance. I told myself it was because of the cold. What was another lie? The scent of citrus surrounded me. I smiled a little into the fabric of his t-shirt. He still used the same body wash.
His arm moved behind me, and I almost thought he was going to reach up to play with my hair. Instead he said, “So do you think you’re going to Michigan this fall?”
“I don’t have a choice.” I pulled away from him. His question came out of nowhere. “I have to, they won’t hold my spot for another year. It’s time to be a real adult, instead of playing pretend.”
“ I think you only pretend when you feel like you have no other choice.”
“ And maybe I still make the wrong choices, and wish I made different ones,” I said softly,
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