Mom and Dad exchange a brief glance before turning to Porter for confirmation.
“She just said she wanted to talk,” he tells them, nervously gawking between all of us. When he was little, he used to give me a hard time whenever Mom asked me to watch him. He’d throw tantrums and make a mess of his room or break something I’d either have to hide or take responsibility for, yet every night at the dinner table his eyes would dart around at the rest of us like he couldn’t figure out whose side to pick when obvious tension was there. “But it was my idea to come here. She had no clue about it.”
Mom holds up her hand. “The problem at hand is that you lied.”
Porter presses his lips together and nods.
The woman whose words still clench my heartstrings turns her focus to me. “I…” Her voice catches, forcing her to clear her throat and try again. “I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re here—that you’re here together. When Porter didn’t come home I thought the worst. I thought…”
My nostrils twitch with emotion that I force back down, but it tries creeping up my throat regardless.
Dad remains silent, his eyes moving between me and his son as if he’s trying to gather his thoughts. I want to ask him why he’s not at the store, but I don’t want to fuel the fire that’s brewing between us already.
The room grows eerily quiet, blanketing us in threatened suffocation. “I reached out to Porter because I thought it was time. I needed to make sure he was okay.”
Mom blinks back tears, head turning away as she tries collecting herself. She never liked people seeing her cry. Even at my final days at the house, after all the things she said to me out of emotion, she’d hide her tears behind closed doors.
Dad turns his eyes solely on me when he realizes Mom can’t ask the question. “Why now? Why after all this time?”
“Dad,” Porter cuts in.
Our father shakes his head. “I think we all deserve some answers, Porter.”
Answers? They don’t expect the bubbled laugh that escapes me. Porter snorts over the noise, and Mom’s startled gaze darts to me again with wide eyes. “That’s a two-way street. I know I owe you a lot of them, but why don’t we start with why you and Mom couldn’t stop picking fights?”
Mom pales and Dad shifts to the edge of the couch cushion. “Your mother and I have had a lot of problems, but we always did what we could to ensure you had a roof over your head. If you’re insinuating—”
“Fred,” Mom intervenes.
Unwrapping my arm from Porter, I stand my ground. “I know you guys kept a roof over our heads. We always had food. I’m not saying you were terrible parents. I’ve had to deal with the choices I made and know I messed up, but you should acknowledge your own part in it.” I meet both their eyes, as the words I’ve saved for years bubble out of me. “You never stopped fighting, not even when the cops showed up over and over again. Dad spent more time at the store than he did at home and you, Mom, spent more time complaining about Dad than you did paying attention to anything else.”
She goes to speak, but I stop her. “It is not one person’s fault. Dad was trying to keep the store afloat, you deserved to vent. We all had something to do with what happened, and I…” My eyes close for a moment. “I’m sorry for everything that happened. If I could apologize for every little thing I wish I could go back and change, we’d never leave here. Since starting at Lindon and being around Aiden again, I’ve realized that I wanted to try. I thought if I reached out to Porter it’d be a first step, but I wasn’t sure if he’d even give me a chance and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he didn’t.”
Mom stares right at me while Dad’s eyes move to the blank TV screen. “You go to Lindon? That’s…” Her head nods, then shakes as if she’s remembering the real point. “That’s good, Ivy. It is. You look well. But it was a long drive, and I think we should get go—”
I stand the same time she does. “That’s it? I say I’m sorry and you say you have to go? I’m trying. For once, I am trying to be a good person after years of not being one. I have made horrible choices, Mom. I have to live with the awful things I did to get by.” Tears leak down my face before I can stop them, my hand going to one of the scars covered by the sweatshirt sleeve, wanting to show her, to show all of them, but knowing they’re not ready for what I’d done. “I know we’ll never be okay, and I’m not asking to be. None of us were ever best friends growing up. I just need you to know that I’m sorry and that I want to try.”
A shaky, broken breath escapes me as I say the words I know they need to hear. “I was wrong about what I told you in that letter. I couldn’t do it on my own.” My voice is nothing but a croaked whimper by the last word, and suddenly two strong arms are pulling me backwards into a hard body that smells like home to me.
I ease into Aiden as Porter stands from the couch and faces our parents. “I’m sorry that I lied but I wanted to see Ivy and I wasn’t sure if you’d let me. You barely let me go anywhere besides Jimmy’s and Chad’s house or school and practice. It’s like you don’t trust me even though I’ve never done anything to make you not.”
To my surprise, Dad speaks first. “We trust you, Porter. It’s just…” His eyes go to me, eyebrows flattened with an unspoken point.
“It’s hard for us,” Mom finishes for him, clearing her throat. “We’re being cautious. We’re…trying too.”
Trying. Trying for Porter. Isn’t that what I wanted at the very least? “Please don’t be upset with him,” I tell them again, frowning when my parents both loosen similar sighs of exhaustion.
“We’re disappointed, Ivy.” My mother’s admission doesn’t direct it at either Porter or I, but I feel the three words in my soul knowing they’re more than likely not at my brother.
“You should tell her,” Porter says, voice harder than I’ve heard it before. “Tell her what you’ve been talking about.”
Dad eyes him. “Now is not the—”
Porter turns to me. “I wasn’t going to say anything because I’m not sure if they’ll go through with it since they’ve talked about it before, but they’ve been talking about separating. If you ask me, it’s about time.”
Mom sucks in a breath. “Porter Lee Underwood! That is hardly appropriate to say, and it’s none of your business.”
He raises his hands. “Seriously, Mom? You’re miserable. Dad is miserable. You gave Ivy the brunt of your frustrations and the only reason you took it easy on me was because you wouldn’t be able to explain why another kid left if I decided I’d had it.”
Dad’s eyes grow wary. “That is enough.”
Mom’s hands go to her face for a moment before scraping back her frizzy hair. “He’s right, Fred, and you know it. We have been over this time and time again and nothing changes.” Her hands drop to her sides as she addresses me and Porter. “Your father and I are serious this time. It should have happened a long time ago, and for what it’s worth, I’ve known that for a while. But I’m supposed to hold everything together and I thought I could do it when I couldn’t.”