“Rev!”
The buzz around the fire ceased, as if a bucket of ice water had been thrown over all of us. My heart kicked in my chest, hard, and when Wren looked back at me, smiling and unfazed, she must have seen it—my fear, my anger, all of it on display. Her face fell instantly, just as the same stray cat I’d seen in her cabin the week before jumped in her lap. She wrapped it in her arms, but wouldn’t stop looking at me, brows bent, like she didn’t realize what she’d just said.
She’d heard the stories, but she didn’t know me. No one called me Rev anymore, and of everyone there who had a right to, she was last on the list.
I stood, knocking a full can of beer over with my boot as I did. All the eyes around the fire were glued on me, and I felt the sticky weight of them as I turned for the drive. My hands jutted into my pockets to keep from pulling at my sweater. It was too hot. It was too loud. I needed to leave.
I shouldn’t have come at all.
“What is your problem?”
Her small voice had grown in size, and it stopped me in my tracks.
“I ask you to tell me something real, and you run off like it’s the worst thing you’ve heard?” Momma Von tried to quiet her, but she kept going, and I kept my back to all of them. “All night, everyone is telling all these stories about how fun you are, how crazy you are, but I don’t see it. I don’t know who that person was or why he changed, but whatever the reason, it doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole to me.”
“Alright, Wren,” Yvette said this time, and I turned, watching as both she and Momma Von moved in on Wren. Yvette touched one arm, and Wren swayed a bit, steadying herself when Momma Von was close enough to hold onto. She was messed up, and my nose flared as her eyes hardened on mine again.
“No,” she slurred. “No, I’ve taken enough shit from assholes in my life.” She stood straighter, like she had something to prove, and opened her mouth to say something else. But she stopped, huffing, as if it wasn’t even worth her time. She turned to Momma Von. “I want to go home.”
“Okay, peaches, let’s get you home, then.”
Momma Von glanced at me but I just turned again, feet moving faster this time, all the way down the drive. My cabin was only minutes away, but every step burned my skin more and more. My fists clenched in my pockets and I gritted my teeth, using every ounce of power I had not to slam my front door once I was inside.
Dani stared at me from her table, and I growled, ripped my sweater over my head, and jogged up the stairs. Auto pilot kicked in, shower started, clothes thrown, and once the hot water hit my back, I let out one long breath, pinching the bridge of my nose and bracing the other hand on the wall in front of me.
Sarah had called me Rev not too many nights before and it’d barely fazed me. I told her not to call me that again, and that was it. But hearing the name from Wren’s lips, from someone who didn’t know the meaning, who didn’t know me—it stirred something that had been lying dormant for years.
And then she’d screamed at me like we’d been friends forever, like she deserved to know more about me. She’d called me an asshole, and at that thought, all I could do was lean my forehead against the cool tile.
Because if nothing else, she was right about that.
I let the water run cold, finally shutting it off when I was shivering. It’d been a long time since I’d felt numb, but the familiarity of it was welcomed as I toweled off and slipped on a pair of sweats before climbing into bed. I trained my eyes on the ceiling, shaking my head every time I replayed the night in my head.
Did I really think it’d be so simple? That I’d walk into a party full of friends I’d abandoned almost seven years ago and we’d all, what? Pal around? And that I’d maybe get to know the new girl in town, who’d been stuck in my head for God knows what reason all week?
But I had nothing to give her—nothing. Not even an answer to the first genuine question I’d been asked by a girl in years. Maybe ever.
She asked me for something real, and I had nothing.
At least now I knew.
BREAK
\ˈbrāk\
Verb
To separate into parts with suddenness or violence
Keith used to always make me coffee.
We had a morning routine, one that consisted of a dance of sorts. I’d brush my teeth while he shaved, then he’d breeze past me to get dressed while I put on makeup. He’d always step back in just as I started straightening my hair, and he’d smack my ass with an appreciative smile, fastening his tie, and he’d ask, “How sweet is my girl today?”
The answer was always different—sweeter than your mom’s chocolate pie, about as sweet as a judge, or sometimes just a glare—and that’s how he knew what kind of coffee to brew. By the time I was dressed, he’d have his briefcase in one hand and my cup of coffee in the other, sweetened somewhere between black and liquid candy. He’d pass it to me, kiss my cheek, and then he was out the door.
It was the good times, the moments like that, that seemed brightest in my memory. It was harder to remember the nights he yelled, the nights he ignored me, the nights I went to bed wondering what I’d done wrong, only to have to wait a week to find out when he was drunk. Our minds are selective like that, almost like a defense mechanism that somehow harms us more than it helps us.
Keith used to make me coffee, and maybe that’s why his name was the one I called out the next morning when I woke to the smell of a fresh pot brewing.
“Nope, just me,” Momma Von answered.
I cracked one lid open, instantly squeezing it shut again when the light assaulted me. Momma Von grabbed my hand and moved it to the mug, waiting until I had a sturdy grip before she stood and threw the curtains open wider.
“Ack!”
“If you think that hurts, just wait.”
Slowly, I inched up the headboard until I was propped up, one eye still closed as I squinted through the other at Momma Von. She nodded to my cup and I took a sip, humming slightly. “Thank you.”
“There’s ibuprofen and a bottle of water on the table. Those are next.”
I squinted through the other eye and reached over, popping the two white capsules in my mouth and chasing them with another sip of coffee.
“Or now,” Momma Von said with a chuckle. She sat near the foot of the bed, grabbing her own cup of coffee from where she’d sat it on the dresser and crossing her legs as she watched me. “We need to talk about Anderson.”
I groaned, using one hand to push myself up a little straighter. “But do we really?”
She nodded, brushing her bangs away from her eyes. “We do. Do you remember what happened last night?”
My fingers not wrapped around the coffee mug worked against my temple, kneading with a gentle pressure as I tried to sift through the cloudy memories of the night before. “Kind of. I remember everything up until Tucker handed me the joint. After that, it’s a little foggy.”
“Tucker got you high?” I nodded, and she just sighed. “Well, that explains a lot.”
“I remember everyone laughing and telling stories about Anderson, and I think I asked him to tell me one, and then he got all Broody McGrumperson and stormed off.”