Scott and Allison live in a two-story white house with a wraparound porch. It resembles something you’d see in a Civil War movie full of rich plantation owners. Part of the house is surrounded by woods. The other part faces an open pasture with a barn.
Allison parks the car outside the four-car garage and grabs my wrist before I have a chance to bolt. “Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was to leave the meeting because you called? This is a small town. Your teachers belong to our church. How long do you think it will be before everyone knows what a menace you are? I won’t permit you to ruin our life.”
“Get your hands off of me.” My eyes flicker HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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from her fingers on my wrist to her eyes.
No one touches me.
She drops my wrist like she was handling fire. “Why don’t you leave? Even Scott knows you’re miserable.”
I bet Scott knows she’s miserable too. I’d never have imagined him with someone like her. Manicured. Polished. Heartless. “Were you surprised he wasn’t hard to trap?”
“What?”
“When you—” I do the mock quotation marks in the air “—‘told’ him you were pregnant, were you surprised how quickly he proposed? Scott always had a soft spot for babies. Why else would he marry you?”
Blood flushes her collarbone and her hands flutter up to her neck. “I don’t know what you’re even asking me.” She clears her throat, obviously flustered. “Scott doesn’t have a soft spot for babies.”
Has she had a conversation with the man she married? “If it weren’t for my mom, he would have married half of the girls knocked up in our trailer park.” And he wasn’t even the daddy.
Her hands slowly lower to her lap and I HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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swear she quits breathing. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
Her lips twist into a snarl. “Get out.”
“Gladly.” I open the door to her car, slam it shut, and repeat the process with the front door of Scott’s house. Before I can even reach the guest bedroom Scott declared as mine, Allison stalks in behind me, slamming the front door with as much, if not more, force than I did.
Scott opens the door to his office—the room across the foyer from my bedroom. He wears his crisp button-down shirt. Shit. He came home early from his “sales job” at the bat factory in Louisville. His eyebrows scrunch together. “What the hell is going on?”
Allison points at me. “Get rid of her.”
Scott places his hands on his hips.
“Allison…”
“You knocked up girls in trailer parks?”
In my defense, that isn’t what I said, but even I know when to keep my mouth shut.
Scott’s face turns red, then purple. “No.”
Allison clutches the hair on her head and the perfect bun loosens. “Forget the trailer parks. I can’t believe you told her. You promised you HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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would never tell anyone.” One hand descends to her abdomen.
Damn. I was right—sort of. She did tell him she was pregnant, except she wasn’t lying like I’d assumed. She was pregnant, and then she lost it. If I’d known, I never would have said those things. Guilt makes me nauseous.
“Wait. I didn’t tell her.” Scott reaches out to Allison and his hand freezes in the air when she steps back. He extends his hand again and when she remains still he wraps his arms around her, pulling her close to him. Scott lowers his head to her ear and I can tell he’s whispering to her. Allison’s shoulders shake and I feel like a Peeping Tom intruding on this intimate moment.
I slip inside the bedroom and try to close the door without making a sound. Sun shines from the two walls of windows. Crawling onto the middle of the bed, I draw my knees up and curl into myself. I hate this house. There are too many windows. All floor-to-ceiling. All open.
All of them make me feel…exposed.
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Ryan
IN THE GARAGE, I stand outside Dad’s office and prepare myself for the impending conversation. The enrollment papers for the writing competition are rolled tightly in my left hand. I rap twice on the door and Dad tells me to come in.
Except for the chair he sits in, Dad made everything in this room: the chrome desk and matching cabinet, the printer stand, the large art table that displays the stack of blueprints for his current clients. He shot the two deer mounted on the wall. The central air kicks on and a couple of papers near the vent on the floor crinkle against each other.
Dad keeps the office neat, tidy, and
controlled. His eyes flick to me then back to the bound manual on his desk. He’s disposed of his tie, but he still wears his white work HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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shirt. “What can I do for you, Ryan?”
I sit in the chair across from him and search for words. Before Mark left, I never had a hard time talking to Dad. The words came easily.
Now words are hard. I stare at the papers bound together in my hand. That’s wrong.
Since Mark left, writing words has made life slightly tolerable. “Do you remember last year’s short-story assignment?”
He gives me a blank look and scratches the back of his head.