Good. “So if something was to happen to me, you would still take care of them?”
His forehead furrows and his eyes darken. “Has something happened? Are you in trouble?”
“No,” I lie, then wave my hands around my head as if to explain the chaos that has controlled my mind since the kidnapping. “What happened in that basement messed me up. Makes me think of things.” Like how when I die, the people I love will be grieving all over again.
“I was thinking that...” I needed to come up with something plausible. “If I went away to college next year, maybe you would look after them for me so I wouldn’t have to worry. You said I could trust you, and if that’s true, there’s nothing I love more than Mom and Brandon, and trusting you with them...”
I fall off because the pang in my heart at the idea of leaving them behind causes me to be unable to breathe. But with all Eli and I have been through, I trust him with them and there’s no greater compliment I could give him than that.
Eli’s watching me, closely, like he’s attempting to see past my skin and bones and into my soul. “I will always look after them. Just like I will always watch over you.”
“If we’re really talking and if we’re both really listening, can I say something to you and have you understand I’m saying it without the intention of starting a fight?”
He nods, continuing to try to decipher me and my words.
“You enable Mom and Brandon and I understand why you do. They have been through so much and they hurt so much and you want to make something better and easier for them, but you aren’t making them better. It’s like handing a sobbing woman a single piece of toilet paper and then walking away because you don’t want to deal with the emotional meltdown. Mom needs to learn how to take care of herself. I know Dad left her money and that if she budgets she won’t have to work ever again, but that’s not the point.
“Mom needs something or she will fall apart at every turn. She needs to see she is capable. If she doesn’t want to work a job, fine, but she needs a hobby, she needs a focus, she needs to learn how to depend on herself for something. She can’t keep putting her happiness on other people because people make mistakes, people leave, people...” Die. “People, despite their best intentions, fail, and Mom needs to learn to be happy with just being her. And Brandon...”
God, I love Brandon and leaving him behind causes my entire body to flinch.
“Brandon can function in this world. It won’t be easy, but it’s never easy for any of us. He’s so smart and funny and friendly, but he’s scared. Each and every time you do something for him because he’s scared, you are teaching him to give in to the fear. Don’t make him scared. Make him courageous. I’m not asking you to set him up for failure by placing him in all new situations, but I am asking you to stop doing everything for him and help show him how to be a functioning adult in a world that doesn’t understand him.
“As much as you want to, you can’t take all our pain away. Hurting, it’s a part of life, and if you try to stop any of us from being in pain, that means you’re not allowing us to actually live.”
Eli bows his head, and when he looks back up, I don’t see demons or charm, but a man stripped to the core. “Is that how you feel? Even before the kidnapping? That I’m not letting you live?”
I bite my lower lip, then give him the truth. “Yes. I don’t know how to fit into your world while being me and I like me. I’m who my father helped me figure out I am, but I hurt you and I’m tired of hurting all of you.”
“This club was meant to be a place where people can be themselves. I’ve failed somewhere if that’s how you feel.” The sting in his voice causes me pain.
“Maybe you’re not the only one who’s made things difficult.” God, I want to peel my skin off. “Maybe I’ve had a hand in that, too.”
Eli’s now the one who grins. “Maybe?”
I kick his shin, he chuckles, and at the roar of motorcycles, I turn my attention back to the window. A large group of Reign of Terror bikes pulls into spots in front of the diner and one by one men slide off and some of them wait to help off the woman behind them. Chevy enters first and I tilt my head when he smiles at me.
Oz and Razor walk in behind him followed by Pigpen, Man O’ War, Rebecca, Dust, and then I lose track. Our waitress walks up and places a huge stack of blueberry pancakes in front of me and on top of it is a lit candle.
“Chevy reminded me that we forgot something special,” Eli says, “and I want you to know I’m sorry. For a lot of things, I’m sorry. But regardless, happy belated birthday, kid.”
Chevy squeezes into the booth beside me, kissing my cheek, and I barely have the attention span to kiss him back as I crazily try to take in what’s going on.
“How did you know we’d work things out in time?” I ask Eli.
He relaxes back into the booth, a cocky smile on his face. “I didn’t. I assumed we’d be fighting and told the guys to show so I wouldn’t ruin one more meeting between us.”
I don’t know who started it first, but soon the diner is filled with a chorus of voices, most of them singing off-key, but singing loudly and they are singing “Happy Birthday” to me.
CHEVY
“DON’T YOU THINK we’re going to be tight on time?” Violet asks as she plays with the radio of her father’s Chevelle. It’s the original radio—the type that requires turning a knob to find a station. I’m driving, she’s on the passenger side and I’m not as worried about time as I am about breaking down on our way to Louisville. No way I want to explain why Violet and I aren’t doing homework in Snowflake.
“Scared you’re going to miss your party?” I glance at her out of the corner of my eye to gauge her reaction.
Tonight, the clubhouse is going to be full and the entire night is in honor of her turning eighteen. We’re a few weeks late, but at least the club is owning their mistake. I expect Violet to frown, to go into an eloquent rant that includes curse words that would cause a sailor to blush, but instead she looks like she’s contemplating the possibility of being okay with it.
“I want to hang out with you, Oz and Razor,” she says. “Like we used to.”
A prick of pain in my chest. Like we used to before her dad died. I reach over and take Violet’s hand. The squeeze is meant to show the way I want to love her through all that hurts her. The twining of our fingers is to keep me from turning the car around and sticking my head back in the sand. It’s time to find out the truth about my dad. It’s time for me to make some informed choices.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Last I checked, when I’m the guest of honor, we don’t have to sneak beer anymore or watch the party from branches in trees.”
“You know you want to play hide-n-go-seek in the woods.”
She laughs and the sound warms my soul. “What if I do?”
“Then we’ll do that, too. We’ll make Razor be it.”
“He hated being it.”