He angles his neck to face me and his eyebrows are raised. “How did you know my name?” His eyes are guarded, like this must be some sort of trick. I can already see him retreating.
“Miss Dixie told me,” I answer, hoping that calms him.
“She’s nice to me,” he says quietly.
“She’s a nice lady.”
“Is she yours?”
Huh. His question throws me and I’m left gaping stupidly for a few seconds.
Is Dixie Lark mine?
I scratch my chin, remembering I need to shave, and cross my ankles out in front of me.
“Miss Dixie is her own woman. She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself. But I hope, one day, that she will be with me because she chooses to. People can’t really belong to other people exactly.”
“Kids belong to parents,” he argues.
“Kind of,” I agree. “But not like possessions. Not like your baseball cards belong to you or your dog belongs to you. More like . . . you get . . .” I don’t know what word I’m looking for but I’m struggling to find it.
“Stuck with them?”
Christ this kid is beating what little unbattered fraction of a soul I have left to hell and back.
“No, Liam. Not stuck.” I watch his face to make sure I’m not upsetting him. “If the universe or the powers that be see fit to give a person a kid, they should consider themselves lucky. They should be the best parent that they can. They shouldn’t . . .”
Get high. Disappear. Let the kid starve half to death before bringing home three-day-old pizza and calling it dinner.
I close my eyes because now I’m upsetting my fucking self.
“ . . . mistreat them,” I finally bring myself to say.
“But sometimes they do,” he says quietly, somehow reading my mind. Do kids read minds? God, I hope not.
“Liam,” Mrs. Lawson calls from her porch. “Come back inside and eat something, please.”
“I gotta go.” He stands and his shirt rides up enough that I can see old scars down his spine. My rage flares and I regret for a moment that I didn’t go ahead and kill Carl Andrews and do this kid and the world a favor.
“Okay. Nice talking to you.”
He nods and then walks quickly and stiffly over to Mrs. Lawson.
I watch the blue finches come and go for a while, and wonder the entire time where my Bluebird went.
21 | Dixie
AFTER A WALK around the block, my head is slightly clearer. But so is my frustration.
Gavin is sitting out back on the bench when I return.
“So everything is my fault then? I went to college and all hell broke lose and it’s entirely my fault?” I demand in place of a greeting. I cross my arms over my chest as I approach and wait for him to say something that makes any of this better.
Gavin stands and paces back and forth for a minute before turning to face me.
“No. It was my fault. Because I fucking loved you, I fucking missed you, and I didn’t feel like it would do anyone any good for you to know that.” He runs both hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up wildly all over the place.
“You should’ve told me, Gav. But I should’ve told you, too. We’ve kept so much from each other and now it’s just—”
“Please do not say hopeless.” His pleading eyes meet mine and he shakes his head. “I don’t know what it is right now but I know it’s not hopeless.”
There is just so much. The drugs, the girls, the accident. And all of it concealed from me, hidden away as if it were possible for me to keep living in my safe little bubble.
I shake my head because it feels like a jumbled mess inside it. I can’t think straight, can’t organize my thoughts into a coherent stream that I’m capable of making sense of.