My stomach sank like it was weighted by an oversized anchor. I gripped the truck’s steering wheel harder as I stared out at the empty space in my driveway where Logan’s car should’ve been parked. He didn’t wait. I had six minutes to spare and he didn’t wait.
I bumped my shoulder against the rusted-out truck door three times before it finally sprang free. After sliding off the seat, I elbowed the door shut behind me, then took the ten steps to the concrete-colored trailer I called home. A large white box with a hot pink satin ribbon lay at the top of the steps like a roadblock.
I scooped up the box, took it inside to my room, and plunked it on my bed. My fingers itched as I fumbled to open the attached card.
A beautiful dress for a beautiful girl.
Love, Logan
My heart soared and fell at the same time. The words were nice, but the gift wasn’t something he’d put any thought into. His mother had put thought into it, but for all the wrong reasons.
Hoping for the best, I pulled the ribbon and edged open the lid. Cringing, I held up the froofy champagne-colored dress that looked like something Fashion Fairy Barbie would wear. I let it fall back in its box, then collapsed on the bed and closed my eyes.
My visions of temporarily forgetting this terrible morning were cut short by an extra-loud muffler outside my window. A few seconds later my bedroom door squeaked open and my younger sister stuck her head around the door. “River, you alive?”
Before I could decide, Jamie flopped down on the other side of my bed and arranged herself to face me. “You know it’s like 9:30-something, right?” She ran her nail-bitten fingers along the ponytail of her long, caramel-colored hair.
“So?” I grumbled into my pillow.
She squinted, her dark brown eyes studying me. “So, I thought you had to go to some important football thing with that crazy-hot, amazingly awesome boyfriend of yours.”
I wasn’t about to tell her that my crazy-hot, amazingly awesome boyfriend didn’t wait for me, and since my only means of transportation was assembled decades ago, I was disinvited from attending his Seniors’ Breakfast.
Something over my shoulder distracted her and she hopped up to inspect it. “What’s this?”
I winced. “A dress for Awards Night. Logan’s mom bought it for me.” Some people have irrational fears like arachnophobia, agoraphobia, even homophobia. Not Sylvia Westfield—she had trailertrashaphobia. Her worst fear was for her son to be seen in public with me dressed in vintage Dollar General.
Jamie cocked her head as she held it up. “It’s. shimmery.”
I rubbed my head. “Shimmery is a nice word.” All of mine would need censoring.
“Sorry I don’t have time to stick around and see you try this stiff, scratchy,” she grabbed the price tag, “ooh, expensive dress on. But Summer’s waiting for me. I only stopped in to get some clothes.” She took a step toward the door. “Hey, I probably won’t see you before the ceremony tonight. Will you tell Dad where I am when he gets home from work?”
I half-laughed. “You really think Jack’s at work?” I stopped using any fatherly-type references to our dad years ago when he stopped acting like a father, back when my mom first got sick. Turns out my instincts were right—after a heated argument last month, he confessed he wasn’t my real father. I’d felt a weird combination of relief and sadness. Relieved he wasn’t my real father, but sad because my real father left my mom as soon as he found out she was pregnant with me. I hadn’t decided which hurt more.
Her face fell. “Why do you always have to assume the worst?”
“Because Duck picked him up last night.” And if he was out with Duck and hadn’t shown up by now, it was likely he’d either passed out somewhere or gotten himself into a serious poker tournament—also likely he wouldn’t show up for days. Instead of unleashing my 1,001 reasons why I assumed the worst about Jack, I nodded toward the racket coming from our driveway and said, “You better get goin’. Summer’s car sounds hungry.”
She smirked as she tossed the dress at me, but her voice cracked a little when she said, “Dad and I will see you later at Awards Night.”
She knew as well as I did that Jack wouldn’t be coming anywhere near my awards ceremony. He cared about two things in this world: himself and Jamie. Oh, yeah—and anything that contained at least 4% alcohol.
Crap. This day was supposed to be special, but so far, it had been a disaster. A pain stabbed at my chest when I thought about the only person who could have made things better. My mom had been my biggest supporter, insisting I had a gift with handling horses from a very early age. Running my fingers over the ruffled neckline of the dress Logan’s mother got for me, I realized I should wear something special—in honor of my mom.
Since the only things special in this place had belonged to my mother, I’d have to start with the locked suitcase under Jack’s bed. After she died six years ago, he put all her stuff away. I was pretty confident in his whereabouts, so I went into his room. Just as I had done many times, I reached under the bed, dragged out the dusty old suitcase, and held it in my lap. I’d never had the nerve to get further than that because I knew it would be emotional—not to mention there’d be hell to pay if I got caught. Despite the possible side effects, I decided this was the day.
My heart thudded as I pulled out one of the bobby pins holding the sides of my hair back and popped the lock—a hidden talent I happened to have. When I opened the suitcase, I picked up the wooden frame that held a wedding photo of Mom and Jack. Standing in my grandmother’s back yard, Jack beamed as he gazed at my mom. Clean-shaven and fifty pounds heavier, he looked almost handsome in his pearl button-down shirt, dark jeans, and cowboy boots. He even had a sparkle in his dark eyes I’d never seen before; in fact, I barely recognized him at all.
My mother looked happy enough as she smiled for the camera. The sun glistened off her long, wavy brown hair, and her light olive complexion was a nice contrast to her simple white sundress. It had been a long time since I’d seen a picture of my mom, and except for the difference in our eye color—hers hazel, mine what she called Siberian Husky blue—my likeness to her was stunning. I flipped the picture over to look for a date and realized she had been the same age as me now.
Sifting through letters and photos, I came upon something in a sealed clear bag. After removing it, I realized it was the dress Mom had worn in her wedding picture. I held the dull satin fabric to my face and swore I smelled a hint of her light floral perfume. Mindlessly, I slipped out of my t-shirt and jeans and into the sundress. My thoughts drifted back to a time when Jack tolerated me better, before Mom died, before we lost our farm and had to move, before Jack drank so much…
The unmistakable roar of Duck’s truck ripped me from past to present. My pulse throbbed in my ears as I shoved everything back into the suitcase, snatched up my clothes, and tiptoed to my room. After changing back into my clothes, I followed the sound of clanking glasses into the kitchen.
“Where the hell did all my bourbon go?” Jack muttered as his shaky hand poured the last half-inch of a bottle of Very Old Barton’s into a short glass. He dribbled some onto a paper on the counter, and I watched as the maple-colored liquid seeped through my Awards Night invitation. After I’d mentioned it to him twice and got no response, I tucked it under his bottle of VOB, knowing that was the place he’d most likely notice it. He never did.
The dam I had so carefully built around my heart since my mother’s death threatened to crack, so I cleared my throat and pushed the words out. “Um, Jamie said to tell you she’d catch up with you later at—”
Jack thudded his empty glass down on the counter, then used my invitation to wipe up what he’d spilled. “What? Where’d you say she’d be?” He crumpled the paper.
I stared at the ruined invitation in his callused hand and fought to steady my voice. “Home. She said she’d see you at home.”
Only seconds could’ve ticked by between the time I left the kitchen and the time I heard the familiar crack of a beer can being opened, the moan of the screen door open and slam shut, and the creak of the rickety steps from our trailer…one, two, three.
My eyes burned as I stood by my bedroom window watching a broken man walk away. He looked twice his age, with worn, leathered skin and his hair outlined and powdered with gray. I noticed the way his clothes hung off his tall, slender figure, the way the breeze blew through his threadbare shirt, his worn jeans and dust-covered boots. With his fingers gnarled around a can of beer, he slumped away from our scraggly patch of yard and fumbled into his faded red pick-up.
I didn’t need anyone to tell me he was headed to the liquor store.
Emptiness consumed me. Distant memories of better times, years of disappointments, sorrow, and pain swallowed up into a dull ache. Staring out at the driveway long after the cloud of gravel dust had settled, my aching morphed into a simmering anger. Screw Jack and Sylvia Westfield—I knew exactly what I was wearing to my awards ceremony.
After hand-washing Mom’s sundress in the bathroom sink, I hung it to dry over the tub and opened the window. On my way outside, I stopped at the fridge and helped myself to one of Jack’s beers. I needed something to take the edge off my pain—even if it was only temporary. Stepping out on our tiny, weathered deck, I dropped down onto the top step, took a few deep breaths, and looked around.
As I stared out at the rows of monotone rectangles and sparse, dusty lawns, I realized this place was nothing more than a landfill. A place where all the things nobody wanted were dumped: the used toys, the broken-down cars, the worn-out people. And I was no exception—Jack dumped us here when he traded in his title as half-assed father for town drunk.
The sun hit the deck just right and a slight breeze blew. I lay back, soaking in the sun, and closed my eyes. As my brain tried to digest everything that had happened this morning, every ounce of me wanted to curl up and melt unnoticed into the splintered wooden decking. I wanted to pretend this day was a bad dream, to fall asleep, wake up, and then start all over. A single tear stole across my temple, but I quickly swiped it away. I couldn’t let my emotions take me under again. I had worked too hard to throw this day away, and I owed it to my mother to make it count.
When I sensed someone hovering, I squinted my eyes to find it was Kat—one-third of the inseparable team of girlfriends I’d joined when I moved to the Castle Court Trailer Park in the sixth grade. Kat happened to be the most exotic-looking person I knew, with her long, dark hair, flawless pale skin, and dangerous curves. Guys were always crazy for her, and it never seemed to deter them that she was also cold, fierce, and mercilessly honest.
She narrowed her almond-shaped cat eyes. “You look like hell.”
Exhibit A.
“You okay?”
I shielded my eyes from the sun and sat up slowly. “I’m fine,” I lied.
She arched a single, perfectly plucked eyebrow—a skill I’d never managed to master.
I pressed my fingers hard into my temples and attempted to sum up the feelings I had about living in this run-down trailer park, in this tiny little town, with these screwed-up people. “I’m just sick of this place. I’m sick of being stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
With a long sigh, Kat lowered herself on the step beside me, and together we gazed out at our dismal surroundings. “Yeah, I get it.” She knew exactly what I meant, even if I didn’t.
After a few minutes of silence, she asked, “So, what happened?”
“Besides the fact that Jack’s a pathetic drunk, Justice is disappointed in me, and Ranger died this morning?” I made a conscious decision not to tell her about my annoyance at Logan and his family for their unnatural concern for the opinions of the good people of small-town Texas. The edges around her eyes softened. “What? Ranger died?”
“Colic,” I said through the cotton filling my throat.
She gave me time to gather myself, and then asked, “Why is Justice disappointed in you?”
Me and my big mouth. “Logan.”
She curled her lip. “What did that asshole do now?”
Kat held the same opinion of Logan as Justice did, and I was in no mood for another defense trial. “He didn’t do anything. I forgot about his football thing this morning and—”
She held up a finger. “Let me guess. You were at Justice’s trying to save your dying horse, and he was pissed because you were with Justice?”
The image of the confusion on Justice’s face when I told him I had to meet Logan gnawed at me. Why did things have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t Justice accept my boyfriend? And why did Logan have to have jealousy issues that forced me to make choices between the two of them? “Something like that. But Logan’s football thing was really important.”
“And your horse dying wasn’t?”
“Look, I know you and Justice have seen Logan’s bad side at a couple of parties, but in his defense, he was wasted both times. The first time he thought one of his friends was flirting with me and the other was over some guy scratching his car.”
She rolled her eyes. “Two good reasons to beat the shit out of somebody.”
I knew they weren’t good reasons, but if I acknowledged that to Kat she’d never let up. She’d never try to get to know Logan or understand that he had flaws like everyone else. “So what if he messed up a few times, and so what if he doesn’t show everyone else his gentler side? The bottom line is that he treats me good.”
Kat inspected the precision paint job on her fingernails. “Define good.”
I decided to skip over the reasons I gave Justice and cut straight to the point—the point Kat would relate to above all others. “He takes me places.” I flipped my hand over and gestured toward the lack of possibilities that oozed from Castle Court Trailer Park. “Away from here.”
With a knowing glance, she nodded her head slowly. Aware my answer wasn’t enough to satisfy her for long, I continued, “He does nice things for me, too. He even bought me a cell phone.”
“You mean a GPS system.” She caught my glare, but it didn’t stop her. “He bought you that phone so he could keep tabs on you.”
“Maybe he’s a little paranoid sometimes, but it’s only because his last girlfriend cheated on him.”
“Not your problem.” She dug her nails underneath the back of her hair and shook her hand through it. “You hardly do anything with us anymore; he’s suffocating you. You even missed Billi Jo’s birthday.” It was a standing tradition to meet at the fire pit outside the trailer court for each of my girlfriends’ birthdays. Kat, Billi Jo, and I would roast marshmallows, drink beer, and play poker all night, and sometimes into the next morning.
I rubbed at my throat, but the guilt that had lodged there wouldn’t budge. “I hated missing Billi Jo’s party. I was going to come, but Logan—”
She held up a hand. “It doesn’t even matter what your excuse is. You always have one.”
This conversation was getting old. “Believe it or not, he really cares about me.”
“River,” Kat smacked her palms on her legs, “he cares about getting in your pants. And once he gets what he wants, he might hang around awhile, but then he’ll move on to the next chase. It’s all about the chase. Trust me.”
I wasn’t stupid—I knew having sex with Logan was inevitable. I knew he liked a good chase as much as any guy, and I knew that Kat might be right. But for now, I wanted desperately to hang on to the belief that I was enough without the sex. I needed to be the exception. I craved to be somebody’s everything. “He’s not like that,” I snapped.
Her emerald green eyes pierced into me like daggers. “Oh really? So he doesn’t pressure you to have sex?”
I brushed a stray chunk of hair out of my face. “He does, but it’s only because…because he loves me.”
“What about you? Are you in love with him?”
Logan was handsome and smart and charming; he made my stomach fill with tiny butterflies and my heart pump like I’d sprinted a 5K. But above it all, he made me feel the one thing that no guy had ever made me feel before—wanted. I couldn’t say for sure if all that equaled love, but I couldn’t say it didn’t—especially to Kat. So I nodded.
“Well then, what’s the big hold up? Why’re you still holding on to your virginity?”
It was a valid question, but one I didn’t have a sane answer for. I actually wanted to want to have sex just to feel normal. Most girls I knew had had sex by the time they were seventeen—or at least said they had. “I plan on having sex with him.” I stared down at my own pitiful nails. “It’s just, every time I think about following through with it…I don’t know…something inside stops me.”
“It’s called your gut instinct, my friend, and you have a bad habit of ignoring yours—especially when it involves Logan Westfield.”
“Kat, he really is a good guy.” Most of the time. Sometimes he was self-centered, and maybe even a little pushy. But he made me feel wanted and special when nobody else did. And that was enough.
She put her hands up to call a truce and gave me a weak smile. “Hope you’re right.”
I wanted to be right.
Kat exhaled longer than necessary as she stared at her watch, then patted my knee and stood. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll see you later at your awards ceremony.” Halfway down the steps she turned back. “Hey, I’m sorry about Ranger… and your fucked-up dad.”
I wrapped my arms around myself and stood up to go inside. “He was never my dad.”
Stopping to lean over the deck rails, I poured out the rest of my warm beer. I was strangely amused by the way the liquid lingered on top of the hard, stubborn earth before it finally sank in. Funny how in that moment, I still thought my pathetic fake father and my geographical location were my biggest problems.