Her Mom had off on Monday and said she’d stay with Jake. So I picked up Willa and drove her to her doctor’s so she could get a new cast, one that wouldn’t require being in a sling anymore. Then I drove her to the creek where we tried to re-create our wading date up in the mountains. A whole day with Willa like at the cabin, but the night couldn’t end with her and I in bed together.
The first thing I was going to do when I moved into my new place was have Willa sleep over. Having to say goodbye to her and then come home to my parents’ house was bullshit, and I was over it.
Eight more days and then I was moving out.
I couldn’t wait.
I gritted my teeth and slid my key quietly into the lock, feeling like a bad teenager sneaking home after curfew. Then paused.
The moon was so full that I could see the car perfectly, even with the headlights off. It rolled slowly and quietly, the engine clearly off to hide the noise of my father pulling into the driveway.
I just stood there, key halfway into the lock, as still and as numb as a statue. Was I waiting for him? What was my plan? To leap out of the darkness and confront him, demand to know who it was this time... Was it still Sandy? Were they getting serious enough that he was thinking of leaving my mom and putting an end to this charade? Or was he done with her already, his attention span no better than a toddler's, and had moved on to the next woman? Or maybe he was just out tonight, trolling the bars for strangers a few towns over? Once, my cousin Derek had sworn to me that he'd spotted my dad one night at his friend's bar in Reckless Falls. He couldn't be sure, though, because he didn't go into bars since he'd stopped drinking. He wanted to give his uncle the benefit of the doubt. He wanted to second-guess himself, but I knew what he’d seen. I only wished he’d gone in and confronted him.
Was that what I was standing here, waiting for? A confrontation? I'd had a million of those already, all of them frustratingly futile, with me red-faced and shouting and my dad calmly denying reality right to my face.
Or was I looking for an explanation? Because I was never going to get one that would satisfy me. The only thing I wanted to hear was my dad say he was sorry. Not just to me, but to my mother too. I wanted him to grovel, get down on his knees and apologize, tell her she was amazing and deserved so much better. Then leave.
But I wasn't going to get that either.
The only thing I would get was mosquito bites standing here under the porch light. I was moving out. I should let it go.
I couldn't fucking let it go.
"Hey!" I was moving, leaping over the side of the porch and landing with a rattling thud half against the hood of his car.
He jerked up from the glow of his phone screen. Texting like a goddamned teenager. Was that even his phone or was it a burner? "Where you been?” I hollered, slapping my hand against the hood again because I really badly needed to hit something.
In the glow of his screen, I'd seen it. The sheer panic at getting caught. But the second he saw it was me - his son, whose respect he was never interested in having - his features smoothed, rearranging themselves back into the bland, ‘we can work together until you notice I stabbed you in the back’ smile that had fooled so many people around this town into doing business with the devil. "Cooper, you're going to wake your mother," he admonished me, feigning a yawn.
I wasn't sure what exactly happened next. It came more in a series of images and sensations. The still-warm metal of his car sliding under my fingers as I dropped. The whiff of exhaust still lingering in the warm air, the steady tick of his cooling engine. The weight of my pocket-knife in my hand.
The hiss of air as it rushed from his passenger side tire.
It wasn't enough. I knew that with one phone call, he'd have one of his cronies fixing him back up again, asking for nothing more than a handshake and the good feeling that came with being on Fred Grant's good side. But when I popped back up again and watched with satisfaction as his Cadillac slowly listed to one side, I got to see his face and how the bland smile was gone.
I'd shocked him. A punctured tire told him more than my raging words ever could, but I still needed to say them. "Stop," I growled. "Stop doing this. Stop cheating on Mom, you fucking asshole." I kicked the tire, feeling the deflated rubber giving against my toes and wishing like hell I could make him give in the same way. "Have some goddamned shame about it, you piece of shit."
If he said anything, I couldn't hear it over the pounding in my ears. I kicked the tire one more time, letting it hiss out another rush of air, then whirled and sprinted into the house and up to my room. I was packing my shit. Tonight. I was getting out of here. Maybe I could beg Ryan to let me crash with him and Ethan. Cody would let me sleep on his couch in a heartbeat. But what I really wanted to do was to run to Willa, show up at her door and kiss her until my father's bland smile was erased from my memories.
Unbidden, a memory swirled back up, an older one. The night with my cousins, outside of the movie theater. "Have some goddamned shame," I'd shouted then. Just like I’d shouted tonight.
No. I leaned forward, gripping my sheets under my fingers, then with a growl, I yanked them off the bed in one heave, shoving them into my duffel bag. I wasn't going to start down that path. All I needed to do was go to Willa, tell her I needed her, and she'd be there for me. This was real.
As I picked up my phone, I heard the sound of my father's car door slamming. Loudly. For a second I winced, thinking of how we'd both probably woken my mother.
But wasn't it better to be awake than stay dreaming?