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“You know I found her by a burned-out house.” I told Honey the story of rescuing Arson and she told me about her pets and a few of her favorite ducks and chickens.

“How do you work on the farm and then do the marketplace? It sounds exhausting.” I couldn’t imagine. All of the work I did Monday through Wednesday was tiring, but it wasn’t like the manual labor of being on a farm.

“Well, that’s why I say many hands make light work. My parents do a lot.”

I guess they must.

“And your siblings?”

Honey let out a sigh. “They do what they can. I just…I feel like it was me and my parents building the farm when they first bought it and the three of us agreed that we were building this for them. So that they could have something to take pride in, a place to work if they needed it. I have no idea if that makes any sense.” Honey finished her sub and tore open the bag of kettle cooked chips.

“It does make sense.” Not to me, really, because my family had never been like that. But I could see Honey feeling that way.

“You never talk about your family at all,” she said, examining a chip and then popping it into her mouth.

“You noticed that, huh,” I said, setting down the remains of my sandwich, no longer interested in eating.

“Yes. Is there a reason?”

“There is.” I’d thought we were going to discuss sex tonight, but I guess we were talking about this first.

“My parents kicked me out the second they could. We’d never been a family. Not like you are with your parents and your siblings. Just three people who shared a home for a while. Honestly, they never should have had me. They weren’t suited to being parents. They cared more about their own activities and having fun than things like making sure I got to school on time or got good grades or anything. I was just as happy to leave as they were to get rid of me.”

I hadn’t said any of this to someone before. Not even the people I’d been sort of friends with in high school had known. I wasn’t the kind of person who invited people over and when people asked where my parents were, I made up work trips or sick relatives or whatever I had to so I could cover up the fact that they just didn’t give a shit.

“Oh, Bren,” Honey said, reaching out and squeezing my arm. “Can I please give you a hug?”

I wanted to tell her no, but I didn’t. Instead I nodded and let myself be gathered into her arms as she held me and stroked my hair and made soothing noises. When had I started crying?

“Oh, my Bren,” Honey said, squeezing me. “They didn’t deserve you. They didn’t deserve you.”

She didn’t deserve me. She deserved much better.

This night had taken a turn and I didn’t like it. Talking about my shitty parents just made me feel awful and gross and like I wanted to climb into bed and sleep for a week.

“I’m sorry.” I’d cried and snotted all over Honey’s beautiful sweater.

“Oh this is nothing. At least it’s human.” She reached for a tissue from the nearby box and wiped my face like I was a child.

“I don’t want to cry about them,” I told her while tears continued to drip from my eyes and make my cheeks damp and salty.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She wiped my nose. “Doesn’t mean I can’t still be sorry, Bren. Have a cookie.” She handed one to me and I started eating it, not even tasting what flavor it was.

“I didn’t know bringing that up was a bad idea. I’m sorry about that,” Honey said.

Finishing the cookie, I dusted my hands off. “You didn’t know. It’s…it’s whatever. Can we please talk about something else?”

She agreed, and Arson jumped into her lap.

“You wanna talk about my butt?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows. The shift was so unexpected that I burst out laughing.

“Yes please, let’s talk about your butt.”

Chapter Twenty-Six