Page 58 of A Wreck, You Make Me

He shrugs. “Things change.”

“She changed you,” I conclude.

“Something like that.”

It’s bittersweet, this feeling, and I don’t hide it when I say, “I’m happy for you.”

“But you still want to beat the shit out of me.”

I clench my jaw. “Yeah.”

“Just so you know, you’re welcome to.”

I know that. I know he’d let me break his bones like he broke mine. But I know that’s not what will get me what I want. I need to move on, and there’s only one thing that could help me do that. That girl inside the house talking to my sister. In fact, my Little Strawberry is already cutting through the poison. So I know it’s her or nothing else.

“Just stay away from me. For a little while,” I say.

He watches me for a few seconds. Then, with a small lopsided smile, he goes, “So this is what it feels like, huh? Being pushed away.”

“You did it often enough.”

He nods, swallowing. “I will. Keep my distance, I mean. Until you tell me otherwise. Just…” He trails off on another swallow. “Just know that I’m here. Always. Doesn’t make up for everything or maybe anything really, but youarethe other half of my soul, and your other half may be shitty but mine is someone I’m proud of.”

With that he leaves, and I get this urge to call him back. But I know it’s for the better. I’m not really sure what’s happening to me, but what I said is unfortunately true. I do need this distance from him to figure out how to fix myself.

I turn back to the window, and she’s gone. Sighing, I decide to head back inside too. I pass by the long picnic table, now devoid of all the food, and dump my beer bottle on it when Ihear a sound. A ringtone. It’s coming from the ground. I look down and see a purse lying on the grass, as if dropped in a hurry. Jesus, Callie and her million friends.

Sighing, I pick it up and open it to retrieve the ringing cell phone. Immediately my body tightens up because I see the face I’ve been sleeping to lit up on the screen, smiling, along with another redhead. Must be her sister that she’s taking care of. I focus on the ringing phone and as soon as I see a guy’s name flashing through the screen, I tense. Jeremy. Who the fuck is Jeremy and why is he calling my girl so late at night?

I accept the call but before I can say anything, I hear a voice I haven’t heard in over a decade. A voice that used to strike fear into me when I was a kid, and anger when I grew up.

That same voice echoes in my ear right now as it says, “You fucking bitch, where the fuck have you been? You think you can ignore us? Ignore me? I won’t let you fuck up my life, you hear me? You’renotfucking up my life or I’ll fuckyouup. I’ll fucking fuck you and your bitch mom up…”

I’d listen to his drunken rant more carefully if he wasn’t talking in circles, repeating the same thing over and over in different ways. Something he used to do when he lived with us, when he’d come home drunk and create a ruckus, throwing pots and pans, banging doors and windows.

But that’s not the point. Thefucking pointis why the fuck is my drunk, deadbeat, estrangedfor yearsfather calling the girl I’ve been obsessed with since the moment I saw her a year ago?

Chapter Twelve

I have butterflies.

Big, brutal, vicious butterflies flapping their wings in my tummy and doing it so forcefully that I might actually fly away. Because tomorrow is here andtomorrowis when he said I was coming with him. So we can have sex. SoIcan have sex with the man I’ve been obsessed with for years. Who also happens to be my stepbrother.

I think I should tell him. I should tell him who I really am and how we’re connected.

But then if Idotell him and he changes his mind about things, and I know he will because I’m astupid stinkingliarwho’s been lying to him and his siblings for years now, what will happen to his game? What will happen to his whole plan about moving on? Although to be fair, I don’t even know if his plan will work. I knowhethinks it will, but what if I can’t make him move on? Or he has sex with me and realizes,meh, she isn’t all that after all. Because aren’t virgins bad at sex, or is that just a myth that I heard somewhere?

Suffice to say, I have thought about it a lot. I’veoverthoughtit and I’m really, really nervous. And getting more so because he’s late.

He’s never late. In fact, there have been a couple of times when he’s been early. Which always threw me, because my shift starts at 5PM and in order to make it on time, he’d have to leave his practice by 3:00. And if he’s early, then even earlier than 3:00, and don’t his coaches mind? Maybe I can ask him about that. He did agree to talk to me, and maybe this could be one of the topics we could cover. Among other things that I listed in my notebook.

Yes, I made a list of things I want to talk to him about.

But that isn’t going to matter if he doesn’t show up. But why wouldn’t he show up? Hewould. He wanted this. Then something occurs to me: what if he’s in trouble? Oh my God, what if he got in anaccident? What if he’s lying in a ditch somewhere…

“So what’s your name?”

I hear the question from one of the guests at the table I’m serving drinks to and my runaway thoughts break. “Uh, Jupiter.”