“Are you sure? He looks really upset, and you’re clearly upset. You might want to talk about it.”
“Not tonight.” She would humiliate herself. She would show him the truth—that no matter how much she wanted to believe she could be like everyone else, she wasn’t. She never would be.
“Okay.”
While Piper lay there stroking Prada’s soft flank, she heard murmured voices downstairs and the door firmly closing. A second later there was pounding. Then pounding again. And more pounding.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
* * *
BRADY KNEW HE WAS BEING IRRATIONAL. PIPER DIDN’T want to see him. Amanda had gently but firmly closed the door in his face. But he couldn’t leave. He just couldn’t. He hit the door with his fist again.
It flew open, and this time it wasn’t Amanda, but Danny, looking furious. “My daughter does not want to see you right now, so I suggest you go on home.”
Knowing he had only seconds before he was facing a solid wood door again, Brady put his hand on the doorjamb and started talking, desperate. “Danny, look, I really need to talk to her. It’s just a misunderstanding. Please, just let me go up there and talk to her for two minutes.”
“Don’t make me throw you off my porch. I don’t want to have to do that, but I will.”
Given the look on Danny’s face, Brady didn’t doubt it for a second. Despite his hours logged in at the gym, there was no way he could match Danny in strength. But he had plenty of determination. Ignoring Danny, he pulled out his phone and dialed Piper again. For a second, he thought Danny was going to yank it out of his hand, so he turned, keeping his shoulder wedged in the door. He didn’t have a plan, exactly, but he’d sleep on this goddamn porch all night if he had to in order to get Piper to talk to him. He’d risk Danny calling the cops on him because he was not going to just roll over and let the best relationship he’d ever had die.
“Piper,” he said to her voice mail, knowing he was pleading. “Piper, please talk to me. I need you.”
He didn’t care whether Danny heard, what he thought of him. He just knew that he had finally come home with Piper and he didn’t want to lose that.
“Brady, that’s enough. You’re disturbing my whole family. If Piper wants to talk to you, she will.” With that, Danny gave him a firm shove on the chest, sending him back onto the porch, and the door closed.
Brady heard the lock tumble into place.
Shit.
He figured he had maybe ten minutes before the cops showed up. Sitting down on the steps, he sighed. The urge for a cigarette was strong again. The drive down from Chicago had been long, and he had a bit of a headache behind the eyes from the girl beaning him with a vase. Resting his arms on his knees, he tried to think, to plot a strategy, but nothing came to his weary and panicked mind.
It just felt like he’d been given a winning lottery ticket, then lost it. A sense of hopelessness settled over him, and he stared out into the driveway, to the cornfield beyond, and wondered what the f**k he was supposed to do now. It didn’t seem right that the older he got, the less sure of his future he was.
His phone rang. Glancing down, he saw it was Piper. Heart thumping painfully, he answered with a careful, “Hello?” His urgent need to explain had dissipated. If Piper wanted to talk, he wanted her to control the conversation, not feel like he was pressuring her or verbally vomiting on her. She had told him once that liars over-explain, so he wasn’t going to do that, because he wasn’t lying.
“Hi. Where are you?”
Her nose sounded stuffed, like she’d been crying. A lot. “On your front porch. I imagine your dad has called the cops by now.”
There was a rustling, and her voice was muffled. “No, I don’t think so. I’m coming out.”
“Okay.” He didn’t say anything. He wanted her to look in his eyes when he told her the truth. He wanted to see that she believed him. He wanted to know that something wasn’t so broken between them that she wouldn’t accept the truth he told her.
The door opened with a slow creak and a dog came running out ahead of Piper. It blew past Brady and headed out into the yard. Piper came and sat next to him on the steps. Brady searched her face. What he saw made his heart break. Her face was swollen from crying, cheeks blotchy, eyes red.
“Piper, it wasn’t—”
She cut him off, with a hand placed on his knee. “Shh. It’s okay. I know. That was Marcus’s girlfriend, wasn’t it? I think she’s been calling me because I’ve had missed calls from a blocked number, and today I got a weird text.”
Relief surged through him. “Yeah, she was looking for money. It’s pretty obvious she’s doing drugs and she said Marcus is in jail for possession.”
Piper sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. But I don’t imagine he’s had a good life. I’m sorry for freaking out, but when I saw you like that, it just really shocked me. She was bending over, her hand . . .” Piper shuddered.
Brady took her hand in his and squeezed. “I understand. I’m sorry you had to see that. Bad timing. I was trying to get her out of the house without it escalating into something, but clearly I didn’t succeed.” Did this mean they were okay? He couldn’t tell. Something about Piper didn’t look quite right.
She nodded. “Seeing that, I remembered something I hadn’t before. I remember my stepfather forcing my mom to give him o**l s*x, telling her she owed it to him for buying her pills. It just was an overwhelming moment for me, and I’m sorry I ran off.”
Jesus. What did he say to that? “I’m sorry, that’s terrible. And I’m sorry that you had to see what you did. No matter what the circumstances, it’s awkward.”
Something was still off, and he didn’t know what it was, so he just waited.
“You know how I told you once that you’re insecure? The thing is, it’s really me who is insecure. I care too much what other people think of me. Why should I care that I was abandoned at eight, looking like a total ragamuffin? That’s not on me. That was my mother and Mark’s fault. Actually, mostly Mark’s fault. Yet I still want to fit in, be like everyone else, not see ghosts. I shouldn’t care.”
“I think it’s understandable that you do, but you’re right, no one thinks any less of you for your parents’ mistakes.”
Piper looked at him, tears shining in her eyes. “I know what everyone has been saying, that you’re not stable enough for me. But the truth is, I’m not stable enough for you. Woman-child, that’s me. I’m a clinger, and I’m going to suffocate you.”