“I believe you,” I say quietly, honestly. “Can I tell you something?”
“You can tell me anything, you know that.”
I step closer to him again. He tugs my hair from the scarf, letting it cascade down my back, and he runs his fingers through it to the ends as I look straight into his eyes.
“When I go back to school in the fall, I want you beside me,” I tell him.
Reese smiles, sweeping his mouth across mine. “You know I was gonna go whether you wanted me to or not, right?”
I can’t help the small laugh that leaves me. “I know. Now get me ice cream.”
“Bossy.”
I grin.
~
“Where in the holy mother of all f**k are you?!” Luce screams down the phone. “I have been looking everywhere for you! Do you hear that? Eh-vah-ree-where! No one knows where you are! Or Reese! Where are you?!”
“I’m on a beach. In Alabama.”
“Informative, Kia. Real f**kin’ informative. Do you know how many goddamn beaches there are in Alabama? Huh, d’ya?”
“All right, Luce, keep your panties on.”
“You better be with Reese. Has he kidnapped you? By God, I bet he kidnapped you. He did, didn’t he?”
I bark out a laugh. “No, Reese didn’t kidnap me.”
Reese looks up from the small disposable barbecue he’s trying to light and raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug a shoulder.
“Then my phone call best be interruptin’ some red hot sex or, we need serious words.” She pauses. “Shit, we need words anyway. I’m mad, Kia. I’m real mad. What the hell were you thinkin’, takin’ off like that?!”
“I’ll explain everything when we get back; I promise.”
“You’ve eloped, haven’t you? I knew it. You better not come back married. If you come back married and I don’t ever get to be maid of honor, shit is gonna hit the fan, Kia James.”
I snort this time. “We are most definitely not married.”
Reese looks at me again, this time both eyebrows raised.
“Thank God.” She audibly exhales. “Can you tell me where you are? Then I can at least tell Reese’s mom. She’s a bit pissed he hasn’t told her he was taking you off for a romantic weekend. At least that’s what we’ve all assumed after practically fingertip searching the whole damn town for you!”
“Not so much a romantic weekend,” I hedge. “More an impromptu getaway.”
“Whatever it is, someone needs to call his mom. All she knows is he’s taken you and disappeared.”
“Tell her we’re at his aunt’s, and he’ll call her later.”
“And what are you telling me?”
“That we’re at his aunt’s and I’ll tell you everythin’ on Monday.”
“Hmph.”
“Promise.”
“Fine. I’m gonna call his mom, but he owes me. You both owe me.”
“You’re the best, Lu.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Use a condom.” She hangs up. I blink at the phone a few times. Perhaps I should have sent her a message yesterday…
“You, er, probably should have called her or something yesterday,” Reese says as if he’s reading my mind.
“Ya think?” I roll my eyes. “She’s mad. Like, way mad.”
His lips quirk, and he rolls over. “We did kinda just take off.”
“I know. I guess I’m just surprised she doesn’t already know what happened. Isn’t that what Harlan Grove is famous for? No one’s business being anything but everyone’s business and all that.”
“Maybe no one heard?” he suggests, resting his chin on his hand and gazing up at me.
I snort, thinking of the screaming fit Mom pitched when Dad told her he wanted to get married to his new girlfriend and needed a divorce. Momma had gone completely crazy – complete with a glass meeting the wall and shattering all over the floor as she screamed all sorts of insults at him.
Apparently, she forgot she was, and is, the reason he left.
“No, someone would have definitely heard it. Or at least some of it. Enough to make assumptions, anyway…” I trail off.
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
I sigh and shake my head. “No, I do. Dad wants a divorce. Basically, he wants to marry some girl he met in New York two years ago, but since Momma cut all contact he had to come back and talk to her about it. I think he was hoping I wouldn’t be around, but obviously, I was.” My mouth twists.
“That’s not so bad, though, right? He’s come back; you know the truth, and you can all move forward however you want to. You can have a relationship with your Dad again. If you want it.”
I swallow and look out to sea. The gentle blue-green waters lap at the edge of the beach, breaking as the waves collide with the sand. White foam takes its place, spraying out slightly. A silent coastal breeze circles around us and all across the beach shared by all the houses on this part of town. In the distance, a dock stretches out half a mile into the water. Little fishing boats bob on the surface of it, silently moving with the waves.
“No, all of that is great. I can talk to my dad and get the whole truth and build a relationship again, like you said.”
Reese doesn’t say anything. It’s okay, though. I haven’t totally processed it myself. Dad getting married again… The idea of him being with someone other than my mom is hard to swallow. I never imagined my parents with anyone else, even after all this time. I guess a part of me still hoped that if and when he came back, he’d be coming back for us.
“At least she isn’t some college girl young enough to be my sister,” I reason to myself out loud. “She’s thirty-something with her own job and house and stuff. I just…”
“Never thought he’d get married again?” Reese finishes for me.
“Yeah. I dunno how I feel about it. Him coming back unannounced, finding out I’d been totally lied to for six years, then that?” I shake my head. “Talk about dropping a bomb on someone, y’know? They really did it there. I just… Shit. I don’t even know.”
I laugh, but it comes out as a half-laugh, half-sob. Reese sits up and pulls me into his side, resting my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arms right around me, and I squeeze my eyes shut tightly to hold back the stream of tears that want to escape.
I won’t cry anymore. I won’t give my parents any more of my tears. Not for this. Six years ago, yes. Three years, yes. Hell, even six months ago I would have locked myself away and cried. But not now. Now I’m going to be the person I pretended I was in New York… And the person I pretended I was before then.