Wild

by Sophie Jordan

  Mom called me a lot. She liked to keep tabs on me. And today was a Sunday. She always called on a Sunday. Even multiple times.

  My thumb hovered over my phone, inching closer to the play feature of my voicemail.

  Suddenly a sharp rap on the door had me squeaking and my phone flying. I jumped to my feet and turned for the bedside lamp, stubbing my toe.

  “Motherfucker!” I grabbed my toe, feeling my shattered nail against my palm. At that moment I didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty for the profanity. My throbbing toe . . . and the last twenty-fours warranted it.

  Tears spilled from my eyes that were only partly due to pain.

  Another knock sounded.

  “Coming!” I flipped on the lamp and limped to the door, blinking back my tears and swiping at my cheeks.

  Expecting to see Emerson or Pepper or Suzanne there and totally ready for someone to talk me off the ledge, I pulled the door open.

  The impeccably coiffed woman staring back at me pushed me off that ledge.

  “Georgia. Good of you to answer the door. I don’t imagine ‘motherfucker’ was the greeting you intended for me.”

  “You heard that?” I said numbly.

  “I think the entire bar heard that.” The way her lips curled around the word bar told me exactly what she thought of me living above one.

  I dragged a ragged breath into my lungs. “Hello, Mother.”

  IT TOOK LESS THAN an hour to pack up my things. Mom insisted we could pay someone to pack the rest and ship it back home. As far as she was concerned, she wanted to get me out of this cesspit—her words—and back home where I belonged. Permanently.

  I didn’t argue. She hardly looked at me as she moved about the loft, grabbing my things and stuffing them into my luggage. Her inability to meet my gaze conveyed just how disappointed in me she was. I didn’t need to ask why she was here. Whether or not she’d seen the photos on my wall. She had.

  My heart felt like a twisting mass in my chest. I wasn’t going to get through to her in her present mood. My best hope was to go home and visit for a few days until she cooled down.

  She zipped my suitcase with flourish. “There. Let’s go. We don’t want to miss our plane.”

  I nodded.

  “You have your ID and phone?”

  It was the same question she had asked me every time I left for the airport. Ever since I took my first trip. I nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mom walked downstairs ahead of me. I paused on the threshold and looked around the loft, telling myself it wasn’t the final time I would be seeing it. I liked living here. My own space. And I had so many memories of Logan wrapped up in the place. With an inhale, I closed the door and locked up after me.

  MUSKOGEE WAS THE KIND of place that changed very little over time. A relatively affluent community half an hour outside of Auburn, the male population lived for football and good barbecue. The women lived for church and gossip. Teenage girls in Muskogee lived for cotillion. As I was reminded as I stood in my sister’s bedroom.

  I peered into Amber’s closet, admiring the white gown that hung from her door, and tried to look genuinely interested.

  I had dragged myself from my bedroom, where I’d been hiding the last two days, to see it. She had been bugging me to check out her gown ever since I arrived—indifferent to the circumstances of my return or Mom’s black mood.

  Mom had yet to talk to me since we got back. A fact that told me how truly angry with me she was. I’d texted my friends and called Dr. Chase, explaining that I went home for a short visit. No one pressed me as to when I would return, which was a good thing, since it wasn’t a subject I had addressed with my parents yet.

  “Do you love it?”

  I stroked the silk flounces. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Here.” She pulled a heavy scrapbook off her desk. Together, we sat on the bed and flipped through the pages that captured every moment leading up to and through the night of her cotillion.

  “Did you have a good time?” I asked, pausing at a picture of her with Mom before the fireplace. Mom looked happy. Proud. It made me think of my own cotillion.

  I’d attended with Harris as my escort. It had been the highlight of high school for me. Shopping for the perfect dress with Mom. My photograph in the newspaper alongside all the other debutantes. Waltzing in Harris’s arms at a fancy hotel ballroom.

  I remember thinking that night was so magical. But now it seemed a dim memory. That girl someone from a very long time ago. The pride in my mother’s eyes a faint recollection.

  I glanced at my sister. She was blond like me, but with my stepfather’s green eyes. I had been her—without the fear of rejection. My real father’s legacy was always there. Still to this day. Like a snake ready to strike and release its venom.

  I glanced around her room. The pink canopied bed. High school pennants on the wall. Pictures of her friends and boyfriend all over her mirror and in frames on her dresser. My world had been like this. It should feel more familiar. This should feel like home.

  Instead, I felt like a visitor. I always assumed I would return to this place someday, but now the urge was gone. I wanted to go back to Dartford. To my friends. To my life there.

  “I saw the guy on Facebook,” Amber’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “What?” I looked at her.

  “The guy walking beside you. When you were handcuffed in the blue dress.”

  “Logan?” I frowned at her.

  “Is that his name?” She returned her attention to her scrapbook, flipping the page. “He was smoking hot. Is he your new boyfriend?”

  I studied her bent head before replying. “No.”

  It felt weird talking about him here with Amber. He was part of another world. A different world.

  And so are you. Now. I had another life. One I liked.

  “Well, that’s good. Mom has been on the phone with Harris’s mom a lot lately.”

  I tensed beside her. She kept talking as she flipped through her scrapbook, looking at photos she had doubtlessly looked at a hundred times. Amber in front of a limo with her boyfriend and another couple. Amber grinning as a corsage was slipped on her wrist.

  I wondered if she ever got tired of looking at these photos.

  Suddenly, I was glad that I had dated Harris. If for no other reason than that I followed him to Dartford and expanded my horizons and found friends like Pepper and Emerson and Suzanne.

  And Logan.

  “It’s just a matter of time,” she was saying.

  “What is?”

  “You and Harris. That’s what Mom thinks.”

  I shook my head. “No. Not happening.”

  She looked up. “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “Yeah.” She closed her book with a snap. “I always thought he was a prick. Walking around Muskogee with a huge ego because his dad is the mayor. I mean Muskogee is this big.” She pinched her fingers together in the air. “It’s not like he’s the president’s son or something.”

  I smiled. “No. He’s not.”

  When I saw that guy in the photo with you . . . I confess I was hoping you had moved on. Especially with someone as yummy as that.”

  My mouth sagged. Maybe my little sister wasn’t such a Mary Sue after all.

  A gentle knock sounded at the door. Mom pushed the door open. “Hey, girls.”

  She might have been addressing us both, but her gaze was fixed on me. Mom crossed her arms and cleared her throat in that way she did when she was settling in for a long talk.

  Amber rose and set her book back down on her desk, not missing the cue. She grabbed her keys and phone. “I’m going over to Jeremy’s.”

  “Back for dinner,” Mom said.

  We didn’t say anything for several minutes. Sitting on the bed, I listened to my sister b
ack out of the driveway until her Prius faded from hearing.

  It was a little bit after noon. Mom was off for the majority of the summer, but Dad was working. I did wonder why she didn’t wait for him to get home before having this talk. He might be my stepfather, but they had always handled the big conversations together. It gave me hope. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad since he wasn’t present.

  “Georgia.” Mom pulled out Amber’s desk chair and sank down onto it. “I’ve taken these two days to cool down . . . I admit this latest debacle of yours greatly upset me. Me and your father.” She crossed her legs. “But you know I don’t believe in making decisions in the heat of anger.”

  I nodded, relaxing. I liked where this was headed. She had cooled off. There was no real harm, after all. No charges had been pressed. It was just a misunderstanding. As for the fact that I had been at a “sex club,” maybe she could just pretend she never knew that. You know, like how she knew I was having sex and took me to the doctor to get me on the pill but a conversation about sex never actually took place.

  “You’re going to withdraw from Dartford and move home.”

  We stared at each other, her words sinking in. Home. Home. The word reverberated through me. I tossed it around and turned it over, tasting it in my head.

  I glanced around us. According to her this was home. Only it didn’t feel like home to me anymore.

  When I found my voice, it came out a hoarse scratch. “What?”

  She uncrossed her legs and closed both hands primly around her knees. “It’s too late to apply to Auburn, so you can attend community college in the fall or intern at the bank. That might be great experience for the future. In the spring you can transfer into Auburn and finish your degree while living here.”

  Pain slicked through my chest at her words. “You’d do this to me?”

  “Oh, don’t look so stricken. I’m looking out for you. I always have. You’ve had this . . . side to you, Georgia.” She shook her head. “It’s always worried me.” She meant my father. I had his blood running through my veins.

  Helplessness raged inside me. What had I ever done to concern her? Enjoy music? Play the guitar? Almost get into trouble with the law one time in twenty years?

  “So you’re just going to plan my life out for me?” My heart galloped eighty miles an hour in my chest.

  She cocked her head. “You don’t seem very capable of doing that yourself these days, Georgia.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her that this was my life. That she couldn’t dictate my future, but then she added in succinct tones, “Let me be clear: This is not a suggestion, Georgia. You’re done at Dartford. We are no longer paying your way unless you do this. Your tuition. Your living expenses. It’s all gone. Oh, and your car isn’t in your name. That’s gone, too. Insurance. Everything. If you go your own way, you’re paying your own way.”

  I sat there, the air sucked out of me, stunned.

  Mom tsked. “Don’t look so miserable. This is for the best. There was a time when you cared about what I thought. You wanted to please me and listened to me.”

  I nodded. I still did, but pleasing her was harder. Impossible maybe. Nothing I ever did seemed to be enough. And she didn’t really mean listen . . . she meant obey.

  She continued, “You’ll see, Georgia. Harris will be home in two years, and he’s already expressed to his mother that he can still see the two of you settling down someday. Isn’t that great? You’ll be here waiting for him after he graduates from Dartford.”

  I stared at my mother in disbelief. This was who she thought I was. A girl who would live at home, waiting for Harris to take her back on his terms when he was ready?

  Mom thought that was good enough for me. That I couldn’t possibly want more? Or deserve more?

  She rose from the chair. Lifting it, she slid it back beneath Amber’s desk. “I’ll let you think it over. I know you’ll come around.”

  Because she had just taken away my freedom. And what freedom was that really, anyway, if it could be seized with a snap of her fingers? I never really had it to begin with, I realized. I was at the mercy of her whims.

  The enormity of returning to Dartford and supporting myself—covering tuition, room, and board all on my own—overwhelmed me. Oh, and without a car or insurance. If I left here, I’d be on my own. An orphan, essentially.

  “I’ll think it over,” I agreed, my lips hugging the words numbly.

  “Of course, you will.” Patting my shoulder, she turned and walked from the room.

  As soon as she left, I fell back on the bed, every part of me suddenly as heavy as lead.

  Chapter 21

  THE DAY AFTER MY conversation with Mom she left the application forms on my bed for Muskogee Community College. It was her not-so-subtle way of moving things along.

  A week passed before I forced myself to start filling out the paperwork. Something withered and died in me with every swipe and scratch of my pen across the paper. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to sign my signature on the last page. Instead, I shoved the application forms in a drawer in my room.

  But out of sight wasn’t out of my mind. I couldn’t forget they were there. Nor would Mom let me. She reminded me every day that there was a July twentieth deadline.

  “Maybe you don’t want to finish college,” she suggested over breakfast one morning.

  I looked up from my cereal, watching her warily, wondering if this was some new tactic, because surely she wanted me to finish college. She was an educator for God’s sake. A principal.

  Mom shrugged. “You can live here and work at the bank. Of course, I’d like you to complete your degree. I tell all my students that, but college isn’t for everyone. Even I know that.” She lifted the coffeepot to refill her mug. “And how important will it be for you to have a degree once you marry Harris anyway? I’m sure you’ll stay home after the wedding. Start a family.”

  Oh. My. God. I looked down at my bowl and spooned another mouthful of Cheerios into my mouth so I didn’t have to tell her just what I thought about that idea. When had my life turned into this world of suck?

  I HELD BACK MY tears through the phone call with Pepper. I didn’t need her to know how upset I truly was. I tried to sound practical.

  “I can’t afford tuition, Pepper . . . and all my other expenses on top of that.”

  “You can live at Mulvaney’s. You don’t have to pay rent, and we can float your utilities for a while. You use so little anyway and it’s all rolled into the business.”

  “I appreciate that.” And it really was generous, but that still left tuition and all my other expenses. I could get a job, but that still left tuition and books. It was a lot to wrap my head around. Mom knew that. She expected me to fall in line. I rubbed the center of my forehead where it was beginning to ache. I’d taken a run after breakfast but the endorphins had done little to alleviate the pressure building up in my skull.

  “Look. I’m not saying I’m not coming back. I just need time to figure out a plan . . . how I can make it work without my parents supporting me. I might not be coming back until the spring.”

  “Georgia, you know if you drop out it will be harder to get back into Dartford. Have you called Dr. Chase?”

  “Yes. I explained I had a family emergency and wouldn’t be back for the summer. He was very understanding.”

  “Maybe he can help you, if you explain . . .”

  “We’ll see,” I say, the ache in my head unbearable now. I rubbed harder, beating the heel of my palm to my head a few times as if that might kill the pain. “I have to go. It’s dinnertime.”

  Pepper paused and I realized how lame that came out. I sounded fourteen having to hang up the phone because I was wanted at the dinner table. Not that it was even the truth. I already ate an hour ago.

  “Georgia, what are you doing?” Her voice was almost a whisper here, b
ut no less demanding.

  “I’ll be fine, Pepper. It’s not the end of the world if I have to move back home.” It only felt like it was.

  She sighed. “What about Logan?”

  Everything inside me seized tight at her question. “What about him?”

  “You and Logan—”

  “You heard Logan. He’s not sitting around waiting for me.”

  “Yeah, I heard Logan.”

  Embarrassment sizzled through me. “Well, then you know.”

  “I know you’re both totally into each other, and you’re going to blow it if you don’t come back here.”

  I already blew it. I pressed a hand over my chest, directly over my constricting heart. Great. Now my chest hurt, too.

  “It was a fling, Pepper. What else can it be?” Bile surged in the back of my throat at the lie. It was so much more than that but what else could I say? I couldn’t tell her that I loved him. She would only protest harder for me to come back. She might even tell Logan.

  “Look, I know Reece and I came down on you two like a pair of disapproving parents. Sorry about that. We were kind of assholes. But I’ve been thinking . . . why can’t you and Logan be together? He’s going to school forty minutes from here. He’s a good guy and I’ve never seen him act this way over any other girl. I’ve never seen you act this way over any guy. If you come back here you could both—”

  “It was just sex, Pepper.”

  My blunt words fell on the air, the lie tearing something open inside me. The line crackled in sudden silence. My head felt like exploding. Tears streamed silently down my face.

  Then she laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” I snapped on a wet, tear-soaked breath.

  “Yeah. Well. Once upon a time I was hooking up with Reece just for foreplay lessons so I could land another guy.”

  “Yeah, I kind of remember that.” I might have been involved in some of that scheme, crazy as it sounded now.

  “I know all about deluding myself. And I almost lost him because I was too stubborn and too afraid to admit what was between us.”

  I filled my lungs with air. Yeah. I was afraid. I could admit that. I’d felt out of control since the first moment things heated up between Logan and me. But I was more afraid to embrace it all. To turn my back on the life I was supposed to lead, the one that had been planned for me since birth—or since my real father walked out and abandoned me and Mom.