Breaking Ties

by Tracie Puckett

  “What’s done is done,” Mom said, looking between the three of us. I’d never heard so much conviction in a person’s voice. “So where does that leave us now? I want this. Bailey wants this.”

  “And you’re the only two,” I said, turning to her. “I’ll promise you that now. You’re never going win this family over. You had your chance. You blew it.”

  “Can you seriously blame me for wanting to try again?” she asked. “I wanted to know where I stood.”

  “We can easily answer that question for you,” Dad said, his sympathetic gaze falling to Bailey as she struggled to stop her tears.

  He hurt for her because he knew exactly what she was feeling, the pain all of this had caused her. She’d been on an emotional roller coaster for days because of Mom, and now she was learning that it was all for nothing.

  “You have to go back to California, Vic,” Dad said. “And we’re not coming with you.” Bailey cried even harder as Dad spoke, and I reached over to take her hand, but she slapped it away. She pushed away from the table and ran to her room, slamming the door behind her. “You should’ve known better than to come here. How many times are you going to break these poor girls before you’ve had enough? You need to leave. Go home.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “There’s my number one girl.”

  His voice was low and solemn, nothing like it normally was, and that worried me. The joy and quirkiness that he so often carried in his tone had vanished, and I knew immediately that something was wrong.

  Dad was off to rehearsal in Desden, and Bailey had taken up residency at the Hyatt with Mom after our dinner last night. I hadn’t been home long, and I was locking the door to leave again when Jones approached from the sidewalk, wearing a grim expression and heavy eyes.

  “You have a second?”

  “I do, but … Jones?” I said, looking down at my uniform and then back to him. “I think the bakery logo should’ve tipped you off, buddy. Just in case your attention to detail is a little askew today, allow me to point out that I’m Mandy, not Bailey. Your number one girl fled off to Desden last night with our mother.”

  “Yeah,” he nodded, but he didn’t seem surprised by my revelation. “I’m depressed, not blind. I knew it was you.”

  I smirked. I had to give him credit. Jones hadn’t always been the best at telling us apart, but time had helped things. He was almost getting as good as Dad and Gabe at distinguishing between Bailey and me.

  “I stopped by work; you weren’t there.”

  “That’s cause I’m here,” I said, nodding to the porch swing.

  I didn’t have a lot of time to hang out and talk. I was supposed to be at work already, but with all the drama and confusion of the week, I was too distracted when I left for school this morning, and I left my work shirt sitting at home on my bed. I called Julia at lunch and she said not to rush, just to swing home after school, get my shirt, and get to work as soon as I could.

  Though I should’ve been in a hurry to meet my obligations, I wasn’t. Seeing the look on Jones’s face was heartbreaking enough. Cupcakes, lollipops, and buttercream would have to wait. My best friend needed my attention, and I planned to give him that—undivided—for as long as he needed it.

  “Come on,” I motioned for him to join me. “Sit with me.”

  “I know you’re in a hurry.”

  “I’m not,” I promised, and we both turned to sit down. “What’s going on?”

  “I think it’s over.”

  “What?”

  “Me … Bailey. Us.” He looked down to his hands, trying to steady them, but his nerves were dominating his control. When he succumbed to his anxiety, he started to pick at his fingernails to avoid meeting my stare. He wanted to focus anywhere but upward because poor Jones knew that if he looked up and met my eyes, he’d inevitably shed a few tears. “We had a fight last night.”

  “Okay?” I asked, turning to face him. I pulled my legs up on the swing, tucking them beneath me. I wanted him to see that he had my attention. Nothing else mattered but listening to him. When I settled myself, becoming a little more comfortable, he took a deep breath and let it go. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She said you guys were having dinner as a family, and that she’d call and let me know how it went. When I talked to her in the afternoon, she was in the best mood she’s been in for a week. I was honestly shocked. But then nighttime came around, and I never heard from her, so I called.” He dug at his nails even deeper. “I shouldn’t have called.”

  I couldn’t imagine what she’d said to him to make him regret reaching out. It couldn’t have been good because Jones reeked of remorse. In the few months that they’d been together, I’d seen Bailey spark many things in him ... but never regret. That worried me. After the way the dinner had ended last night—Bailey slapping my hand and storming off—I’m sure my sister wasn’t in any kind of mood to talk to Jones; she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.

  “She hung up on me three times.”

  “But you kept calling back?”

  “She used to like my persistence,” he said, smiling through the tears.

  “You know you haven’t done anything wrong?” I asked. “You cared enough to try.”

  “I know,” he said, looking at me. “I’ve been an outstanding boyfriend, Mandy. Some might even say perfect—maybe too perfect. I’m the package deal. I’ve got the looks, the smarts, the talent. I play drums, for God’s sake. I’m a great listener, and I have compassion oozing from my soul—”

  “All right, take it down a notch, buddy,” I said, nudging him. “You don’t have to convince me.”

  We both smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood, and this time, he didn’t turn back to look at his hands. He maintained a hard stare, looking straight at me.

  “I know I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “This whole situation has Victoria written all over it, and that’s the part I’m struggling with. I’ve tried to be there for Bailey. I know better than anyone how much she loves your mother, but I also know how crazy the woman makes both of you. I wanted to be there for your sister, but she kept pushing me away. If I asked questions, she got mad. If I gave advice, she got mad. If she blew me off and I got mad, then that was the end of the world. It’s like, now that Victoria’s in the picture again, Bailey’s the only person who’s allowed to have feelings around here.”

  “It’s hard,” I said because I knew better than anyone exactly what he was saying. Bailey might’ve considered my feelings by not telling me the truth from the beginning, but by sneaking around and lying, she also betrayed my trust. I understood, in a very vague way, how she was trying to help me while helping herself, but it still stung. And like it stung me, it stung Jones. “Listen, I’m not taking her side, but believe me when I tell you that her outbursts are semi-justifiable.”

  “Mandy, what the eff happened during that dinner last night?”

  I figured he didn’t know. If he kept calling, and she kept hanging up, I was certain that he hadn’t gotten enough out of her to find out exactly what had gone down.

  “Short version? She and Mom decided to reveal their big plan,” I said, swallowing hard. “Mom wants to get the family back together.”

  “She wants to move to Sugar Creek?”

  “No. They wanted to make the family work again, but not here. They wanted us to move back to LA.”

  I should’ve slapped him in the face; that would’ve come as much less of a shock than what I’d said. Not only had Bailey been keeping secrets from him, but she’d been plotting all along to hopefully move the family back to LA with Mom, and she hadn’t even bothered confiding in her boyfriend about her plans. When he said he knew nothing, he’d meant it. But now he knew, and the blank expression on his face was clue enough that I should’ve eased into the truth a lot slower than I did. Blindside of the century. Good job, Mandy.

  “She wants to go back?”

  “Okay,” I said, slowly, taking
a breath. “To be fair, we always knew she wanted to. It was the part about going as a family, forgiving Mom, and going now, not later … those were the parts of the equation that came as a shock.”

  He looked down to his hands again. There was more sadness in his stare than anger, and poor Jones didn’t know what to say next. His lips kept moving. He kept opening his mouth to say something, but the words never came out. For two whole excruciating minutes, neither of us said anything.

  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “Maybe she was scared,” I said, remembering how she’d defended herself last night. She knew I wouldn’t like what she was up to, and the fear of my reaction to her plans had kept her silent; it kept her sneaking around. Maybe she feared Jones would react the same way, so she thought to keep quiet to everyone. “I think she wanted to tell us in her own time.”

  “How am I supposed to trust her?” he asked, looking to me, the sadness in his eyes turning to anger. “How am I supposed to trust someone who says she loves me, but yet she doesn’t trust me enough to tell me what’s going on in her life?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that, because I almost understood Bailey’s reasoning. I honestly didn’t know how Jones would’ve handled knowing the truth. Although I’d argued to Mom that Jones, as my friend, would’ve told me anything, there was a chance that—if he’d known Bailey’s secret—he would’ve kept it to himself because he loved her that much.

  Then again, with the news being something so huge and so life-changing, there was always that chance that he would’ve told me … and maybe that’s why Bailey never said anything. Maybe she had her doubts about his ability to keep her secret. Maybe telling him was a risk she wasn’t willing to take. Sadly, I understood that.

  “You have to try again,” I said. “Talk to her. Make her talk to you, and do it face-to-face. Don’t give her a chance to hang up on you or walk away. Get some answers. Make her tell you the truth.”

  “That’s the plan. We’re having dinner tonight,” he said. “I got her on the phone long enough to get her to agree to that.”

  “Okay, good. That’s a great first step. So what do you want out of that? What are you going to say?”

  “I don’t know,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s hard, because I know she’s going through a lot right now, and I don’t want to hurt her even more than she’s already hurting. I feel awful because I love Bailey, but … I feel like the girl I fell in love with is buried so deep inside this self-centered shell that I can’t see anything left of her. I feel … terrible, Mandy.”

  “Jones,” I said, feeling the familiar sting of tears burning my eyes as his last few words sank in. “You said you don’t know what you want, that you don’t know what you’re going to say, but it sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind. Are you breaking up with her?”

  He looked to his hands again.

  “The writing’s on the wall, Mandy. I’ve played the scenario through my head a hundred different ways, and I don’t see either of us coming out of this dinner tonight with a smile. It’s over. That’s the way it has to be.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was really a mystery how I didn’t crawl into a corner and cry. In spite of all the little successes in my life lately, the darker moments continued to loom over me, consuming my every thought. I hadn’t even taken the time to celebrate the nerve Dad had to speak up and tell Mom to get lost. Even though it’s what I’d wanted all along, his words had hurt my sister, so I could never be happy with that. I couldn’t celebrate her pain.

  And then there was Gabe. As a couple, he and I had made so much progress in recent days, and I wanted nothing more than to revel in the fact that we were in a great place. But every time I thought of Gabe, I thought of Jones and Bailey. All along I’d wanted what they had, and now their relationship was probably over for good.

  That scared me.

  I kept checking my phone all night, waiting to hear from Jones or Bailey. Truthfully, though, I knew the call wouldn’t come from my sister. If things went really, really bad at that dinner tonight, I’d hear from Jones, or I’d hear nothing at all.

  My phone buzzed from the counter as I mopped up the bakery floor at closing. I dropped the mop straight to the floor and slid across the wet tile until I reached the phone.

  Two schools in one day. My Friday opened up. What would it take to get you to skip school and spend the day with me tomorrow?

  I smiled at Gabe’s message.

  Intriguing offer, but I can’t, I texted first. And then I sent another. Sugar Creek has this crazy policy about keeping their kids in school. No school on Fridays means no admittance into weekend events on school property. I can’t miss the dance tomorrow night.

  I waited a few seconds for the next message to come through, hoping he wouldn’t be too upset.

  Okay. I’ll let you have that one, but mark my words: I’ll make a hooky player of you yet, he promised with his next message, and then another came through right after. Can’t blame a guy for trying. It’s been a crazy week. I miss you.

  As I started typing a response, the bell over the bakery door chimed.

  “Sorry, we’re closed.”

  I turned at once to see her, standing there in the dark shadow of the doorway. She’d let herself in, the door drawing closed slowly behind her. And there I stood, motionless at the counter, my heart suddenly pinched at the sight of my mother.

  She wasn’t supposed to be there. We’d said everything we needed to say last night, and Dad told her she needed to leave. But her pursed lips paired with that narrowed gaze told me that she wasn’t in any hurry to leave—she was a woman on a mission, and she wasn’t quite done with me yet.

  “You have to go. We’re closed.” As if the dimmed lights, the mop bucket, and the empty dessert cases weren’t clue enough.

  I found the strength to move again, turning away long enough to delete the text I’d started to Gabe, and then I tucked the phone back into my pocket. Keeping my eyes fixed on the floor, I headed back for the mop I’d abandoned only minutes ago, but Mom extended her leg and stepped on the end, the pressure of her foot pinning it down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want you to look at me,” she said, her voice hard, clear, and very determined. “You haven’t stopped and looked me in the eye once since I showed up here.”

  “Yeah, unfortunately for me, I have.”

  “Amanda, this is it for me. I only came here tonight to give you one last chance.”

  “You’re here to give me a chance?” I asked, anger attempting to get the best of me. “You’re seriously kidding, right?”

  “I can’t keep doing this with you,” she said. “You won’t forsake that stubborn attitude of yours for one second, and I’m at my wit’s end. We’re doing this.”

  “Doing what?” I asked, pulling the handle of the mop again. I tried to yank it from under her foot, but she only pressed harder. “There is absolutely nothing I want to do with you; now let go.”

  She didn’t, so I dropped the handle, letting it crash to the floor.

  “You don’t think I see it, do you?” she asked, eerily calm. I hated that her voice was so smooth and steady, and yet there I was on the brink of disaster. “You don’t think I saw how Gabe ushered you away from me on Saturday, or how you bite your tongue every time I come around.”

  “You think that’s me biting my tongue?” I asked, recalling all of the things I’d said to her in the past few days.

  “I know those jabs you take at me don’t begin to scrape the surface of what you want to say. You’re avoiding me because you’re afraid that you might actually build up the nerve to say what’s on your mind. You’re scared.”

  “Yeah, well, kudos to you on your observation.”

  “Stop it,” she demanded. “Just stop. Your snarky comments aren’t nearly as cute as you think they are.” I rolled my eyes. “I came here tonight because I was hoping to have an adult conversation with you. I want
ed to give you a chance—”

  “A chance for what?”

  “To say what you want to say, what you’ve been dying to say, since the moment I showed up in Sugar Creek. Because until you’ve let go of whatever it is that you’re holding onto, we can’t move past this, and I want to move past this, Amanda.” I could see the rise and fall of her chest with each deep breath she took, trying to maintain her composure. “I was hoping that by coming here tonight, by letting you speak your mind, that you would stop attacking me long enough to let me say what I came here to say.”

  “Isn’t that what you did last night?”

  “Barely,” she said. “But God forbid you stop and consider for one second that there might’ve been more to say.”

  “As if what you said wasn’t enough?”

  She raked her fingers through her hair, biting her lip—biting back a comment, no doubt.

  “Who’s holding back now?” I asked, grinning at the evidence that I could rattle Mom as much as she rattled me.

  “You’re impossible; do you know that? How am I supposed to talk to you?” She dropped her hands to her sides, her shoulders slumping as she watched me. “I don’t get you. I don’t understand. How is that I can come here and have a relationship with your sister, and yet you can’t say one kind word to me? How is it even possible that you and your sister can be so incredibly different?”

  “Maybe if you would’ve been around for the last four years, you would already know the answer to that question,” I yelled back, and then the gloves came off. She wanted me to stop holding back, to say what I wanted to say, so that’s exactly what she was going to get. “But once again, that brings us right back to the fact that you pushed us out. You kicked us to the curb and you never looked back. You didn’t even care enough about us to call … until now. True to your nature, at least you call when you want something.”