by AnonYMous
Because I wasn’t as brave or strong as he thought I was, I said yes.
*
Brad
I set Wren’s bag immediately inside the door of her dad’s house, but I remained out on the step, waiting for her to shoo me out or invite me in. “The police were in here for a few days searching for evidence or whatever, and I didn’t have a chance to clean up.”
She took in the disorder stony-faced. “I bet Paul’s daughters were pissed when you asked them to get a bag for me.”
“Uh, yeah.”
She gave a little laugh. “They’re cranky in the best circumstances.” We both knew these weren’t remotely the best circumstances.
I hung off the lintel and watched her for several beats. There were dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks had hollowed out a bit due to stress or jail, but when she turned her gaze to me—fixed, steely—I felt unsteady on my feet.
She still hadn’t responded to my declaration. I knew she cared about me, but that might not mean crap, not with what had gone down. I meant what I’d said to her: whatever I’d done hadn’t come with expectations. It wasn’t a down payment on a life together. I wanted her freely or not at all.
My only regret—and the thing I hadn’t told her yet—was that taking out the second mortgage complicated me leaving Fallow. If I was leaving. But as I watched her take in what the cops had done to her dad’s house, I also knew I was leaving. If she didn’t want me, I couldn’t stay here.
She made a circuit of the first floor. Then she came out onto the front steps. Eyes closed, she turned her face into the wind. It was cold and damp; there was snow on the ground west of here and the scent of it was being carried to us.
She inhaled and exhaled. “Without Fallow, without Masters, I don’t know who I am.”
She was having an existential crisis? Made sense. “Maybe now you get to decide who you are without expectations or limits. What you are now is potential.”
She didn’t open her eyes, but she half-smiled. “That’s some new age yoga shit.”
“Maybe you’d like new age yoga shit if you’d give it a chance.”
“Buddha’s probably not for me. I don’t really tread lightly in the world, you know? If it hadn’t been for what I did, Larry wouldn’t be dead.”
I wanted to shake her, but I wasn’t ready to touch her. My hands stopped a few inches from her as if she were giving off a force field. “You can’t know that. No one can. And he wouldn’t want you spend the rest of your life castigating yourself about that.”
Finally, she cracked one eye open. “He’d never use such a fancy word.”
She was probably right, but I wasn’t about to parse Larry Nasmith’s vocabulary. “You don’t have to do anything, not now. You can take a moment for new age yoga shit or dying your hair pink or going back to school. You could also think about answering me.”
It wasn’t fair to push her now, but I had to know.
Her brows drew together. “You know what I want to say.”
“I don’t, actually.” I knew what I wanted her to say, but if want were enough to make this happen, it would have worked out long ago.
“Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.” She paused. “I have to know what I want tomorrow and the next day before I tell you yes.”
Yes. The answer was yes.
I could feel it all over me, the relief and the joy. I couldn’t help but smile and reach for her. “Tell me yes and figure it out with me.”
She quickly took several steps inside, away from me. “Oh no, I’m not coming into your life while I’m still all woe is me. I won’t be your Eeyore.”
“You look great in gray.”
“Fuck you.”
“I intend to.”
“Will you stay the night?” She held up a hand. “No, not like that. Not with me, but with me.”
“Of course.” The hope was there, coursing through the word, rattling my chest, but I batted it away. It was enough—for now—that she was asking.
Chapter 12
Wren
When I’d been out of jail several days, I sprawled on the couch and watched Brad get ready to go to work.
“What are you going to do today?” he asked as he poured his coffee into the to-go cup I’d left out.
“Netflix. There’s lots of television to catch up on.”
“You can’t be a hermit.”
“Wanna bet?”
“You’ll feel better once you get out of the house.”
I doubted that was true, but ultimately, I went to the grocery store because I wanted to make a decent meal for Brad. He’d been staying over every night. He’d been sleeping in the guest room: it was all very proper. He was like a roommate I knew I wanted to sleep with. But hell, I knew I had mostly recovered because I could feel the knowledge about everything we’d done buzzing in the air between us.
I could see now in the years we’d been unknowingly helping to run a criminal motorcycle gang, we’d also been struggling through a ton of sexual tension. That stuff was sticky and inescapable—and even more so now.
Maybe I hadn’t seen it before because I’d been invested in our friendship, in the jokes and the camaraderie, and I hadn’t thought I could have that with a lover.
But now that Brad and I were friends and just friends, it didn’t work. The man had made me come so hard my back had hurt for two days. I wanted that part again and always.
I couldn’t, shouldn’t, ask for that from him, not when I was still a mess, but I was sneaking down the hall in the middle of the night and listening to his breathing and feeling better because he was near. I was reaching the Edward Cullen level of creepy, so the least I could do was cook for Brad. That part I was actually good at.
The grocery store was predictably empty. I grabbed a cart and began wandering the aisles, throwing this and that in: onions, broccoli, potatoes, sour cream, eggs, cheese, oatmeal, canned tomatoes, pasta, tri-tip roast, and beer. I had no idea what I was going to make, but that was fine. I had enough raw materials here to make it work.
As I came around the corner at the dairy section and headed toward the registers, Min Gregory, Jeff’s grandma, swung around toward me.
Well, this was the test, I guess. “Hi,” I greeted her.
“You.”
All that disdain wasn’t precisely what I wanted to hear from a woman who’d known me my whole life, but worse things had probably been said about me in the last week and a half.
Because I could be sort of stupid, I steered into the skid. “How’s Jeff?”
“He’s at a treatment program in Marion—and that’s all your fault no matter what the DA says.”
“I didn’t, that is—”
Well, I was perfectly willing to add Jeff to the list of things I was feeling guilty about. I hadn’t sold him the drugs, of course. I hadn’t even believed about the drugs until I’d seen Jeff himself so messed up, which I was going to tell her, when she said, “And another thing!”
Then she was off.
I stood there and let her scream at me for a good five minutes. She was mad Fallow was shrinking, that it was dirty, that it was sad, and that it was different. She called me a stupid slut, which stung and I thought wasn’t even fair, but she was mad and I understood, so I absorbed the insult along with the rest of it.
She wrapped up with, “And you would have to have been blind, young lady, not to have known what was going on at Masters.”
“You’re right.”
That startled her. “What?”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“You are?” This obviously wasn’t how she’d expected this conversation to go.
“I’m so sorry about Jeff. He’s a good kid, but I never knew about the drugs. I never would have done that. Not ever.”
“But—”
“You’re still mad. I get it. I’m mad too.”
She pursed her lips and scowled. “Well, some of us broke Fallow and screwed up the people in it more than o
thers!” She sniffed—like honestly, loudly sniffed—and stormed off.
I wanted to clap because the woman knew how to make an exit if nothing else, but she was gone too fast for me to do it.
That’s what everyone in Fallow thought of me? That I was a slut responsible for destroying the town? Well, wasn’t that delightful. Totally wrong, but with a juicy, piquant ring to it.
I trudged up to the front and found Kjersten waiting to ring me up. Her eyes were slightly red-rimmed and her hair messy. I wondered if things with her and Larry had been more serious than I’d known, but I didn’t want to push for details she might not want to give.
“I didn’t know you were back,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, for three or four days now. I’m not sure for how long though.”
“Where are you going?” she asked as she scanned my tomatoes.
“I don’t really know. Masters closed temporarily.” I’d felt like an ass taping up the sign and knowing it was a lie, knowing that I wouldn’t want to reopen even if I could. The place was haunted for me.
“People have been asking about you.”
I made a noise in response that was agreement and dismissal. I was sure they had been, but I didn’t know how to react. The interest wasn’t all negative, and it wasn’t all prying, but I had even less idea what to do with sympathy than contempt.
I felt vaguely sick about all the food I’d given people over the years. I wanted to apologize, to tell them there’d been no judgment or strings or condescension along with the casseroles. But then I hadn’t wanted to see anyone.
An extrovert without people to bother was a sad, unsatisfied person.
“Should I tell everyone you’re back?”
“Um, no.” I doubted she’d keep her mouth shut—and I was certain Min Gregory wouldn’t—but I could at least ask.
“You staying?” Kjersten asked.
“I don’t have any plans.”
I was done with plans. I’d always had narrow horizons. Everything I’d wanted had been here in a town most people wouldn’t look twice at except to sneer. Everyone else had been so quick to leave, but I’d waved goodbye and burrowed in. I was paying for it now. I was like an afterschool special about putting all your eggs in one basket only to find out the basket is selling drugs.
“It’s hard to imagine Fallow without the Masters family,” Kjersten said, and I was certain she mostly meant Larry.
“It’s hard to imagine the family without Fallow.”
I wasn’t even sure what family meant now. If the guys in Lone Gun were convicted, it would be well earned. And whatever dreams I’d had for my life, for my family, had turned out to be poison. I had become stone here, and I hadn’t seen or acted soon enough to save anyone. Min Gregory was right: I’d done enough harm for a lifetime. You didn’t have to want to hurt someone to do it, it turned out. Intent was worthless.
I hauled my groceries up.
“Have a . . .” Kjersten paused. “Day.”
Evidently it wasn’t possible to imagine me having a good day—which was probably true.
I set my bags into the trunk of my mom’s Caddy, and then I looked across town and the edge of the prairie until it blended into the sky. There wasn’t a single cloud, and I felt like I could see all the way to Canada.
When had I decided this was enough? Had I waited until high school before I’d done it? Had I ever truly considered doing anything else? Brad had said my life now was all potential, and it had sounded hokey, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
Fallow didn’t need me, and it wasn’t going to fall apart without me, and if it was, I couldn’t have held it together. Family could be and mean whatever I wanted it to. And what I wanted was Brad.
Except I had to say goodbye to someone first.
I drove to the county courthouse, counting the road signs and the hawks in the sky. I arrived ten minutes before visiting hours were over, but they took my stuff and patted me down and ushered me into the room. Enormous. Gray. Cold.
Then Dad came in and sat across the picnic table from me with a grunt. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Yeah. I doubt my lawyer will be pleased.”
Dad pursed his lips. “Why you here then?”
“I need some answers.”
Dad shot a look at the guard, then back at me. “Fire away.”
“Did you know about Larry?”
I still didn’t know what had happened, but I knew what hadn’t happened: an accident.
My father—who had taught me to ride a bike and raised me for most of my life and who had carried on a major criminal enterprise without telling me a thing—flinched. His brows drew together and he shook his head. “No.”
I believed him. I probably shouldn’t have. After all, he’d lied to me for who knew how long about everything. He’d put me in danger: real, shitting-your-pants danger. But I believed him that he hadn’t killed my cousin. What could I say? I was pretty stupid.
“But you knew about the drugs?” I asked, mouthing the last word.
He swallowed, and his eyes grew wet, and his cheeks pinked, and he sobbed deep in his chest. “Oh, Birdie, I’m sorry. It was supposed to be mule work, you know? Just carrying some stuff—”
I held up a hand. “Daddy, I don’t know, and I—I don’t want to.”
That hurt like when you couldn’t catch your breath in gym class, sharp and in my chest. I’d never told him not to tell me something. But this, I couldn’t know. Not now. Maybe not ever. Not only because of the legal stuff—God, the legal stuff—but because it might make me hate him. I wanted him to be my dad, the big man, the center of my world, and that was over.
“I understand,” he said.
“They’re going to throw me out any minute, so let me say this: I think I have to leave Fallow. You need to sign Masters and the house over to me. I’ll have the lawyers take care of the details, but I need to sell them to pay Brad back.”
“For?” Still the disdainful big man, even in an orange jumpsuit.
“Saving me. Hiring that fancy lawyer.”
Dad swallowed. “I see. He . . . I think he cares about you. Really.”
“He does.” And he doesn’t confuse that with hiding things from me.
I wasn’t going to push. If Dad didn’t want to give me the property, he didn’t have to. I’d find another way to repay Brad.
The guard said, “One minute, everyone,” and I watched Dad process this. It was a lot to take in, with or without the clock ticking.
Finally he shrugged. “Well, I guess he can take care of you then.”
“I can take care of myself.” If Brad would take me back after everything I’d done, it wouldn’t be so we could do any Leave it to Beaver shit. I could make a mean pot roast, but I didn’t need to be protected.
Dad stood. “Okay, Birdie.”
I couldn’t touch him, and I knew it, but I wanted to. In spite of everything, I wanted to hug him. I settled for kissing my fingers and holding them out. He did the same. And our hands hung there in the air, three inches apart, for a second.
It felt like a one of those metaphors, but also maybe like it had always been true. I loved my dad, but maybe we’d never understood each other. That gap—maybe it was why everything had gone wrong.
“I love you,” he said, almost a little surprised.
“Yeah, you too.”
Then the guard led him away, and I was alone. I had to go and find my home.
I drove back to Fallow past fields of sprouted winter wheat, to Central Avenue and Brad’s office, and the question I had to settle.
I killed the engine.
And I sat there.
This was a definite mark against my bravery stats. If Brad knew, he’d think I was a wuss, unable to get my butt out of this car to give him an answer. Actually, he wouldn’t. He was too nice, but he should. He should give me all the crap for all the rest of my life.
Maybe that’s what made it hard: he was so nice he didn’t quite mak
e sense to me. Like we were the same species, but I’d gone feral along the way. I wanted him, but I was worried the collar would chafe. But in the end, my want won out.
He was packing some things in a box—because he was giving up his office to help me. “I saw you parking,” he explained. “There aren’t enough people on Central, so there are no secrets in Fallow.”
“There are no secrets anywhere, really.”
He stood and leaned against the desk. His posture was open, his stare intense. “I might not just give up this space,” he finally said. “I . . .” He walked around his desk and dug a pile of stuff out of his desk. He handed it to me.
Listings for places in Kalispell, a guidebook about Croatia, A Thousand Places to See Before You Die. “What is this stuff?”
“I just started collecting it here and there, and soon that drawer was packed.”
“You leaving?”
“Not today, but I think so. I . . . I can’t stay in your guestroom forever.”
He’d gone and said a mouthful. I set the papers and books down. “Yeah, I know. And here’s the thing about us: we can’t start from scratch.”
A hint of smile from him. “Excuse me?”
“We’ve known each other forever. And this—” I did something with my hand to indicate our relationship “—this started in some intense circumstances.”
“Right.”
“And there’s no way to erase that, to see what we might have if that weren’t true.”
“Why wouldn’t we want that to be true?” He seemed so confused.
“Because it’s a terrible origin story.”
“But it’s our origin story, our history.”
It was probably the story we, or at least I, deserved. “How do we try to build something different when that’s in our past? When whatever was in my dad, in my uncle, is in me? They thought they were protecting the family and the town, and they weren’t.”
“Fallow’s here as far as I can tell. And I will call you out if you break bad.”
He knew me, and he still wanted me. Still wanted whatever future we might be able to share. “That sounds like the start of a plan.”
His smile wasn’t slight anymore. Now it was the sun coming out. “I have a number of plans to pitch to you.”
