My Name Is Rowan: The Complete Rowan Slone Trilogy

by Tracy Hewitt Meyer

  “Yeah. She went to bed right after she got home from work. I think it’s been a rough few days. Or a rough few months.” I tried to make my voice light except there really wasn’t anything light about the situation.

  Shane left his shoes by the door then took my hand. “I’m sure. I mean, it can’t be easy raising a kid on her own.”

  I shook my head and led him to the couch. “She’s not alone, though. I hope she remembers that.”

  He sat down, his long legs stretched out halfway across the compact room. I crawled up beside him, ran a hand through his long hair and leaned in to smell the scent of his shampoo. I had a thing for the way guys smelled. Shane’s scent was a mix of lemony vanilla from the products he used and fresh air. There was no other way to describe it. He smelled like he’d been basking in a cool breeze under the warm sun, maybe while eating a cupcake, which sounded strange but was oh so delicious.

  “How did your test go?” He ran a hand up my leg.

  “It was good,” I said into his neck. I stopped his hand before it went too high. Our relationship hadn’t gone that far yet even though we’d been dating for a couple of months. There was only one boy who I’d been that close to and it wasn’t Shane.

  In true Shane fashion, he didn’t push against my hand, moving it from my thigh down to my knee. I laid my small hand over his large one. I didn’t notice before but his hands were completely different from Mike’s. Whereas my ex’s were thick and big, ready to hurl a soccer ball across the field, Shane’s were also large, but thin and more delicate, able to move across guitar strings with beautiful fluidity.

  I held my breath as I tried to stall the direction of these thoughts. There was no reason to compare these two pairs of hands except my brain, and heart, were at a sudden, unexpected battle and I wasn’t sure why.

  It was foolish allowing thoughts of Mike to creep into my head. He might just want to grab a cup of coffee and chat about old times. Or, maybe he had a letter from his sister, and my friend, Tabitha. She was still living in Australia, and I hadn’t heard from her in months. Or, maybe he wanted to talk about the weather. Who knew?

  Letting my mind go where it was going would do no one any good so I kissed Shane’s neck, stalling everything other than the feel of him beside me. In an instant, the comparison was gone, and I was completely lost in the moment. I focused on his smell, the way his hand felt underneath mine, the way his lips worked the magic I was addicted to. There were enough things about Shane to place me so firmly in the present, the past disappeared and the future didn’t exist. The only thing that mattered was making the kiss last as long as we possibly could.

  I sighed as he put a hand on my neck and drew me closer.

  MY ANCIENT laptop’s bright screen blared at me while I struggled to open my eyes. I was lying on my bed, on my stomach, the muscles of my neck twisted into a painful knot. When I lifted my head, a piece of paper stuck to my cheek. I pulled it off, frowning. A glance at the clock told me it was six in the morning. After Shane left around midnight, I had started my English Lit paper and must’ve fallen asleep.

  I slid off the bed, careful not to disturb my cat, Scout, asleep on the extra pillow, and pulled on a pair of wool socks to ward off the chilly air in the apartment. I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep and, knowing myself, wouldn’t be able to concentrate if I returned to my paper. I needed coffee before I could do anything and shuffled out my door, wondering if I would ever feel rested again.

  Probably not.

  Ever.

  As I walked down the hall, I could see Jacob in his highchair. Orange food covered his face, and he was blowing sweet potato spit bubbles. Jess was asleep on the couch, an arm slung over her forehead. I stopped mid-step and stared at her. She was wearing a black miniskirt, black ripped tights, and a gray mesh sweater that exposed a crimson bra. On her feet were the heavy boots she preferred even in the hottest days of the summer. Her glasses were askew on her face like she couldn’t be bothered to remove them.

  “Jess?” I poked her in the shoulder. That wasn’t what she was wearing when she went to bed last night. I gave her another hard poke.

  “What?” Her voice was scratchy and when her arm fell away, I could see how greenish pale her skin was.

  “My God!” I exclaimed. “Are you okay? What’s wrong with you?” The questions darted off my tongue. I was confused and hovering on the point of anger, though I wasn’t sure why.

  Jess pushed herself up, groaning. Then she jumped to her feet and sprinted down the hall. I could hear her vomiting all the way in the living room.

  What the hell?

  “Jess?” I followed the noise of her retching and stood outside the opened bathroom door. She glanced up at me from over the toilet then kicked the door shut.

  I raised a fist to pound on the cheap, imitation wood, but Jacob started to fuss so I went down the hall to start coffee and check on him. She would have to come out of there eventually. And finally, she did, stumbling into the kitchen.

  “God, I need some grease.” She threw open the freezer and yanked out a frozen breakfast burrito.

  “Did you go out last night?” I planted my feet across from her and put my hands on my hips.

  She pulled the burrito out of the plastic and threw it into the microwave. “I just needed to get out. Ya know?”

  “When did you go? Seriously, Shane didn’t leave until midnight, and I thought you were in bed.”

  She shrugged as if none of this was a big deal. “I was in bed. Then I got a text from this guy asking if I wanted to go out. And I did.”

  The microwave beeped and she grabbed her food, tossing it onto a plate before it could burn her fingers. “It was nothing. Jacob was asleep.”

  “Yeah,” I snorted, a sound that was ugly even to my own ears. “But what if he had woken up?”

  “Chill, Ro. I just needed a night out. He was fine. Let’s not make a big deal out of it.”

  Jess’s cheeks had yet to show any sign of life and heavy makeup was smeared under her bloodshot eyes. There was a curve to her back that I hadn’t noticed before, and I could see her shoulder blades pushing against the thin cotton of her top.

  “Where did you go?” I fought to keep my tone even.

  She took a big bite and started talking, her mouth full of food. “We went to a new club in Pittsburgh.”

  “Pittsburgh?” It was the closest city but still over an hour away. I was so stunned I didn’t notice Jacob throwing Cheerios at me until one hit my cheek. I moved out of his range toward the coffee pot. “Why would you go all the way to Pittsburgh?”

  She shrugged and took another bite. Then she went to the refrigerator and pulled out the orange juice. “Why not? I mean, don’t you ever get tired of living in this small town? Nothing ever happens here.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s not that far. Besides, it was worth the drive.” She took a long drink of juice, not bothering to pour it into a glass. “There is this awesome club that plays kinky Japanese cartoons on a huge overhead screen. God, I danced so much my feet are killing me.”

  I watched her, stunned. “Why didn’t you let me know when you left?”

  She shrugged, shoving the rest of the burrito into her mouth. All of it didn’t fit, though, and she had to chew with her lips opened wide.

  I cringed. “Jess, are you okay?” My words came out more like punches than I meant them to. But for some reason, I was furious. She had left the apartment, not bothering to tell me.

  “I’m fine, why?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out?”

  “You were asleep.” She leaned against the kitchen counter. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “What if he had woken up?” I felt like an angry adult talking to a deviant teenager…but I guess that was the situation. “Did you just assume I would get him?”

  “Look.” Her eyes hardened. “It was just one night.”

  Anger bubbled through my blood. I folded my
arms over my chest as I stared at her.

  Jess turned toward the counter, her back to me. I could see her inhale then exhale, her breath sounding like a deflating balloon. “I’m sorry, Rowan.” She laid her palms flat against the surface and leaned onto them. “Sometimes I need a break. I just need to…you know….” Her elbows buckled, and she put her head in her hands. “I need to feel like I’m a person. A real eighteen-year-old.” She sighed. “I need to feel normal. Sometimes.”

  I laid a hand on her back, my heart hurting. I didn’t want to feel like she was taking advantage of me, but I also hated to see her upset.

  Irritation gone, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. Her body was rigid and I could tell she was holding her breath, probably trying not to break down into sobs. After a moment, she did anyway. The months of sleepless nights and stressful days were catching up to her. The stress. The responsibility.

  I don’t know how much time passed before pelts of Cheerios started hitting me again. Orange drool oozed out of Jacob’s mouth, catching a tiny cereal piece and locking it against his chin. He slapped his hands down on the highchair tray, sending spurts of sweet potatoes everywhere, including onto the floor and my clean jeans.

  “You really are a little monster.” I forced a laugh and pulled away. Jess was smiling now, a little color coming back into her cheeks. And though the air was still heavy, weighed down with responsibility better suited for someone older, there was a glimpse of light. Maybe she could handle this. Maybe. Hopefully. Everything was better after a good cry, right?

  She swept past a dirty Jacob and flopped onto the couch. “God, I’m so hung over.”

  “You look awful.” I tried to say this as gently as possible, but it sounded harsh anyway. “Who took you to this place?”

  Jess managed to buy a car, a used, ancient sort of automobile that had huge rust patches along the sides. She used it for getting around town, however, I couldn’t imagine it would make it to Pittsburgh.

  “There’s this guy I met at the bookstore. He’s from out west somewhere. But he’s in town for rafting season, working as the photographer who snaps those pics of tourists going down the river. He drove.”

  “Hmm,” was all I said as aggravation started building up inside me again. I didn’t have time for this so I started down the hallway. “I’ve got to work on a paper.” Coffee forgotten, I went into my room, shutting the door behind me. I pushed my earbuds in and flipped open the English Lit textbook, feeling a confusing mix of anger and compassion, uncertain how to deal with either.

  Something was wrong. I knew it. I suspected Jess knew it if she would admit it. But these hard times were just a phase. Life would settle at some point. Jacob would only get bigger. Life would run more smoothly.

  The only problem was, when would that be? Hadn’t we both been through enough in our lives? When did it become easy? And as the image of her haunted, wearied eyes popped up in my head, I wondered if it would be soon enough.

  “I DON’T think Jess is holding up so well.” I was sitting on the outdoor staircase that connected the floors of our apartment building. Tanya sat beside me, a hot cup of tea in one hand. She held the end of a teabag between her fingers and dipped it in and out of the steaming water. I had class in an hour but needed to talk to someone.

  She sighed and let it fall into the liquid, causing brown droplets to land on her finger. “I’ve been worried about her. Is Jacob still crying all the time?”

  I snorted. “You can’t hear him? You live right below us.”

  She shrugged. “True. And yes, I guess I can answer my own question.”

  “Jess said that the doctor told her he’s colicky, or something like that. That he’ll outgrow it. But he keeps getting ear infections and they just put him on another antibiotic, half of which he spits back out. They said they won’t send him to a specialist until he’s been on a certain number of medicines in a year, or something like that. I mean, babies cry, right?”

  “They do.” She nodded her head, her round brown eyes focused in the distance. The leaves were turning more every day, casting the area in rich painted colors. “But maybe not that much. I guess I don’t know, either.”

  “She went out last night.”

  “That was probably good for her.”

  “Yeah, except she didn’t tell me. She left some time after midnight. She just assumed I would get Jacob if he woke up in the middle of the night.”

  “What?” Her brows pursed.

  “I’m serious.”

  “She didn’t tell you she was leaving? That doesn’t sound like Jess.”

  “I know. I’m not sure what to do.”

  “Is this the first time she’s done something like that?”

  “Yeah.”

  She lifted the tea bag again. “Hopefully, this is an isolated incident. Just keep being the good friend that you’re being. It’ll get easier.”

  We were quiet for several minutes. I wondered if that last statement was true, but I didn’t say so. Tanya needed to get to work soon. Did any of her other students have as dysfunctional a life as me? The thought was almost comical.

  Instead of smiling, I ran a hand through my long brown hair, wishing I had the time to get a haircut. I preferred long hair—it helped mask my too-thin shoulders—but it was getting scraggly on the ends. Living with Mrs. Anderson had opened my eyes to the impact of a good haircut, nicer clothes, and a light dab of makeup. At one point, I had looked like a different person. Soon after Jacob was born, though, my looks quickly reverted back to the grungy girl I used to be. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  “I heard from Gran yesterday,” I said, breaking the silence.

  “Oh yeah? What did she have to say?” She watched me from the corner of her eye, expecting and fearing the worst. Tanya had been by my side through every tumultuous, devastating moment of the last two years. Any mention of my family, even if I was only going to report the type of milk Gran bought, left those who knew me tense and apprehensive. They usually had good reason to be.

  “She said Mom got a new psychiatrist.”

  Tanya nodded as if trying to decide where the hidden bombs lay. “Hmm.” Obviously, she was going to wait for more information before she said anything.

  We fell into silence again as a kid on a four-wheeler drove down the road followed by a man driving a backhoe. A six-pack of beer sat by his hip on the driver’s seat. It was only eight in the morning.

  I laughed. “Only here would you see that.”

  “So true. So true.” They passed out of sight before she said, “Did your Gran say anything else?”

  I strained my eyes to watch the last traces of the backhoe. “She said that this psychiatrist has Mom on new meds and gave her a new diagnosis.”

  “And what diagnosis is that?”

  I waved a hand in the air and shrugged. “She also said that she wants me to come in for a session with Mom as part of a new treatment.”

  “I see.”

  I glanced at her but her gaze was trained on the backhoe’s wake. I could sense that she wanted to look at me, but she knew as well as anyone how painful talk of my mother could be.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  A black pickup truck appeared in the distance, its wheels enormous compared to the tiny frame of the body. It looked like a giant, ugly stick bug with bowling balls on its feet.

  “No. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said. “I mean, I arranged for her to have the dog, Charley-bear. Isn’t that enough? Enough of a reconciliation?”

  “I don’t know, Rowan. Is it?”

  The question lingered between us like a weighted chain. I opened and closed my mouth several times, trying to form words that were not coming. Thinking about drudging up the past was a guaranteed way to take my heart and squeeze it like a stress ball until it threatened to stop beating.

  I hadn’t seen Mom since the day I testified against her. There was no part of me that wanted to see her. What was there to say? What if she apologiz
ed? I wasn’t sure that would matter. My dad had apologized right before he died. And he hadn’t done anything quite as terrible as Mom had. Sure, he’d beat me until I was blue, but he hadn’t killed someone and let me take the blame.

  I had forgiven my dad. When he apologized not only for hitting me, but also for not ever once acting like he loved me, I had found it in my heart to forgive him. And I was grateful I had because he died within days after our reconciling.

  Mom, though…well, she was a different story.

  Wasn’t she?

  “You know that I think it would be a good idea for you to start therapy. I always have.” Tanya checked her red nail polish. I glanced over and checked it, too. Her nails were short, neatly filed, and the polish was shiny like a newly washed cherry. “Maybe this is a sign. Do you really want to carry the past around? I don’t want to bring up something painful but think about your Dad. You forgave him and were able to let go.”

  With each word she spoke, that old familiar wall I had built, stone by stone, clicked into its fortified place. Tanya only wanted what was best for me and had been trying to get me to start therapy since I was a defiant, scared freshman in high school who wore guilt and accusation like a suffocating cloak.

  I stood up and dusted my jeans. “We’ll see.” I started up the stairs. “Is that Ranger’s truck?” It was an unnecessary question. His truck was the only one in this area that was so hideous.

  Tanya stood and smiled toward the road as Ranger pulled into the parking lot. “My car is acting up so he’s giving me a ride.” She started down the stairs but before she stepped onto the blacktop, she turned toward me. “Think about it, Rowan. You can’t be free until you deal with your mother and your past.”

  Her words were kind although they felt like an iron clamp wrapped around my neck, threatening to sever my airway. But then it passed because I had dealt with my mom. I had sent her Charley-bear. There was nothing left to do.

  Was there?

  IT WAS nine o’clock when I arrived on campus. The parking lot was only half-full, and I eased into a space. Thick gray clouds obscured the sun’s rays, and I pulled my hoodie around me as I started toward class. It was the same hoodie I’d had for years, blue with the word ARMY in white block letters across the back. Frayed at the sleeves and faded from years of washings, I didn’t wear it as often. At one point, not too long ago, I wore it everyday like a medieval knight wore his heavy armor. Something about this sweatshirt made me feel at peace, protected. Maybe because I used it to cover the scars on my arm—scars from when I was a cutter. Maybe because it was one of the few things my dad gave me.