by Blair Young
With the sadness overtaking all the happiness I’d felt leaving school, I turned to head home. I still looked forward to telling Damon the good news about his grades, but I knew I would have to try to shake the sadness before I got back.
It wasn’t going to be easy. That girl was one of the best friends I’d ever had. But, that was life. Not everyone was meant to stay forever, and clearly, Abby was going to be one of those people who was only there for a season.
I would do my best to keep in touch with her, and I hoped the time and the space wasn’t going to make her fade away, but I couldn’t be sure. I had lost so many people in my life, even when I didn’t want to. I hated to think Abby might be just another face that faded into memory.
She was such a sweet person, and I hoped she would move somewhere where she could be happy. And, more than anything, I hoped she and Peter would find a way to stay together through all this. I didn’t want to see her lose him on top of everything, and it killed me to think that I couldn’t do a thing about it.
Like so many other things in life, I could only sit by and watch it unfold, doing my best to keep it together as it did. Maybe it would work out for the better, maybe this was just the beginning of more hardship for everyone. There wasn’t any way to know for sure until it all unfolded.
And I hoped against hope it would be for the better.
Chapter 23
Sutton
My mind was still on Abby when I walked up to the house, but I was distracted by the sound of a heated conversation coming from the garage. Confused, I went that way to get in the house. I had been rather startled the other day when Dean and Susan had started fighting with each other, but it was even more upsetting to me to find him arguing with Damon.
The two were yelling at each other, and though I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I could tell it wasn’t good. They both stopped when I rounded the corner, and Dean looked flustered. Clearly, he didn’t think I was going to take the garage way into the house, and he turned to his truck to grab some things out of the seat.
I didn’t want to talk to Dean, but I couldn’t help but step in. When he fought with Susan that was one thing, but talking to Damon like that, well, that was just upsetting to me.
“Is everything alright?” I asked Damon.
Dean answered. “It’s fine, we’re just having a conversation is all.”
He turned back to grab more things out of his truck, but I didn’t care what he was getting. Damon’s face was stony, and I could see he was visibly upset by the conversation that they’d been having. I wanted to know what they were talking about, but I had a feeling he wasn’t going to say anything in front of Dean.
Clearly, he wanted to take the conversation inside, so he just walked past Dean and into the house. I refused to look in Dean’s direction as I turned to follow Damon. I didn’t say anything to him as we walked into the house, but I was surprised when he didn’t head straight up to his room.
Instead, he turned and walked into the living room, dropping on the couch with a sigh. Susan wasn’t home. I’d noticed that her car wasn’t up front in it’s spot when I got home, and I wondered if that had something to do with not only the fight Damon was having with Dean, but why he also chose to be downstairs.
“The teacher says that your grades are improving,” I tried. I wanted to give him something good to think about knowing that he was upset from the argument. Damon nodded.
“That’s good, I suppose,” he said.
“You’re going to graduate on time and with the rest of the class if you keep this up,” I told him with a smile. “That’s good news, right?”
“It is,” he said with another nod. But, there was clearly something on his mind, and I hated it when he didn’t open up to me. Then, I remembered his promise. He and I weren’t going to keep secrets from each other anymore, so he had to tell me the truth.
“What was that all about?” I asked as I gave a slight nod toward the door leading to the garage.
“I was talking to Dean about Susan,” Damon said. “They were having another fight when I got home last night.”
“Really?” I asked dryly.
“Yeah. It was another screaming match, and I wanted to talk to Dean about it. Like, he kept saying over and over that he wanted to be with Susan again, and he hoped he would be able to win her back, but it seems now they are just fighting all the time again. This was how it had gotten before they broke up the first time,” Damon explained.
“Do you think they’re going to break up again?” I asked. I didn’t want to pry, and I really didn’t like how happy the thought made me. I felt bad for Susan, I knew she really liked Dean, but at the same time, I didn’t think it was good for her to be with him.
I didn’t like him at all, and I hoped she would be able to see the kind of guy he really was. She deserved to be with someone who treated her right. With someone who didn’t sneak around when she wasn’t home. And Dean, well, he wasn’t that guy.
“I hope not,” Damon said. “I don’t know if Susan would be able to handle it. I know she put on a brave face when they broke up before, but she was just as torn up about the end of the relationship as he was. I know that this all sounds strange to you because you weren’t here for so much of it, but the fact of the matter is that they were practically like married, then they just split up and it really sucked.”
“I know you were pretty upset about it,” I commented.
“It wasn’t just me,” Damon said. “The whole family pretty much got torn apart when it happened. It was part of the reason I really wanted them to get back together. I hoped that things could sort of go back to the way that they were before, only better with you here living with us now, you know?”
I nodded before I laid my head down on his shoulder. I hadn’t thought about it that way. I knew that he was happy to have Dean back in the house, but I always figured it was because he wanted to have that father figure back in his life.
I never thought about how he wanted us all to be a family like Dean had been acting, or like Susan had been pushing. Part of me felt bad for not trusting Dean like I did. But then, another part of me wished that he was the sort of guy I could trust.
I knew there were people out there who were trustworthy, and though I had trust issues, I knew there were people out there who didn’t make me feel the way Dean made me feel when he was in the house. Clearly, this was a very messy situation, and I didn’t know how to feel about it.
“So what were you and Dean fighting about? I mean, how were you fighting about Susan?” I asked.
“Basically, I told him that he should be nicer to her, or she might try to break up with him again, and I wasn’t sure if she did that if she would consider taking him back,” Damon said. “And that made him mad.”
“Everything makes him mad,” I replied with an eye roll.
Damon laughed. “I know, but this made him madder than normal.”
“Well, it didn’t sound like the conversation was going well when I walked up. Do you think he’s going to change anything?” I asked.
“I hope so. He didn’t like it when I suggested they might break up again, and he told me she wouldn’t do something like that. But then, I didn’t see it coming the first time, and I don’t think he did, either. For as much as Susan loves him, I know she does what’s best for us first and foremost, and she doesn’t want you and me being around the fighting all the time. I don’t think it’s allowed if she wants to keep us in the house,” Damon said.
“That’s got to be even harder on her,” I replied, feeling even worse for Susan. It wasn’t that I agreed with most of what she did, but I knew it had to be hard for her to make the choice between the love of her life and the kids she had signed up to take care of.
She loved us like a mother, I knew that, and there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do in our best interest. Sure, she might not be the best at doing it at times, but I knew she really meant well, and she was likely to really throw Dean out o
f the house before she let us live in a home that was full of fighting.
Considering all that was going on between the two of them, I wondered if I should bring up the fact Dean had been going through her office the other day when she wasn’t home, or if that would be adding more fuel to the fire that didn’t need to be there.
I didn’t want to cause problems for her or anyone else. But, if Dean was really snooping around behind her back and they weren’t getting along on top of it, I wanted her to know the truth. I sighed, wrapping my arm around Damon and snuggling as close to him as possible.
“Anyway. It doesn’t matter,” Damon said as I snuggled into him.
“Oh, it matters,” I said with a laugh. “How can it not?”
“Because you and I have each other. We don’t need to get too involved in what Dean and Susan are doing. They’re adults, and just like we don’t want them to butt into our relationship, we aren’t going to get involved with them,” he said with a smile. “No matter what happens to them, I’m going to be there for you.”
“And I’m going to be there for you,” I said with a smile. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter what they do. You and I are going to stick together, and nothing they say or do is going to change that.”
“Exactly,” Damon kissed me on the forehead before grabbing the remote and turning on the tv. It was strange for us to be downstairs watching tv together, but I was okay with it now. Dean was out in the garage, and we didn’t know when Susan was going to be home.
Either way, I knew Damon was there for me, and I trusted that he would take care of me. I felt for Susan, and I hoped she would be happy no matter what happened with Dean, but more than that, I was happy that I had Damon in my life to comfort me even through times like this.
He was all I really needed to be happy, and now we both knew he was going to graduate right along with the rest of the class. It would just be a matter of time before we were free to do anything we wanted, and we both knew we’d stick together through that, too.
Damon was there for me, so let Susan and Dean work out their own problems. I would stay out of it as much as possible, stick to my homework, and keeping hunting the person who killed my parents.
Let the adults worry about their own relationship.
And I would worry about mine.
Chapter 24
Sutton
“Cannon ball!” Peter shouted as he jumped off one of the large rocks into the water. He splashed both me and Abby sitting right on the shore, and we both laughed. Damon was right behind him, jumping into the water and trying to make an even bigger splash.
“Boys,” Abby said with a shake of her head. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”
“I’m glad we did this,” I told her as we knocked our soda bottles together. “I needed this.”
“I think we all did,” Abby said as she stretched her arms over her head. “I’m glad we’re almost done with the packing. I’m getting sick of moving all the crap in the house into boxes.”
“You never know how much stuff you have until you have to put it all in a box and move it somewhere else,” I said with a shake of my head.
“You’ve got that right,” Abby yawned before taking another sip of her soda. I was glad she invited me and Damon out for the day with her and Peter. She was getting cabin fever packing all the time, and Damon and I wanted to get out of the house for a while ourselves.
There was a new kind of tension in the house now. Since Susan and Dean were arguing with each other more often, it was harder to know whether they were going to be in good moods whenever we walked through the room. Even when they were smiling or talking to each other, there was just an undertone to the air that made me think it wouldn’t take much for them to be pushed over the edge.
I knew Damon was feeling it, too. He didn’t want to see them break up again, though I still wondered if it would be the best thing for everyone involved. Clearly, Susan wasn’t as happy as she was before Dean moved back into the house, and the honeymoon phase of the two of them getting back together didn’t last more than a month.
They were arguing about the dumbest things, and I had a feeling it was only going to get worse. After all, I was still a firm believer something big had to have happened for them to break up so completely after being together for so long, and the fact that they got together in such a fast, intense way made me think that there was even more going on that we didn’t see.
Susan seemed like a very rational person. And, I knew it was quite the process to be a foster parent, so she had to go through a lot of training and screening before she was allowed to take in either Damon or me. So, why did she kick Dean out of the house after being together with him for so long?
Damon had always said that they were happy together, but clearly not if they broke up. On the other hand, why did she let him come right back into the house so fast, too? That made just as little sense to me as them suddenly breaking up without any notice.
But, spending the day with Abby and Peter helped take our minds off of what was going on at home. We started early, heading to the mall to get in on some of the sales that were happening before heading over to the bay to spend the afternoon in the sunshine and water.
There were several small food kiosks along the boardwalk, so we bought hot dogs and sodas for lunch before swimming long into the afternoon. Abby and I started the afternoon in the water, but it wasn’t long before we laid out in the sun on the beach while the boys had their cannon ball contest.
“Do you have any idea where you’re going yet?” I asked.
Abby shook her head. “I know Mom is looking around at different places, but I’m not sure if she’s made a decision yet. It’s different now that she’s not going to have to judge based on the school that’s in the area, which I guess is a good part of me graduating soon.”
“That’s a plus,” I told her. “And you’re not going to have to deal with the awkwardness of moving to another school.”
“Right?” she said. “I never had to really deal with a new class. I mean, I’ve always just moved with the same kids from grade to grade. There’s been new kids every now and then, but as far as me being the new kid in the group, that just didn’t happen.”
“You have no idea how lucky you are for that,” I told her.
She laughed. “You’re not going to have to deal with it anymore either.”
“Unless I go to college,” I said.
“That’s different. Pretty sure they don’t bully and clique with each other in college like they do in high school. They always describe petty behavior as high schoolish, so what does that tell you?” Abby said.
“True,” I couldn’t argue. She did have a point, and I had to admit, I hoped if I did end up going to college, I wouldn’t have to deal with some of the same drama that I’d dealt with in high school. On the other hand, people did constantly surprise me, so I wouldn’t exactly put it past anyone who was in college to act like they were still in high school.
It wasn’t long before we changed the subject to other things. It was hard for us to just talk about kid things with each other. There was so much going on for both of us, and we both knew we were being launched into adulthood faster than either of us really wanted.
Then again, I had always been more of an adult than I had been a kid. Ever since I had been bullied in grade school, I had taken on life with more of an independent attitude. I wasn’t really one to play with others, and even when I was at home I gravitated to more mature activities.
But now, well, I wasn’t sure I was ready to take on all the responsibility of adulthood, though it was quickly being pushed upon me. I had spent so much of the last few months searching for the person who had murdered my parents, I wasn’t sure how to even focus on the next steps I was taking in life.
All I really thought about was the fact that I wanted to be with Damon. Everything else I just assumed was going to fall into place. Abby, on the other hand, had had so many dreams ab
out getting into some of the best schools in the country. Now, she might not afford getting into any of them.
And that put her in a whole different frame of mind as well. She now had to figure things out she had thought would fall into place automatically. Shoot, she might have to figure out life without getting into college at all. That would be a whole different direction from what she had planned, but she couldn’t change it, so she just had to deal with it.
But, those were big things that we couldn’t do anything about right now, and neither of us wanted to focus on them. We just wanted to take the afternoon and enjoy the time spent together as friends. After all, Peter and Abby didn’t know how much longer they were going to get to be together, and neither of them wanted to think about that, either.
Though we kept the focus on the afternoon and what fun we were having as carefree teenagers, it all passed by much too quickly. Before we knew it, Abby and Peter had to get going, and Damon wanted to stop by the board shop to grab some things he’d left there the day before. He asked if I wanted to tag along with him, but I didn’t really feel like going in case Dean was there.
So, I headed home.
I hoped I would find the house empty, but to my dismay, Dean’s truck was parked out front. Immediately, I wished I had gone with Damon to the board shop. If there was one thing worse than running into Dean with Damon, it was running into Dean alone.
But, there was no turning back now, and I wasn’t going to hang out outside in my wet swimsuit under my shirt. So, I headed as quietly into the house as possible. I hoped Dean would be in Susan’s bedroom or watching tv or something, and my heart sank even further when I spotted him in the kitchen.
At first, I was just going to dash by the door and head upstairs, but I paused when I realized he was going through the mail that was on the counter – and not just going through it, but he was actually opening mail that was marked Susan’s.
