The Reckless Oath We Made(8)

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THE DAY I was officially crutch free and brace free, I did a happy dance in the PT clinic parking lot. Gentry stood next to his truck, smiling, watching my little celebration. I didn’t even think about what I was doing. I was so happy to be walking again that I kissed him. Well, I tried to kiss him. He was so surprised that he pulled back from me like I’d tried to bite him. Maybe surprised was the wrong word. Horrified? I got into the truck cab and slammed the door, feeling totally embarrassed. For half a minute he stood there, with a blank look on his face, and then he walked around to the back of the truck.

I watched him in the side-view mirror having a whole conversation with himself. Talking, nodding, shaking his head, gesturing with his left hand, while he rested the right one on top of his head. After a few minutes of that, he came around and got in the truck. He cleared his throat, started the truck, cleared his throat again.

“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry about that. Just a misunderstanding. No big deal.”

“Nay, my lady. Thy kiss offendeth me not.”

I’d only tried to kiss him because it seemed like the next step to whatever was going on. I never understood romance, but I knew what it looked like from the outside well enough to fake it when I needed to. I’d faked almost my whole relationship with Nicholas, because I couldn’t get ahead by myself on minimum wage.

Gentry, though, he was . . . I guess the word is chivalrous, but he wasn’t romantic. That whole my lady, thy servant wasn’t going to turn into my lady, thy boyfriend.

We drove to the condo without talking, and, when we got there, I figured that was the end of things. He came around to open the door for me, even though I didn’t need help with my crutches anymore.

“When cometh again thy physic?” he said. My next appointment, he meant.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to keep taking me. It’s only a few more weeks, and I can walk to the bus now.”

“Nay. ’Tis my honor—”

“I know. It’s your honor to help me. But for how long? One of these days I’ll be all healed up.” I hoped that was true. I was counting on being able to get a job and get the hell out of Loudon’s house.

“For always, my lady,” Gentry said. When I didn’t respond to that, he asked me again about my next appointment, so I told him.

I didn’t try to kiss him again, and I didn’t suggest lunch anymore. He took me to PT; he took me home. We made polite small talk. How farest thee? Good, how was your day? I guess so we could feel friendly, even though we weren’t really friends.

Things got worse with Loudon and, at what turned out to be my last PT session, LaReigne texted me to say, Do you have somewhere else you can stay tonight? I didn’t.

Sitting in the truck, waiting for Gentry to go around to the driver’s side, I started to cry. My hip still hurt, and probably it always would, and I couldn’t afford the prescription for my pain meds, and I was homeless again.

“My lady,” Gentry said when he got in the truck. “Thou art unwell?”

“I just can’t go home right now. I guess you can take me . . .” To my mother’s house or my cousin Emma’s, because I didn’t have money for a motel. I texted Emma first, but she didn’t answer.

“If thou art willing, couldst come to my mother’s keep,” Gentry said.

That was how I’d ended up meeting his family.

Ranked in order of evilness and stupidity:

Vicky, his youngest sister. Hot Topic’s Number-One Customer. Typical teenager. Bad attitude about everything and under the impression that makeup is the great equalizer. Hint: it’s not.

Miranda, his mother. An overgrown teenager. She hadn’t looked old enough to be Gentry’s mother, and when I tried to shake her hand, she giggled and just looked at me. I wasn’t surprised her other kids had such terrible manners. It was more surprising that Gentry didn’t.

Marla, his middle sister. Mean. Bone mean. Even at our shittiest petty teenage worst, LaReigne and I never talked to each other the way Marla talked to Vicky.

Brand, his younger brother. Two prison tattoos short of a hate crime, and about to be too old to be charged as a juvenile. He wore a Confederate flag T-shirt, which was such bullshit because Kansas was a free state.

“Oh, holy shit,” Brand said when Gentry introduced me. “Dude got himself a real live girl.”

“Plot twist,” Vicky said. “Lady Zhorzha turns out to be a real person. I did not see that coming.”

“I thought she’d look like a princess,” Marla said. “And not a—”

“Are you going to get dinner?” Miranda said.

“If it thee liketh, my lady.”

Gentry went on being polite, and they went on being assholes. It’s not like I’m Miss Manners or anything, but I never ordered anybody around the way Gentry’s family ordered him around. To take out the trash, while the rest of them sat on their asses watching TV. To go get them dinner, from fucking Taco Bell. To get up and refill Miranda’s wineglass. To get Marla a different kind of hot sauce from the fridge.

While we ate, Marla and Vicky were texting on their phones, and then Marla looked up and said, “Can I go meet Lilah at the mall?”

Miranda shrugged and said, “I’m not driving you.”