Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(34)

She shoved her notebook and pen into her backpack and cleaned her station before winding her way down the building’s hallway toward the exit. Yesterday had gone by in kind of a haze, obviously brought on by Ben bringing a date to their supergroup mesh party. But also by the realization that she’d opened herself up to be hurt. Really, horrifyingly hurt. She’d had her share of dude disappointments in the past. Boys liking her friends instead of her. Elmer forgetting her birthday. It had always been the kind of pain she could get over with a good book or a sleeve of Oreos. But this? This was entirely different.

She might have made light of it to Roxy and Abby—because hello, the guy she just slept with walked in with someone else, and frankly, that was embarrassing as all get out—but down in the root of her stomach, she felt torn to shreds. How had this man she’d known for such a short space of time taken such a huge chunk out of her? Her little stunt on Friday night just before she’d catapulted headfirst into a cab had only succeeded in getting a small portion of it back. But it had been a start. At the very least, she’d managed to walk away with her pride intact.

Tomorrow morning, she had English class, and she intended to walk in with her chin up. Look him right in the eye. She didn’t run away from uncomfortable situations, and this would be no different. Honey shook her head when a traitorous spark of anticipation kicked up in her chest, telling her she still yearned to lay eyes on Ben after everything that had happened. God, when would that go away? Maybe when she stopped dreaming about his lips on her neck, thigh wedged between her legs, the way it had been on Friday night. Maybe she just needed to know why so she could get some closure. Was it her initial lie, the fact that she was his student, or something else? He’d looked so . . . tortured.

Honey jammed her headphones into her ear and blasted some old Dixie Chicks, thinking about the first concert her mother had brought her to up in Lexington when she was thirteen. They’d worn matching T-shirts and everything. The memory brought a much-needed smile to her face as she rode the train downtown to Chelsea, even though a half-empty Coca-Cola can rolled down the aisle and sloshed brown liquid over her shoes. When her phone rang twenty minutes later on her way into the apartment, she wondered if she’d somehow projected her thoughts to her mother all the way down in Kentucky.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, girly.”

Instantly, Honey knew something was wrong. Her shoulders tensed as she hung up her backpack just inside the door. Her mother only called her by that nickname when something bad happened. Three times in her life, her mother had used it. When Granddaddy Perribow died. When the Little League phoned to inform them she couldn’t try out because she had a vagina. And just now. “What’s wrong?”

“Now, don’t you go thinking you need to come home, Hon. I just want to get that out of the way up front. I mean what I say. I won’t even pick you up at the airport.”

“Yes you would, don’t lie and what happened?”

When her mother was upset, she strung her words together in one long breath. Honey did the same exact thing. Her father used to complain that the Perribow women had a secret, angry language that no one could decipher and he gave thanks for that fact every day.

Her mother’s quick exhale echoed down the phone. “Your brother fell off the dang tractor, is what happened. Laid out in the field wailing for help and nobody was home. Broke both of his legs, the big idiot. I love him to pieces, but he is. He’s a big ol’ idiot.”

Honey stomped her foot, mostly because she needed somewhere to put all the feelings. Dammit. Teddy was injured, and again she wasn’t there. She was here in this giant city, a plane ride away from the people who loved and needed her. “Is he smoking while he works the fields again? I swear, he’s going to turn green one of these days, and then what’ll he have to say for himself?”

As far back as she could remember, her brother had liked to get stoned. He was as good-natured as they came, wouldn’t harm a fly, and had never progressed to any harder drugs. So they’d all kind of learned to live with it, especially after he turned eighteen. He was a functioning pot smoker. Most of the time. Like when he wasn’t getting so high he fell off the dang tractor.

She tuned back in to her mother’s ramble. “Your father needs to get this crop planted by the end of the week, so he’s gone into town looking for help. He’s going to lose time either way, though, because—”

“No one knows how to work the tractor but us,” Honey finished for her. It was true. Their rusted-ass tractor not only acted up with annoying frequency but it flat out stopped working when it didn’t like the way a newcomer treated it. Her father claimed it was haunted. Panic invaded her stomach at the thought of what her family could lose if they didn’t plant a crop in time. All their extra resources went to pay for school. They couldn’t afford such a setback. “I’m coming home.”

“No, you’re not. I won’t pick you up at the airport.”

“Yes, you will. Don’t lie.”

“Well, if I’ve got an extra mouth to feed, I best get cooking.”

“Bye, Mom.”

“Bye.”

Honey disconnected the call, a little stunned over what she’d just decided on the fly. She would miss an entire week of classes, but if she emailed each of her professors tonight and explained the family emergency, they would probably let her email her work from Kentucky. After all, she was carrying As in all her classes. The small amount of rent she paid left her with additional funds, so she could afford a flight. And damn, damn, she was just so homesick. Did it make her weak to want some time with her family? They needed her as much as she needed them right now.