The Game (That Girl, #2)(50)

Levi doesn’t respond to my statement. He simply gets out of the car, opens my door, and holds out his hand. This part is going to be the hardest. I’ve never sold it because I’ve always wanted a place to come home to. Selling meant letting go of my Old Man, and I’m not quite sure if I’ll ever be ready to do that.

I stand by Levi and can’t walk toward the fence. The gate is hanging from its hinge, swinging in the breeze. Lynlee and I used to spend hours playing in this front yard. Some days we’d make up our own games or have a fake lemonade stand, and once we even had our own parade of two. All these memories I’m about to wash away with one quick sale.

Levi leads me past the gate and up the sidewalk, and we stop at the entrance. The steps are gone, and that’s when all the memories hit me.

“Jazzy, are you okay?”

I look up to a worried Levi and don’t understand his concern.

“You’re shaking.”

He wraps me up, and I let it all out.

“I killed my dad.”

“Jazzy, it’s okay. Calm down.”

“No,” I scream and step away from Levi. “I killed him. He wanted to fix the steps and had them all torn apart. I drove him to the lumberyard. We got into a wreck. He died. He died in my arms.”

Levi tries to grab me again. I lose all control, backing away and feeling more hurt than I have in years. I want to cut. I want to hurt. How can I even think about selling the one place my Old Man loved more than anything else, when I’m the one who killed him? Levi’s arms are strong and not willing to let go of me.

“Stop, Jazzy. They are called accidents.”

“Have you ever killed anyone you loved?”

“You didn’t kill him.”

“Stop,” I wail.

My scream sets off an echo of neighbor dogs barking. I hear some random doors and annoyed shouts. They’re the familiar sounds of this neighborhood. Levi lifts me from the ground, opens the trailer door, and sets me inside. I watch as he effortlessly jumps up inside and sits by me.

“You didn’t kill him. It sounds like it was a horrible accident.” Levi pauses to grab me and set me in his lap. “You don’t have to sell, baby. Let me call the agent and ask her to come in the morning. You can sleep on it.”

Looking around, I see the couch Lynlee and I vegged on so many times, then Old Man’s brown recliner, and his ashtray full of cigs.

“I can’t be here.” I try to catch my breath, but can’t fight the panic attack. “Get me out. I can’t be here, Levi.”

He packs me to the car, but I can’t seem to calm my nerves. Seeing the physical objects of my childhood and Old Man was too much to take.

“Levi, I never want to go in there again. Sell it now.”

He sets me in the car and gets down on one knee right in my face.

“Jazzy, I’ll do it for you, but you have to be sure. Are you?”

“Yes.” I throw my arms around his neck, dragging him into me. “Please, just sell it.”

“It’s okay to hurt, babe. We can stay here for as long as you need.”

I shake my head in the crook of his neck.

“Sell it, Levi.”

I hear the roar of another engine pull up next to our little car and know it’s the real estate agent. Her peppy kiss-ass face is the last thing I can handle right now. Everything inside me wants Levi to get in the car and drive me as far away as we can get.

“Babe, are you sure?”

I lift my head from Levi’s neck. “Do you think I’m a bad person for wanting to get rid of everything?”

Levi doesn’t answer me, and it’s clear he thinks I need to take more time. There’s pain and uncertainty in his eyes.

“I think you need to do whatever you think needs to be done.”

“Sell,” I whisper.

Before Levi stands all the way up, I have the door shut to the tiny car. I don’t even want to hear the phony voice of the agent. There’s only person who’d even begin to understand any of this, and she’s the one person who refuses to ever come back. Picking up my phone, I dial Lynlee’s number.

“Jazzy Jou Jou, oh, I do miss you,” she sings.

Her little song makes me smile, and the sound of her voice calms my nerves.

“I need you,” I cry into the phone.

Levi turns to look at me, signals he’s going into the trailer with Joanne, and I just nod back to him. I see him send a quick text and check my phone for what he sent and get nothing.

“Did Levi just text you, Lynlee?”

The gasp that escapes her is the answer to my question.

“I could beat your ass, Jazzy. How come you didn’t tell me where you were going?”

“Because you have enough stress and don’t like to talk about this place.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.” My sobs wrack my entire body. “I could smell him in that trailer, Lynlee.”

“Oh, honey, don’t cry. You know Old Man always yelled at us for crying.”

“I saw the back of his recliner and expected to walk around it and see his grumpy ass.”

“Listen to me, Jazzy. Are you sure you want to sell?”

“I want my dad back, and keeping this trailer and pain won’t help me any.”