Open Road Summer(87)

“Having his car towed, Reagan?” Brenda asks. She’s using her favorite, holier-than-thou tone of voice, scolding me in the midst of a situation that is none of her damn business. “I don’t think that’s how your daddy raised you.”

“How would you know? You’re not my—” The words leap from my mouth out of habit, before I can stop myself. I don’t even mean to say them, but they’re my knee-jerk reaction to Brenda. Especially when I’m this worked up.

“Damn right, I’m not your mother,” she says loudly, standing up to her full height. My eyes widen, surprised to hear a swear word out of her mouth. “Your mother is a selfish child who doesn’t know a good thing when she sees it.”

My mouth falls open, and Brenda gives me a moment to react. She pulls the garden gloves from her hands and drops them to the ground. I should feel mad that she insulted my mother, but I don’t. In fact, studying Brenda from the top of her ridiculous sun hat to the hem of her full-length skirt, I can’t feel any of the resentment that I normally do.

“I never met your mama,” she says, stepping closer to me. Her voice is quieter now, as if she’s trying not to startle me. “And I shouldn’t talk bad about her, but here’s the thing.”

I blink, taking in Brenda’s strong features, the firm lines of her jaw.

“She left a sweet little girl and a good man who loved her, and I’m not gonna pretend like I know why she did that. What I do know is that you’re right on the money. I am certainly not your mother, and she’s the last person I ever want to be.”

I swallow hard. Brenda’s brown eyes are locked on mine, waiting for me to understand her words. For once, I do. “I don’t want to be like her, either.”

“You’re not,” Brenda says simply. She puts her hand on her hip and examines me. “So I’m not sure what you’re doin’ standin’ around here.”

I dig the toe of my shoe into the dirt. “It’s complicated.”

“Is it? Most complicated things in life are actually pretty simple at the core. We put so much extra nonsense in the middle that we can’t even see how easy it really is.”

I cross my arms, squinting at her in the sunlight. “You mean you think I should forgive him?”

“No, darlin’,” she says, picking her gardening gloves back up. “I think you already have.”

Her words land like darts to my core, smack into the bull’s-eye of myself. She’s right, dammit, she’s so right, and I hate her for it. No, I hate me for it. I hate Matt for being right, that it seems safer to be mad and alone than together and bare-hearted.

“Shit,” I mumble, combing my hands through my hair. I hate being wrong, and I hate having to eat my fighting words.

Brenda doesn’t reprimand me for swearing; she doesn’t even look back up at me. She’s already crouching back down, popping the last weeds out of the dark mulch. Maybe she assumes I’ve left, but I can’t seem to make my feet move. I know what I have to do, but my legs feel paralyzed beneath me. Instead, I’m working through something in my mind, spinning it around and around like the photos dangling from my ceiling fan.

“Hey, Brenda?” I say quietly. She sits back on her legs, wiping her brow. As she glances up at me, something hits me. My one true thing—something I believe enough to write in ink: I don’t want to operate from fear. I’m not my runaway mother, and I won’t bolt in the other direction just because I’m scared.

Brenda looks at me expectantly, and I realize that I’ve been quiet for too long. So I look my stepmother square in the face. “Thanks.”

And then I take off running. My shoes hit the dirt driveway hard, and it’ll take me forever to catch up with him at this rate. So I tug them off and toss them by our mailbox. Uninhibited by four inches of leather beneath my feet, I’m striding now, my legs pushing beneath me. I tend to skip gym on the days they make us run, so I haven’t moved this fast on foot since the last time I ran from the cops. Which is to say: I’m usually running away from trouble, not toward it.

The dirt road stretches out in front of me, lines of cornfields on my right and thick forest on my left. I stick to the cool stretch of grass between the road and the cornfield, where the ground is still soft from the storm. In the distance, disappearing toward the horizon line, I can see Matt walking down the road, guitar still bouncing against his back.

“Matt!” I yell. “Matt!”

He turns, seeing me, and I can’t make out his expression. He doesn’t move toward me, and it’s enough to make me wonder if I’m wrong. I slow myself to a walk, but Matt won’t budge. He stands his ground, making me walk all the way to him. Without the veil of irrational anger, I can see him again. My version of Matt, the one who is funny and sweet and . . . looking seriously pissed at me. I’m breathing hard, and I can feel how filthy my feet are beneath me.

“You got something to say?” When he tilts his head at me, his expression stays unrelentingly stony. Okay, so having his car towed was a dick move. I admit it.

I put my hands on my hips. “No. You said you wanted me to hear you out. So fine. Let’s hear it.”

He takes a deep breath, gathering enough air to raise his voice in exasperation. “You are infuriating; do you know that?”