AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mmhmm.” I rubbed my dry lips together. “Same.”
He shifted, spinning in the passenger’s seat to face me. “You sure you’re okay?”
I looked his way, smiling. “I’m with you. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“Because you seem sad. Did anybody up there mess with you?” Then he sighed, apparently suddenly hit with a revelation. “Did they mention Uncle Kelvin? Did somebody ask about him while you were up there?”
That made me snort. “One or two, but it was no biggie.” I shrugged. “I couldn’t go back home without someone asking about him.”
“And now, you’re back home—here—and you’re sad,” he mumbled, chewing on the meat of his fingers, moping.
I reached over and pushed his hand from his mouth. “I’m fine, Scott. Would you cut it out? I’m actually happy about your great news. Don’t ruin the moment.”
“Yeah,” his tone dry. “I told her she better not do anything stupid in there to get more time.”
“She’ll be ready.” I assured him.
“And what about you?” Scott asked as we turned a corner.
“What about me?”
“When she out, how’re you gonna feel?”
I caught the storm in those gorgeous, hazel-green irises. “I’m going to be okay.” Whipping his neck to swing a few blond strands from his face, he looked away. “Scott, listen. I need you to hear me. I look after you. I enjoy doing it. You’re no burden to me. Never have been. But I’m not your burden either. You reuniting with your mother is the best gift in the world. I want that for you.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Terry will be released in January, and you will return to her, and spend the rest of your childhood being nurtured by your mother.”
His head whipped my way. “And what if that never happens?”
“What if you believed good things can happen for good people?”
“She killed my father. Does she qualify as a good person? Can she be one after all this time? Has it been long enough?”
I slowed the car to a stop in the middle of the suburban road.
Voluntary manslaughter. Scott’s mother, Terry, had been incarcerated for murdering his father nearly ten years ago. They were young and high and passionate. Like his father, Kyle hit women. Terry, a relatively young, impressionable girl, found herself in a toxic relationship with him. One night, high off meth, cheap vodka, and God only knows what else, their interaction grew violent and ended his life.
“Your mom was really young when that happened. She deserves a second chance from everyone, including you. You know she loves you.”
Scott scraped his bottom teeth so hard against his top lip, his skin turned red. Ironically, so had his face. I’d never grown up with white people. At least, not until college. It was funny how now I lived with them. So, I got to see their physiological tendencies as well as many of their thought processes. The heated neck, for Scott, was a sign of anxiety. He’d been thinking about this. He had to think about too much at his young age for far too long.
“My experience is a lot different from yours.”
“Not really. You have one parent who’s dead, and another who was locked up once. Sounds about the same to me. Your father’s home now, and you still don’t fool with him.”
“I do, Scott. Just not often.”
He exhaled, frustrated, and turned away. “Okay.”
Uninterested in continuing the conversation, I let off the brake and continued to the house.
“Do you know what you want for dinner?”
He shook his head. “Wonder what MeMaw wants.”
I checked the dashboard for the time. It was already five in the evening. Five, and I hadn’t heard from Tobias yet. I knew I wouldn’t. He never called first when I left him since our first kiss about a year and a half ago. This was one of the few times he’d flexed his stubbornness. “She’s probably already gotten her food for the night. She didn’t know what time we’d be getting in.”
