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ChapterOne
Grey
“Hey, Grey,” a voice says right next to me, and I jolt, knocking my head against the trailer’s outside compartment I’m packing. Goddammit, that hurts. If I keep this up, I’m going to have a concussion. This isn’t the first time I’ve knocked my head while loading this camper up—or smashed my fingers in cabinets. I glance down at my black and blue thumbnail in frustration.
What’s next? My toes? My legs? My balls?
The things I do just to get to spend a little time with my kid.
“Shit, Quinn,” I mutter, rubbing the back of my head while taking in my son’s best friend. He’s leaning against the side of the trailer, some of his dark brown hair slipping from his ponytail and falling against his shoulders, his dusky green eyes meeting mine. He has a slight flush on his cheeks, made more evident by his pale skin, and if I look really closely, I can see a smattering of freckles just across the bridge of his nose. The nose that has some kind of piercing in the front. Septum piercing, I think it’s called. Looks like it was painful. I don’t think I could manage having a needle pushed through my skin. I don’t even have any tattoos.
But then again, Quinn is young—free and adventurous—so unlike me.
He probably doesn’t scream at the sight of needles.
I’m a screamer.
I glance down at his faded blue jeans and gray t-shirt, his clothes smudged with clay. His hands are white around the knuckles. Ah, so he must have been working in the art studio again. I know that in the fall he’s planning to go to college and major in art. Quinn is a sculptor.
I’ve never seen his pieces, but Joshua, my son, says he’s really talented. When he talks to me, that is. Which is rare. Right now we communicate via text. Usually, it’s me texting Joshua and him ignoring me.
Sometimes I go out into the backyard and try to telepathically communicate with him. Try to send up good vibes. Usually when I’ve been drinking.
Doesn’t work too well. Probably my ex blocking them with her negativity.
Go away, good vibes. We like misery and anger here.
“Where’s Josh?” I ask, my eyes scanning the distance, waiting to see my son stride up. He and I are supposed to be leaving on a trip in a few hours, and he should be here any minute. Quinn and Joshua are connected at the hip. Well, at least I think they still are. Now that Joshua has a girlfriend, he comes around even less, and I wonder if it’s also affected his relationship with his best friend.
I haven’t seen Quinn much lately, actually. So maybe it has.
Quinn fiddles with the silver hoop earrings in his left ear and shifts on his feet.
“Um, Josh is with Hailey.”
I put my hands on my hips and sigh. I’m not surprised. Since they started dating a few months ago, Hailey has consumed my son’s time. Young love and all that. I’m surprised he even agreed to go on this trip with me in the first place. I glance at Quinn again, and he looks uneasy, like he has a secret, something he wants to say but can’t quite bring himself to.
Oh.Oh shit.
“What’s that look for?” I ask, suddenly feeling so old. And tired.
Quinn stands up straight and takes a step toward me, the scent of him traveling across the space between us.
Clay and earth and pine.
“He’s not coming, Grey.”
My eyebrows meet and my heart stutters in my chest. I mean, Joshua and I aren’t that close—we never were, despite my best attempts—because Karen and I were young when we had him, and I was so far in the closet that I didn’t think I’d ever come out. But I eventually gathered the courage, and after years of trying to make it work between us, we realized we were just two kids struggling with being teenage parents. While I loved her, I wasn’t in love with her. I could never be. How it ended between us years ago seems to have only made her angrier.
She’s always so mad at me.
In the end, I was forced to walk away, and Joshua was raised primarily by his mother. Out of spite, she made sure I got very limited time with him.
Very little as in maybe once a month. I tried fighting, but she had the time, funds, and determination to stop me. So after years of losing, I just decided it was best to roll over and accept it.
But this was supposed to beourtrip, our time to reconnect before he goes off to college in a few weeks in a different state. So very far away.
I pull my phone out and glance down at the message sitting there.
