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“Your dad loved this farm. But he saw the need to sell coming years ago. We discussed it a lot. Not with you,” she adds when I start to argue. “We toiled over the finances. This day was coming. Your dad saw it and he made his intentions to sell known. To me.”
“Bullshit. He would have told me.”
“He didn’t because he didn’t want to break your heart. He knew how much you love this place. He didn’t want to tell you until he had to. It just turned out that he didn’t have time and I had to be the one to tell you.”
I don’t want to believe it but, now that I think about it, they never involved me in financial discussions. Even when I knew things were tight, they never said it. And Maya and I never wanted for anything. They just made it work.
Maybe that’s why I’m so angry. She’s not making it work. And I want it to work.
“I’ve already held on longer than your dad would have,” she goes on. “It’s time, Theron.”
“Next year.” My heart is already aching after what happened with Skye. I’m sure I’ve lost her. Either because I left things open and she’ll think I don’t want her anymore or because she’s come to her senses by now and realizes how wrong it is for someone my age to kiss and want more from a seventeen-year-old. If I’ve lost her, I can’t handle losing my home too. Not yet. “After Christmas. Just give us one more Christmas here.”
“Where are you going?” My mom’s attention is behind me. I turn to see Maya and Penny halfway out the door.
“To pick up Skye,” Maya says and turns to leave in a hurry.
“And go where?” Mom asks.
Our mom isn’t stupid. Leaving the house after nine at night on a Saturday means a party popped up because some kid wound up home alone with access to alcohol.
“Come on, Mom,” Maya whines. “It’s Skye’s birthday tomorrow. We’re just going to take her out to ring in her eighteenth.”
Holy shit. Is that tonight?
It’s been hard not thinking about Skye. But I’ve tried. Mostly through overworking. In the process, I guess I lost track of time. It hasn’t mattered what day it is knowing there’s not one to look forward to. The days I got to see Skye were the only days I cared to count.
“Be back by one,” Mom says and Maya squeals pushing Penny out the door. “If you’re even a second late, you’re grounded for a week,” she shouts after them.
“Now where areyougoing,” she asks me, frustrated, as I follow them.
“Out,” is the extent of my explanation because where I go and what I do is the only thing I have any control over anymore. Right now, I want to be anywhere but here and do anything else.
eighteen
Skye
Ihavenoideawhose house this is but I know their parents are going to be livid when they see the mess these thirty-plus teenagers have made of it. None of the mess is mine. I’ve spent my time on the edge of the crowd nursing the same warm, flat beer all night.
I want to have fun. I really do but it’s not easy when the most fun I’ve ever had I’ll never have again. If Theron wanted to be with me, he would have said so by now. He’d have come over to go on another ride in the woods. He’s not even come over to ride on the track.
To be honest, I’m kind of worried about him. Which only makes things worse. Not knowing if I should go after him. Ask him how he’s doing. If he worked things out with his mom.
“You feeling okay?” Penny says sitting in the window seat beside me.
“Can I tell you something and you promise not to tell Maya?” I ask because I need to talk to someone about what happened with Theron. Holding onto it… It’s poison seeping into everything I do. Since the high of selling those paintings to Parker has worn off, I haven’t been able to pick up a brush. I stopped riding out to the barn in the woods because it hurts too much to see the mural that was supposed to represent my time here because it only reminds me of Theron.
“Of course. Do I need to be worried?” Penny asks.
I shake my head then I spill my guts. I tell her what happened on our movie night and then when I got hurt riding with Theron in the woods. I kind of wish I’d kept it all to myself when her eyes bug out when I tell her how he kissed me but then again, I feel so much better getting it off my chest.
“Shit. I mean… That sucks but at least he knows you exist. I could only be so lucky,” Penny says.
“You have a thing for Theron?” I like Penny but I will fight her to the death for the sole right of crushing on Theron.
“No! Not him,” she assures me.
“Come on,” I say. “I told you mine. You tell me yours.”
