The drive back to Detroit was tense. All Mitch wanted to do was reach for Lexie, take her hand and assure himself that she was still here, still in this with him. But Lexie’s entire body from head to toe warned him not to go there. She sat in his passenger seat, curled in on herself, facing out the window, watching the world fly by.
When they arrived back in the city, Mitch drove them to his condo, his body tensing when he pulled into his space in his building’s underground garage and turned the car off, half expecting Lexie to bolt.
But she didn’t move, which he took as a good sign.
“You coming up?” He asked.
She only nodded, then unfolded herself from the car and stalked across the garage toward the elevator that would take them upstairs. Mitch heaved a sigh and followed her.
The second they were safely inside his apartment, she whirled on him, her arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed.
“I know how this looks,” he said, holding his hands up in what he hoped was a placating gesture.
Lexie still didn’t talk, barely moved save for the tapping of her foot on the ground.
“Can we sit down? Please?”
She turned on her heel and strode into the living room, throwing her body on his plush dove grey sofa and tucking her legs under her.
He sat on the opposite end and took a deep breath. “I told you he was dead because to me he is.”
“That’s such bullshit,” Lexie said, speaking for the first time since they left Ann Arbor nearly an hour before. “For someone who wanted this relationship from the beginning, you sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“What do you want from me, Lexie? That night in Dallas…God, that night was the first time you looked at me like I could be anything more to you than a warm body. What was I supposed to do? Unload my years and years of childhood trauma on you over burgers and fries? Say,hi, my name is Mitch and my dad is a raging alcoholic and a piece of shit father?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she said, leaping to her feet. “You could’ve said literallyanythingelse, Mitch. That he’s not in the picture because he’s a bad guy. That you don’t have a relationship. That you haven’t spoken to him in years. I would’ve understood! I have a shitty relationship with both of my parents. At least you got one good one.”
He stood and moved toward her slowly, then faster when she didn’t move away. Hooking one hand loosely around her arm above her elbow, he used the other to tilt her head up to meet his gaze. “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you anything. I’ll tell youeverything. Just please don’t pull away from me right now.”
“What happened when you left Georgia?Whydid you leave? How did you even get out?”
Mitch sighed, then tucked Lexie under his arm and led them back to the couch. He nestled himself against the armrest and pulled her into his lap, needing her as close as possible for this conversation. “You know I played in Ann Arbor with the NTDP for four years,” he said, and she nodded. “That call came shortly after my fifteenth birthday.”
“When is your birthday, anyway?”
“October 22nd,” he said and watched her eyes close as she did the math in her head. “We met a week after my thirty-second.”
She blinked, surprised. “I had no idea.”
“Well, why would you? We hadn’t met yet. I only know your birthday because we celebrated it together.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “Continue with your story.”
“When that call came, there was no question we’d be moving to Ann Arbor. I was barely back on my feet after a car accident about six months before left me pretty banged up, so I still don’t even understand why they wanted me, but I thank God every day they did.”
Mitch couldn’t, in fact,refused, to tell her about the particulars of that car accident. That was a conversation for a different day…like never.
“At that point, things with my dad were really bad. Bad enough that he was controlling every facet of our lives, including my mom’s money. But my mom…well, you’ve met her. She’s smart, and she got crafty and started leaving money with a trusted neighbor in a little safe she bought. Only she and I had a key, and the agreement was that if things got bad enough, we’d take the money and run. We had officially reached the breaking point when Ann Arbor gave us a legitimate reason to leave. The same neighbor who was keeping our money safe also had an old Chevy truck with the registration in his name. One day, when my dad was out on a bender, Mom and I packed up what we could and hightailed it out of there, stopping along the way only to buy a couple new cell phones—those prepaid ones—and get gas and eat. We drove for fourteen hours, straight through the night, to reach Ann Arbor.”
Mitch would never forget the terror of those early hours as they passed through Georgia. He hadn’t taken a full breath until they’d crossed over into Tennessee, and even then, the weight on his chest hadn’t lifted until they were safely within Michigan state lines.
“I still don’t know if he ever tried to find us or was too drunk and stupid to care, but I didn’t hear from him for a long time after that.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“The day after I got drafted by Columbus,” he said.
“I’m sure that wasn’t a pleasant conversation.”
