I get in the car, the air stuffy after sitting for a while, and immediately flip on the AC. Aspen sighs appreciatively and adjusts the fans until they blow directly on her face.
“I don’t miss the cold and snow,” she says over the sound of the engine starting. “But I do miss not sweating instantly anytime I step outside.”
I pull away from the curb and start our drive home. “After this many years, and playing outdoor festivals in the heart of the summer, I’m finally adjusted to it.”
“I thought three years would’ve been enough, but guess not. Maybe in another three.”
“Have you ever been back home since moving out here?”
“That’s not my home,” she scoffs. “Just like it’s not yours. I have no interest in ever going back there.”
“Me either,” I mutter.
“Yeah, trust me, I know. Figured that out when you left me.” She crosses her arms and slumps back in the seat.
Again with this? “Do you have some sort of vendetta against me that you’d like to get off your chest? Cause that’s yet another time that you brought up me abandoning you. I did everything I could to still look out for you, even as I tried to put it all behind me.”
“Look out for me?” she exclaims. “How were you looking out for me when you left and I literally never heard from you ever again? I get it, you wanted to forget about our shitty circumstances and start over a new life, but in the process you forgot about me!”
“I didn’t forget about you! Christ, why the hell else would I have sent you monthly checks to go toward a college fund for you? Because I didn’t give a fuck what happened to you?”
Her mouth gapes open as she blinks at me, the hardness behind her eyes morphing into confusion. “What college fund?”
I didn’t bring it up before because I was trying to not be a dick for once and act like I’m high and mighty for sending her money for years. Hell, I don’t need a thank you but maybe not outright hostility all the time.
“The checks I sent for you,” I say, rubbing a hand down my face. I’m suddenly exhausted, even though I didn’t do anything today.
She slowly shakes her head. “I never got any checks.”
Now it’s my turn to be confused. “Ever since I got my first paycheck out here, I sent money back for you. Not a lot at first, but whatever I could manage.” Even when we were little, she talked about going to veterinary school. Being in the circumstances we were in, I knew her shot was slim tonone, but if I could get out, I wanted to extend her a hand, too. Even if I didn’t want anything to do with my past in Pittsburgh.
Her face goes through a range of emotions before she says, her voice gritty, “I never saw any money.”
9
Reid
Past
“Are you going to come back and visit?” Penny sits cross-legged on my bed, braiding her hair into two pigtails while watching me pack. Her big eyes are sad as each item of clothing disappears into one of my two bags I have to my name.
“No,” I say as gently as I can. I’m never coming back here. Will never step foot in this city again. Not unless one day we have a sold-out show here and it’s contracted for me to be here.
“What about your mom?”
“I don’t have a mom,” I say cooly.
“But everyone has a mom.”
And that’s why you’re here, Penny?I choke down the retort. She’s been holding out hope thather mom would one day swoop in here, pick her up, and take her back home.
But from what I’ve overheard from Gina and Patrick, Penny wasn’t even living with her biological mom before she was brought here. She was with her aunt and uncle, who then got pregnant with another one of their own children, and decided they didn’t have room for Penny anymore.
Shitheads. All of them. And if she’s still holding out hope that her mom’s going to come back for her, then I’m just sorry I won’t be here to help pick up the pieces for her fragile, child’s hope.
“Well, I don’t,” I tell her. My mother was dead to me the moment she went to prison and I got sent here.
Her bottom lip wobbles a bit as she says, “What about me? Are you going to come back and visit me?”
