She waved her hand through the air. “Because that man was always lying about everything.”
I studied her. Lack of eye contact, increased breathing, immediate defensiveness, looking up and to the right, fidgeting with the blunt. She was trying to hide something from me.
Stella shifted at my side, and I could tell from the look on her face that she thought so, too.
“He told a pretty convincing story,” I said, remaining vague on the details to see how Jenny would react.
She suddenly became very interested in her fingernails. “’Course that asshole did.”
Lying. She waslying.
“Aunt Jenny,” I said, my voice laced with barely restrained anger. “I am going to need you to tell me what happened. Whatreallyhappened.”
Her head snapped up, eyes boring into mine. “Don’t you take that attitude with me. I am your elder.”
I stepped toward her. “You’re nothing but a mean old drunk who’s spent your whole life blaming other people for the problemsyoucaused. You mooched off us when we had nothing to give and took advantage of Mom’s kindness for years. The fuckingleastyou owe me is the goddamn truth!”
“Tyler,” Stella said, putting a hand on my arm.
“No!” Jenny shouted. “Let him show you who he is, honey. Who he’s always been. A self-obsessed brat who thinks he’s too good for the rest of us.” She got right in my face, breath reeking of pot and stale liquor. “You wanna know what happened? Your mama sawwhat those people were like. She saw how greedy and awful money made them. How rotten and spoiled andmeantheir kids were, and she didn’t want you to grow up in that world. She thought it would be better for you if you grew up here, with nothing, so you learned the value of money and hard work.That’swhy she left Richard.”
She poked me in the chest. “Well, I’m glad she’s not around to find out she failed. That it wasn’t money that made them like that, it was blood, and even after all her hard work, you turned out just as bad as those rich assholes.” She shoved me, and I stumbled back a step. “Get off my property. I got somewhere to be.”
She turned and stormed back into the house, and I just stood there, unmoving, my ears ringing. I tried to tell myself she was lying, but the truth was there for anyone who knew how to read the signs.
“We should go,” Stella said, taking the steps down to the dirt lawn.
I didn’t follow her because I didn’t think I could move. My hands were shaking, and I felt hot, dizzy. Like I was about to puke.
“Tyler, come on,” Stella said, heading toward the car.
My gaze went past her to the trees, my vision tunneling around me. There was nothing in my head but a low roar and a need to get away. From what, I had no idea. Maybe myself. Maybe the knowledge that my entire life had been a lie and I had wasted years of it pursuing a Machiavellian plot of familial vengeance. Maybe if I started walking, I’d feel better. Maybe if Ikeptwalking, heading as deep into these woods as I could, I might find some forest hermit with untold knowledge who could tell me how to unfuck my life.
Aunt Jenny came storming back outside. Without so much as looking at me, she took the stairs down and climbed into the minivan. The engine wheezed to life, and then roared as she dropped the gas pedal to the floor and tore out of there so fast the rear tires skidded. Time seemed to slow as the van suddenly jerked several feet to the left.
Stella was standing in its path, her eyes widening as she realized she was about to get hit. I screamed—her name, or a warning, I wasn’t sure—but there was nothing she could do to avoid being clipped by the tail end, and then suddenly she was flying backward, her head cracking against the ground.
Fuck!
I leapt from the porch as Jenny took off down the road, still swerving. Stella lay in the dirt, the dogs closing in on her. I shooed them away and slid to my knees by her side. Her eyes were closed, head lolling in a boneless way that shot terror straight through my heart.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Was she dead?
“Stella.”
No response.
I grabbed her shoulder and was about to shake her, but thought better of it. What if something critical was broken and the slightest movement finished her off? I slid my fingers to her neck, feeling for a pulse and panicking when I didn’t immediately find it.
What had I done? What had I fucking done?
Stella was afraid of cars, and I’d forced her into one and dragged her up here to what, get killed by another? And god, after everything else I’d already put this woman through. This prickly, impossible, snarky, beautiful woman, who I once thought I hated but now—
Her pulse jumped against my fingers.
Relief swept through me, but that didn’t mean she was okay, just alive. She’d just been hit by a car, and while it hadn’t lookedthatbad, she was thinner and frailer than most. Her back might be broken. She might have brain swelling. How the fuck did I check for that?
