Noah didn’t respond. His normal jovial self didn’t laugh or even smile. “I want my dad.”
Oh boy. I should have known that one was coming. The demand for his father typically followed a discussion about my shortcomings as a mother.
“Honey, you know your dad is hard to track down.”
“Call Grandma, then,” Noah insisted, jutting out his jaw in a move strangely reminiscent of the man he sought. “She’ll know where he is. Once she tells him I’m hurt, my dad will want to come see me.”
I died a little inside. This boy never gave up his faith that his father would one day put him first. Nick rarely, if ever, showed any interest in Noah. His apathy toward his son had begun a few months after conception, when I’d first told him I was pregnant. First came the denial, followed by the slut-shaming, followed by the demand to end the pregnancy. He’d vowed to me back then that if I went through with it, he’d never be a part of Noah’s life. And he hadn’t lied. Nick had only ever spent a handful of days with his son since his birth nearly nine years ago… not to mention that the child support checks were few and far between.
Most of our dealings went through his parents, who’d gotten involved only after the court-ordered test had proved their son’s paternity. Still, they always set aside a portion of each conversation to accuse me of ruining their son’s baseball prospects. As if. Nick had done a fine job of ruining them himself when a frat party went horribly wrong and Nick not only lost his baseball scholarship but was kicked out of college.
Still, in his parents’ eyes, all that blame fell on me… and the little boy who had done nothing but idolize his deadbeat dad his entire life. I tried hard not to crush Noah’s faith in his father, thinking of Nick as a bit like Santa Claus. I wanted my son to believe in him as long as feasibly possible.
“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll contact Grandma Ledger and ask her to let your dad know.”
Noah lit up. “Okay. Maybe he can sign my cast.”
Maybe he could sign a few checks while he’s at it, too, I thought to myself.
“Just don’t get too excited. You know your dad isn’t always easy to find.”
“He’ll come this time,” Noah said, but even I could hear the cracks in his faith. He knew as well as I did—his dad wasn’t coming.
9
Quinn: Trending
Astrangled scream caught in my throat as I shot up in bed, confused and winded. I covered my ears to block out the wail of sirens whizzing by my window. Normally, I slept right through police chases, but a night of drinking had delivered a morning of nausea and a head-splitting migraine. Possibly the only positive to waking up with a massive hangover was that I couldn’t focus on the end of my very short career.
The buzzing on my nightstand temporarily drew my mind away from the throbbing in my brain. Texts, one after another, were coming in quick succession. I grabbed my phone and silenced the vibrations. I didn’t even bother to check the senders since the only person I wanted to talk to was the one person who didn’t have my number.
Jess. My god. Yesterday. Last night. My fingers sliding over her body. The way she moved. I hardened. I needed her. Wanted her. Would give anything to have her again. She’d left in too much of a hurry for proper goodbyes, leaving me with a drunken urge to text her. But my prior experience with emergencies told me she needed her space. Besides, Jess and I had made a plan, however hastily it had been put together. I would text her in the morning, and that was that.
Easing my body back onto the mattress, I was surprised by my need for her. I’d felt something with Jess yesterday. She’d eased that lonely spot inside me. The place that no one got to go to or see. Why her? Why now? This time yesterday, I didn’t even know she existed, and now I couldn’t imagine being without her. Jess was someone I could see myself with, not just for a night but for life. And sure, people connected all the time. They fell in lust. They fell in love. But not me.
I didn’t bond easily with others. Never had. Actually, that wasn’t true. There had been a time—before—but I barely rememberedbefore. Butafter? Oh yeah, I remembered that. Imagine aging a decade in a matter of months. That was me, which made theafterespecially difficult when it came to connecting with kids my own age. While they were laughing and cheerfully running around, I stayed a safe distance from the action, hyper-aware of the danger that lurked. I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t connect. Gone was the brave, inquisitive boy who’d led his peers. Gone was the sporty kid always carrying a ball tucked under his arm. And gone was the chatty talker who couldn’t walk down the street without making a new friend.
That punishing self-isolation carried on through grade school, gradually easing through my middle and high school years, but the feeling of being different never fully went away. Maybe it was the glare of existing in Jake’s wake—first after the kidnapping and then after the fame—that kept me isolated from my peers. As I got older, I thought maybe it might be different with women. My confidants—Grace, Emma, and Sam—were all women, so maybe I just expected it to be easier to connect with females. But it never was. In every relationship I’d ever had, there’d been a disconnect from the very start. I struggled to make the investment with them even though I knew I should. I was embarrassed to even admit that the point where I was now with Jess was further than I’d ever been with any woman I’d ever dated. Jess had flicked a switch inside me. With her I didn’t feel like I was crawling around in the dark. I had to know why. I had to see this through.
It wasn’t lost on me that I’d seen a very similar scenario to Jess and me play out before. It was a moment that was etched into my memory forever—the very first flickerings of love. I’d seen it through the eyes of my brother and the woman who would one day become his wife. Jake had fallen for Casey in the span of just one night. I still remembered the electricity in the room and that razor-sharp focus projecting off both of them. Neither one was able to pull their eyes away from the other. Somehow, they knew. I’d been sixteen at the time, and it had made an indelible mark on me. Even now, years later, I still considered that the gold standard of love… and why I knew I’d never found it.
But yesterday—last night—the electricity was there. The razor-sharp focus was there. My eyes seeing only the girl. It was there. I knew it made no sense, but was it supposed to? Jake and Casey hadn’t made any sense at the time either, but they’d never wavered. I blinked up at the ceiling, shocked by the thought slowly crystalizing in my brain. Was this my ‘Casey’ moment?
Was Jessmyone?
My phone lit up, now the only indication of incoming calls. I tilted the screen toward me and soured upon seeing the Facetime request from my brother Kyle. Somehow I’d successfully kept my family at bay, probably only because I’d managed to send off another group text last night minutes before getting shit-faced drunk. In it, I’d reassured them that I wasn’t inching my way along a ledge somewhere. My family was funny like that. Even the most innocent of things could go from zero to worst-case scenario in a matter of seconds. And no one in the family seemed to have much faith in my solitary coping skills, despite the fact that I’d been weathering the storm alone my whole life.
Still, I was almost insulted that they’d sent Kyle to make sure I was all right. Who in their right mind would put him on the front lines? But then, maybe that was the strategy. Toss the most harmless member of the family in first to test the waters, and if he survived, send in the rest of the troops.
“Yeah?” I answered, hoping my gruff morning voice and appearance would be enough to scare him away.
“Damn, dude!” He jumped back. “You look rough. I can almost smell your breath from here.”
I breathed into my hand to confirm his theory and then cringed.
“Exactly.” He nodded. “Well, at least you’re alive. The fam will be happy to hear.”
“It was a nail-biter there for a while.”
