Her forehead crinkles and I hate I’m causing her pain. “You’re leaving again, aren’t you?”

“Just this house, not you. Never you. I’ll be around so damn much you’ll be sick of me, but I need to do this. It’s time I start acting like a man.”

Rachel opens her arms for a hug. I wrap my arms around her and kiss her cheek. “We’ll get you back in that garage, okay?” And after fixing the door at Denny’s bar, I came up with an idea of how to do it. Mom will hate it. Rachel will love it.

I ignore her puzzled expression as I rise and suck in a pride-eating breath. “I’m going to need a place to crash. If I’m taking this fight, I can’t live here.”

This time Isaiah extends his hand first. “Bed’s mine, but you can have the couch. Just leave some cash occasionally on the table upstairs and my foster parents won’t care.”

“Deal.”

* * *

Isaiah didn’t have dinner with my parents. Instead he drove me to his foster parents’ house as I used his cell to text my parents to inform them where I was, what I was doing and to remind them I’m eighteen. In a separate text to Dad I told him where he could shove the scholarship.

Determined to do this on my own, I packed some clothes and then left—everything: my phone, my car, my belongings. But this time I’m accepting help from some friends.

Outside the bar, Abby tosses me a prepaid cell and I hand her thirty dollars. “You’ve got fifty minutes. Don’t use them all at once.”

It’s the cheapest damn phone I’ve ever seen. “Are you sure it works?”

Abby tilts her head to the left. “Ha.” Then to the right. “Ha. To get to the gym, take the forty-two bus. It’ll go straight there.”

A red Honda Civic pulls up and Abby nods her chin at the driver. “Here’s my ride.”

“Hey, Abby.”

She glances over her shoulder.

“How’d you know about my mom and Denny?”

That wicked smile crosses her lips. “That’s a story from a whole other book that you aren’t old enough to read yet. When you’re out of diapers, maybe I’ll tell it to you someday.”

Why would I expect any other answer? “Thanks, Abby.”

“Watch it, Young. People may think that we’re friends or something. By the way, welcome home.” Abby slides into the car and it takes off down the street.

I lean against the sidewalk railing and survey the strip mall. Farther down people lug piles of clothes into the Laundromat; they carry bags out of the dollar and grocery stores. Months ago, this was my foreign. Today, it’s where I belong.

Damn, who would have guessed it—this is my home.

The feeling grows stronger when I walk into the bar and my feet stick to the floor. Farther down, Denny wipes down a table.

“Heard you were looking for someone to fix things,” I say. “Is the job still open?”

Denny freezes, then returns to the stubborn spot in front of him. He tries to hide it, but I catch the smile on his face. “Yeah. Job’s still open.”

Chapter 75

Haley

Water beats against the tub as Dad starts the shower. Lying on the bed on her stomach with her feet in the air, Maggie wallows in chicken nugget and Nickelodeon heaven. I peek past the heavy motel curtains and spot Mom sitting on the curb looking at the flashing Motel 6 neon sign.

The door clicks as I open it and Mom’s shoulders relax when she sees it’s me. She scoots over and creates a space. Even though the very tip of the western sky bleeds pink and stars twinkle directly overhead, the concrete still radiates the day’s heat.

“Kansas is flat,” I announce. For months my mother’s been a specter disappearing and reappearing in my life and I miss having a mom.

“Yes, it is.” Mom reaches over and entwines her fingers with mine. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep everything from unraveling.”

“I was going to apologize for the same thing.”

The way she sighs cuts deep into my bone marrow. “Keeping this family together was never your job. It was your father’s and mine.”

“Are you mad at Kaden for staying?” I shuffle my feet against the loose concrete, anxious for the answer. Decisions shouldn’t be this agonizing and I envy that Kaden was able to easily make his. If I leave and return to the gym, I’m letting down my mom, my father and Maggie. If I stay, I’m letting myself down. I’m a fighter and I belong in that gym.

“No,” she says and stares out into the horizon. “Sad, yes, but not mad.”

Crap. Sort of the answer I desired, yet not. Then again, maybe I’m supposed to stay away from Kentucky. So many things went wrong there: Matt, Conner...West. I close my eyes with the ache.

“You okay, honey?”

I open my eyes to see Mom worrying at me like she did when I was sick as a child. “I miss West.”

She nudges me with her shoulder. “Broken hearts mend. You got through Matt—you’ll get through this.”

West hurts, but not in the way it hurt when I left Matt. Losing West causes my heart to break; my soul feels empty—hollow. With Matt, my bones ached, my body throbbed and my self-worth was burned to a crisp. If I had more time with West, if I had given my heart faster to him, would it have made a difference? Would he have chosen me?

I’ll never know. I permitted Matt’s memory to haunt me and the scary part is he’s still an unseen phantom stalking my every move, infesting my decisions. “Matt and I didn’t end well.”

I said this before...to John, but I couldn’t say more than that. My throat tightens and I pull at the collar of my shirt.

Mom angles her body and for the first time in over a year, I have her full, undivided attention. “What do you mean, didn’t end well?”

Say it, Haley. Say it. My mouth opens and consonants stick in my throat. The only sound that falls past my lips is a sick strangling click.

Mom pushes my hair over my shoulder. “Talk to me, Haley, but you have to breathe, too. Come on, honey.”

I do what she says and welcome each clean intake. Stupid me. Stupid, stupid me. Why can’t I say it? Why can’t I admit it? Through another breath of air, I rush out, “It was bad.”

“All right,” she says as if I admitted something huge and I guess it was huge, but it wasn’t the full truth. “All right. It’s okay.”

Mom kisses my temple, wraps both of her arms around me and pulls my head onto her shoulder. That’s when I realize I’m shaking. Not just me—the entire world. Then it blurs. “He hurt me.”