FIVE
Augusta—Twelve Years Before
“Stuck! I feel stuck, you bastard! You ruined all the best parts of me, you and that freeloading daughtah. If Mama would’ve left me everythin’ like she promised, bet your ass I wouldn’t be here right now…” The carefully manufactured sadness lacing my mother’s voice never ceased to drive me to the brink of insanity.
Did she think we felt bad for her?
She’d grown up wealthy, of the genteel class, as she always said. But she’d squandered her inheritance on priceless art and Vicodin, as far as I could tell. And now she spent her days blaming us. The low baritone of my father’s tired, vodka-slurred words echoed up the stairs, losing their stamina as I descended out of my upstairs window. My fingertips clutched at the roof’s edge, dirty Converse covering my bare feet as I launched off the roof and landed on the soft earth.
Moonlight lit the fields of bluegrass in silver, highlighting the stately white pillars that anchored the wide wraparound porch of the home I’d grown up in. I snuck through the line of hemlocks that flanked either side of our driveway, picking my way along the shadows until I was confident I was out of sight, and earshot, of the house at 101 River Ridge Drive.
I skipped past the trail that led through the woods and out onto the ridge overlooking the river, and I headed for Fallon’s house. I’d done this walk at midnight so many times, I could find my way along the twists and turns of the old country road with my eyes closed.
I was surprised by the liking I’d taken to Fallon Gentry.
Something about the way he’d watched over me when he thought I was about to jump off the bridge. I’d known then we’d be friends.
I don’t know if it was fate that found Fallon up there on that bridge at the same time as me, but from the moment we met, we seemed to be savin’ each other.
Dark clouds shadowed the moon as I sped up my steps, more anxious than ever to get to Fallon and not be so…alone.
While it might have been true that I lived at 101 River Ridge Drive with both of my parents, most days I’d rather I lived alone over listening to them spew the hatred they did. Their example of marriage had me ruling it out for the rest of eternity. Sneaking out to Fallon’s house since he’d sorta saved my life on that bridge had become my saving grace.
“Hundred and two days,” I said a few minutes later when he opened the window.
“What?” A wild lick of hair fell in front of one eyebrow. My fingers itched to push it away. I resisted.
“That’s how long we’ve known each other. Hundred and two days. I counted.”
He looked behind him once before climbing out of his bedroom window. “How long’d that take ya?”
“Shut up.” I launched my fist into his bicep, and he laughed.
I loved his laugh. Like, really loved it.
I swear, sometimes it woke me up out of my fantasies in the middle of the night.
And if I was lucky, it was reality.
More than once, I’d fallen asleep in Fallon’s arms, too tired to go home. The comfort of his warm body and the cool quilt pulling me under. I slept the most peacefully in Fallon’s arms, there was no doubt about it. And not just because Mom and Dad weren’t in my ear hollering all night, but because being with him was as easy as being me.
There’d been a few close calls, but it hadn’t taken me long to realize that Mom didn’t even check on me before school in the morning, and Dad was already out the door long before I woke up. I was free from ten o’clock till six in the morning, easily.
“So what’s going down at Chez la Branson tonight?” The gravelly edge in his voice twisted my insides upside down. Fallon definitely had a rebel, bad-boy thing about him, a few too many tattoos for the likes of Chickasaw Ridge, but I think they fit him perfectly, plus he’d told me each of the stories behind them. They were art, an extension of him.
I huffed, looping my arm in his elbow and trailing him down the mossy path to the edge of the field. “I think she knows about Iris.”
“The mistress?” Fallon’s warm hand wrapped around mine, filling all the lonely holes in my heart almost instantly. “Why?”
“Mom saw some emails.” I was thankful when Fallon dropped under the first oak tree we came to that bordered the field, throwing his jacket on the grass so we could lie on it.
He nestled me back into his chest, adjusting me easily, before his nose tucked into my hair and he sucked in a soft breath. “They been fighting?”
“Yeah,” I breathed, stubborn tears pricking my eyelids. “More than usual.”
“S’okay, Ms. Branson, that just means more time for us.”
Us.
I loved when he said that word, rolling it off his tongue and pooling in my insides like warm butter.
“I just wish they didn’t make my ears bleed.”
“I’ve heard them go at it. Think I’d set up a tent and camp out in the yard if I had to listen to that all the time.” He pulled me a little tighter, that still-too-long lock of dark hair whispering at his eyebrow, begging for me to tuck it where it belonged.
“You gonna get a haircut anytime soon?”
One eyebrow shot up, and a cocky grin danced across his face. “Not as long as you keep askin’ me about it. Better to stand out for something than nothin’ at all.”
I pursed my lips, digging deeper into his hard chest.
“And as for the other stuff, you’ll get through. You’re the toughest girl I know, Augusta Belle.”
“Toughest?” I tried to keep any ounce of desperate hope out of my voice. “You once said I was the saddest girl you’ve ever met. That still true?”
“Truer now than it ever was.” Fallon held a fingertip to my hairline at my temple, a sad grin settling on his lips. “I’d save you if I could.”
“You already have,” I whispered, tears pricking at the backs of my eyelids as I sucked in a breath of the cool night air, praying for at least the thousandth time that something would happen to make my parents see that all the fighting wasn’t just destroying the other, it was destroying me too.
And then Fallon Gentry had shown up.
Sometimes I thought God sent him to be the answer to my prayers.
I didn’t even know if I believed in God, but maybe I should start if it meant more good things like Fallon would start popping up in my life.
“Saving you is the pleasure of my life, Augusta Belle.”
A stubborn trail of salty hope fell down my cheek as I focused on the soft rising and falling of Fallon’s chest.
“Love you, Fallon Gentry. One of these days you’re gonna be a star and leave this town, and I’ll still be sitting here, under this tree, wondering where my white knight went.”
“Enough daydreaming, you’ve got school in the morning. What kinda boyfriend would I be if I didn’t get you to school on time?”
“Boyfriend?” I swallowed the sudden ball of nerves in my throat. “Really?”
“Well…” His fingers stroked the underside of my wrist and sent goose bumps skittering in every direction. “Figure we’ve been actin’ like it…”
“Does that mean I have to wash your laundry or anything?” He shook his head, awkward grin slipping into the familiar crooked one I was used to. “You make me want to skip school.”
“You can’t. If you’re not there, you can’t graduate, which means you can’t move out of that house, which would make you doomed to hell forever.”
I huffed, hating how right he always was. “What kinda girl would I be anyway if I accepted an offer from the first guy who came along, one who didn’t even know my birthday?” I countered.
“Fine.” His fingers threaded through mine, cementing our physical connection. “Does this mean you’re finally going to tell me how old you are?”
I pressed my teeth into my bottom lip, eyes glinting as our gazes held. “July nineteenth.”
His face turned into a scowl. “You know, in a few keystrokes I could find out everything you never wanted me to know.”
“But you won’t.” My breaths began to match his, eyelids growing heavier with each passing moment.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because,” I yawned. “You like me too much to piss me off. And where’s the fun in me telling you everything anyway?”
“I swear, Augusta Belle…”