Chapter 9

Shane

Tonight was going to be tricky.

I made sure the kitchen was meticulously clean after I ate, scrubbing all the dishes, putting them away, and wiping the counters until they shone. Mom and I took pride in this little home, even if it was a shit hole that we were forced to live in because we couldn’t afford anything better. At least it was home.

I’d managed to avoid seeing my mom over the past few days, and if I could make it through today without her seeing my battered face, I would have until the weekend to heal it up enough so I wouldn’t look like I’d seen the business end of a baseball bat. I hoped that if the place was spotless when she got home from her twelve-hour tonight, she’d be so relieved that she’d give in to her exhaustion and head straight to bed.

As it turned out, that was not the case.

My mom could sniff out trouble like a basset hound. She was the only person I knew who I could not say a word to all day and would still instantly know if something was wrong. It was frustrating as hell when I was trying to hide something, especially when I was already so humiliated and bruised on the inside. She knew when the kids on the playground teased me for being a bastard, or for being poor, and though she always made me feel better, I still didn’t want her to catch me out in it again. I didn’t like sharing my misery with her because if things were hard for me, how much harder did that mean they were for her? She didn’t need that.

I’d avoided confrontation with her over the past few days by spending lots of time at work or out of the house. I hadn’t been to school, but I got up and left every morning like I would for school. Then I’d either drive my bike down the coast or go out to my spot in the woods to read or nap. The spring days were warm and accommodating for my truancy.

She came home tonight and didn’t even look at the kitchen. Her soft-soled shoes muted the sound of her footfalls as she approached my room, but I heard her all the same. A second later, a quiet knock.

“I’m sleeping,” I tried.

It didn’t work. Mom barged in and flicked on the light, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“Why in the name of all that is mighty have you been—“

Her words died on her lips the moment she saw my face. The irritation creasing her brow fell away and turned into worry instead. Her green eyes, the exact same shade as my own, filled with warmth and compassion.

I was glad that I looked nothing like my dad. At least I didn’t think I did. I’d never seen a picture of him and never wanted to, but I saw so much of myself in my mom. Her hair was beginning to streak with gray, but it was the same messy color as mine. She kept it cut short, and on more than one occasion we’d walked into the kitchen in the morning with the same bedhead. She was tall too, nearly six feet, though I’d outgrown her in the past few years. I saw more of her in my face than I did strangeness and no person who looked at us would ever doubt that we were mother and child.

I took a lot of comfort in that. I know that the man who contributed the other fifty percent of my genes hurt her badly when he left and looking nothing like him made me feel like I wasn’t a part of that somehow. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help feeling it all the same. When she looked at me like this, however, I knew it wouldn’t matter if I were a carbon copy of my sire. She would love me just the same.

“What happened to your face?” Mom sat beside me on the bed and lifted a hand to the jagged cut on my lip.

I winced and looked away. “I wiped out on my bike. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? Did you get this looked at? Why didn’t you tell me?”

When I didn’t answer quickly enough, she swooped in front of my face to catch my eyes. I knew with one look she’d see through my bullshit excuse. I was a horrible liar.

“What the hell happened, Shane? And tell me the truth this time.”

I pulled back from her but answered. “You know how I got kicked off the football team?”

“Yes,” she said in a flat tone. We still hadn’t discussed that in detail since she hadn’t had time, but she made it clear that the topic was still open.

“Well the guys didn’t think being kicked off was punishment enough. They had a few words with me at school the other day.”

“By words you mean fists?”

“Yes.”

Mom gritted her teeth and shot up from the bed. “Who was it? I’m calling the police right now.”

She was already storming toward the door, and I clambered after her.

“Mom!” I stomped into the kitchen, where I grabbed the phone from her hand. “I can deal with this on my own. It was Gromley and a few others, so trust me you do not want to get involved.”

Even my mom, who lived far enough away from Sitka Valley to hopefully never meet Preston Gromley, had heard the name and understood what it meant. Her jaw went slack, and I could see the outrage rippling behind her eyes. Just like me, Mom didn’t like being helpless. It was why she’d spent the last eighteen years of her life busting her ass every day to make sure she never had to rely on someone else. She was the first person who taught me that the most powerful thing you can be is independent.

After a second, Mom took a breath and held out her hand for the phone. “I don’t care. They could have killed you. I can’t just do nothing.”

“Mom, please.”

My mom loved helping people so much that she’d worked against the odds to make a career out of it. Seeing her only son so battered and unable to do anything to help him was killing her, but she knew she was stuck. This was why I didn’t want her to find out in the first place. Mom gritted her teeth and lowered the phone to the counter.

“At least let me have a look at you,” she said with a sigh. “Hopefully your dumb ass doesn’t already have an infection. Come on. Sit.”

She patted one of the kitchen chairs and I sat down, doing my best to stay still as she poked and prodded my bruises and cuts. She examined the ones on my torso next. We were both silent until she grabbed the cream and started dabbing it on some of the cuts.

“You should have told me,” she said.

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

She replied with a bitter smile. “I always worry about you when I don’t see you for a few days. This just gives me more reason to in the future.”

“What are you going to do when I move out?” I joked.

She chuckled. “Like I’m ever letting you leave if you keep getting into scraps like this. It would be irresponsible of me as a nurse.”

We fell silent again, and she finished up, sitting back to do one final once over. Satisfied that nothing was going septic, she set the first aid kit on the table and leaned back in her chair.

“So what else is bothering you?”

Like I said, a basset hound.

It wasn’t worth trying to lie to her.

I sighed. “There’s a girl.”

Mom’s eyes lit up and her hard line of a mouth curved with interest. “Isn’t there always? What’s her name.”

“Dallas.”

Mom nodded her head approvingly. “Pretty name. What’s she like?”

“Kind, gentle, sweet,” I said. “She’s got this ferociousness inside of her that shines through sometimes, even though for the most part she’s good. Really good.” I sighed. “Too good for me.”

Mom’s expression deepened into a scowl. “Too good for you? What on Earth would make you say that?”

“Oh, come on.” I sent her a flat look. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do.”

Was she going to make me say it? My mom was savage.

“Look at where we live, Mom.” I gestured demonstratively to the aging wallpaper and tired furniture of our home. “All signs point to me going nowhere in life. I’ve never done anything that would make me worthy of her. I probably never will.”

Mom’s eyebrows raised and she almost seemed to consider what I said for a moment, like she was close to coming around to my side.

Then she let me have it.

“You’re a bloody fool if you think that. Shane Kelly, what the hell would your poor grandmother think if she heard you talking like this? She came to this country with practically nothing because she believed that here it was possible to become anything. She worked her ass off for years and married a man who she didn’t love so that she could afford to have your aunt and me. Even as she lay dying, poor but happy, she still believed that her children and their children were going to have a better shot at life here than they would have in Ireland. Do you know what she would tell you if she were here?”

I swallowed and had the wherewithal to adopt a sheepish expression. “What would she tell me?”

Mom put on a thick Irish accent, sufficiently gravelly to imitate my gran’s croaky voice. “Good things in life come to those who take chances and don’t have their heads shoved up their arse.”

She delivered the line with such straight-laced sentiment that I couldn’t help but break down into raucous laughter. Mom’s mouth curved into a self-satisfied smirk.

“Now, my love, is there anything else I can sort out for you before I crawl off to bed? I’m exhausted.”

I felt bad for keeping her awake as long as I had and shook my head. “No, go get some sleep. I’m going to go out for a little ride.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little late?”

I winked. “Good things come to those who take chances.”

Mom rolled her eyes. “Be safe, or I’ll kick your ass.”

“I know you will.”

I waved Mom off to bed and grabbed my helmet from where it hung next to the front door.

My bruises made the ride a little painful at times, but it was worth it to get on my bike and drive out into the dark. There were few cars on the road, few competitors for asphalt as I cruised onto the highway and back toward Sitka Valley. I saw the whole world in the endless black of the night. A world of possibilities. A world of danger, too.

I pulled over almost halfway between Sitka Valley and home, leaving my bike in a ditch next to some ferns.

The walk was so familiar that I could have done it in complete darkness, but I wasn’t a total idiot. I used the flashlight on my keys to navigate over roots and around corners, only clicking it off once I’d reached the solitude of my meadow sanctuary.

It had always been a private place before I brought Dallas there. She was the first, and probably the last, who I’d share my haven with. It was made better for her having been there, and I wouldn’t want to tarnish that.

I stretched out in the grass with my arms above my head. The stars winked against a backdrop of obsidian, so bright that I could see the swirling Orion nebula and the faintest sprinkling of other galaxies, like scattered icing sugar.

I thought about what my mom said. What my grandmother would have said. And I thought about what I wanted.

I wanted Dallas with every fiber of my being, and if having her meant taking a chance not only on rejection but on finding myself unworthy, that was something I was just going to have to do.

Wes was a problem too, but not as big of one as he believed himself to be. I could take Wes. I could take his whole stupid crew if I had to, and would if it meant keeping them away from Dallas. I might not be worthy of Dallas in many ways, but Wes would be an outright poison to her. I had to protect her from him.

The wind whispered through the grass. The night was still.

I was going to ask Dallas to prom. If she rejected me, she rejected me. The kind of chance my grandmother took to give me a better life helped put things in perspective. When you looked at it like that, asking a girl out wasn’t that big of a deal—even if she was the most beautiful girl in the world.