Second Chance Summer (Chance #1)(41)
Author: Emma Hart

I shake my head. Getting married – that I can swallow. I mean, we all have to move on, right? My parents are never getting back together, so a divorce is natural. I’m surprised it’s taken this long, especially in light of the reason they split up. But having a baby? That’s something completely different.

The only consolation is that he isn’t marrying – and procreating with – a girl not much older than me. Deeann, or Dee, is thirty something with her own house and a job, I remind myself. Again. And again. And again.

I just can’t help but think it’s not much of a consolation.

I feel like I need to scream. Like I need to let it out and take the world down with me in my frustration with my f**ked up life.

So what if a few weeks ago my life wasn’t perfect? So what if a few weeks ago I was making the dreaded trip back to Alabama with a still-broken heart?

I made that change – I changed that situation from f**ked-up to as good as I could make it.

I didn’t make this change. I didn’t want this damn change.

I didn’t want anything coming in and rocking my world. Reese Pembleton is enough of a world shaker-upper without my Dad joining in.

A familiar body drops behind me, legs stretching to the sides with mine, and my back presses against a hard stomach. Reese rests his chin on my shoulder and wraps his arms around my stomach, holding me. I rest my hands on top of his and turn my face into him, sighing again.

“What are you doin’ out here?” I whisper.

“Makin’ sure you don’t run away,” he grunts, squeezing me.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know,” he responds. “I’m just messin’ with you, baby.”

“I should have guessed.” I poke his arm. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was. I knew you’d gotten up, and when you didn’t come back, I came after you.”

“How did you know I was up?”

He runs his nose across my cheek. “Kia, if I’m certain of anything, it’s that you were made for me. I know when the girl that holds my heart in her hands has left the arms I promised would always protect her.”

I swallow hard and curl my body into him. I rest my head against his chest, feeling his heart beating under my ear, and curve one of my hands around his side, tangling my fingers up in his shirt. He presses his lips to the top of my head, then rests his cheek there.

“I just needed to think and try to make sense of what happened today, but it just doesn’t make any.” Even though I told Reese what happened with me and Dad after his shower, I wasn’t ready to talk about how it makes me feel, so we skipped that part. Now, apparently, I’m ready.

“It’s a pretty big pill to swallow. It’s not like it’s somethin’ you hear every day,” he says. “I don’t think it’ll make sense to you for a long time.”

“If ever,” I mumble into his chest. “And they live in New York. How could I live there for a year and never know? Never even have an idea?”

“They could have lived in the next town over and unless someone told you or you saw them, you’d have no idea.”

“Okay, that’s a fair point,” I acquiesce. “I just… it’s too much. I don’t know what to do or what to say.”

“I don’t think anyone expects you to know.” Reese runs his fingers through my hair in a soothing motion, calming me. “I don’t think anyone expects you to do anything, Kia. What they all expect is for your mom to step up and take responsibility for what she did now the truth is out.”

I snort. “Right. Can you honestly see her doing that? The only responsibility she takes is the one that requires her to fill her glass once it’s empty,” I finish sadly.

“Kia…”

“It’s true, Reese. She doesn’t care about anything other than that. I can’t count how many times I’ve picked her off the floor and put her to bed. Or even how many times I’ve carried her upstairs, wiped her sick from her face, her hair, her clothes. I had to grow up before everyone else. I had to become the parent, and that’s exactly how it was until I left. I was the parent and she was the helpless toddler that needed me. That’s just the way it was. The way it is, even. Nothin’ has changed. Nothin’ will change. If anything, Daddy coming back will just make her worse. She’ll just go another ten feet under the vodka bottle and drown herself in the spirit. I’m not stupid. I know how the story goes.”

Reese sighs heavily and pulls me in even closer to his body, if that’s possible. His arms and fingers tighten their grip on me until I really do believe he won’t let go.

“I wish you didn’t have to deal with that,” he whispers into my ear. “I wish it wasn’t such a normal part of your life that you just accept it the way you do.”

“I have no choice but to accept it. I can’t change it. She has no desire to change, no desire to get help, and you can’t help someone that doesn’t want it.”

“And I wish you weren’t right.”

“It comes with being female.” I smile against him, and we fall quiet as we listen to the sounds of the night.

Until the need to explain to him tugs inside me. The need to explain why I really left – the need to do the opposite of what my parents did to me. I tighten my grip on him even more as I realize I was never really running from him. Fear may have fueled me, but our relationship wasn’t the trigger. He wasn’t what made me skip town, and it was only the fear of seeing him with another girl that stopped me coming back.

It’s shallow, but it’s the truth. There are so many times you can lie to yourself before you run out of lies – and I’ve exhausted mine. It doesn’t matter how many stories I spin because the truth will always be there, lurking under the surface, ready to break through.

“It was her, you know?” My voice breaks through the silence.

“What was?”

“She was why I left.”

“Kia, baby. You’re back now. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

I push myself up so I’m looking at him. “It matters to me. It matters to me that you know you weren’t the reason I left. She was. You have to understand that, Reese. When I got home after we, you know…” I blush. “She was passed out on the floor in the middle of the living room. It was the fourth time that week. I broke. I’d had enough of looking after her, and what had happened between us scared me, and seeing her there straight after? I thought I was on the road to self-destruction by just falling in love with you. So I ran. I shouldn’t – I should have stayed and talked to you, but my bags were packed and ready to go, so I just left. I drove instead of waiting and catching my flight a few days later. It was impulsive and stupid and I wish I could change it. But it was never you. I never wanted to leave you.”