The Second Chance (Inferno Falls Book Three) (24 page)

It only seems polite to ask Ebon a question of my own, to see if I can help him in some small way.
 

“If you were to go back to your island,” I ask, “do you think it would stop haunting your thoughts, and you’d find you wanted to stay?”
 

Again Ebon reaches down and fidgets with his wedding band.
 

“I guess I’ll find out,” he says.

CHAPTER 27

I hate Tommy Finch enough to want him dead.
 

For the short remaining time on my shift, I try to square my job (which is to be nice and polite and do as people ask) with the hatred inside me. With the bubbling turmoil, and all the conflict within it.
 

It isn’t easy. I nearly break a plate because I set it down too hard in the kitchen. Bustling, I almost clock Jen hard enough to lay her flat. Roxanne makes a bitchy quip about my sour expression, and I tell her to go fuck herself. I’m not usually timid with Roxanne; most of her authority is imagined and she only bosses us around because we allow it and because Ed, delusional as he is, thinks he has a chance with her. But today, I’ve had it. And I must be convincing because she thinks about snapping back but doesn’t bother. There’s a long second where I’m looking so hard into her eyes, it’s like my fist is gripping her brain stem. And she must know how badly I want to do the same thing for real — if not Tommy, anyone will do.
 

But anger is hard to maintain, and by the time I’m watching my final half hour tick away, I realize it’s just the stronger face I’ve put over so many other weaker emotions.
 

I’m angry because I’m scared and because, deep down, I know I’m hurt. Because the way Tommy treated me before, after, and even during our one encounter makes it clear that I’m just another thing for him to use. Because I wanted him then, knowing what I was in for. And because I know I’m trapped with Tommy: He should honor his obligations, but him in my life in any way is something I want to avoid at all costs. I can whine, but want nothing changed.
 

And now, he’s threatening to change everything.
 

Grady always hated Tommy. Even back then, I knew that my teasing was playing with fire. Those jokes were rooted in reality. Because I
was
into Tommy when goading Grady that I was. I didn’t just defend other girls who thought he was cute; I thought he was cute, too. Those feelings were more than a shameful crush. But when Grady and I broke up, it didn’t take long for me to act … after Tommy lowered himself to consider me.
 

If Grady knew Tommy came into the Pit today, he’d blow his top. Whatever fragile thing might be brewing between us, it’d be over.
 

But that’s just one of twenty items on my list. One of twenty things I’m terrified to consider.
 

What if Tommy does want to be involved with Mackenzie? I don’t buy it, not for a minute, but those were the words from his mouth. Coming from Tommy, willingness to do the right thing sounds more like a threat.
 

Let me see her, or I’ll tell everyone in town how you really are.
 

Let me in, or everyone finds out what you did with Chadd in the bathroom.
 

Do what I say, or I’ll keep coming back to see you.

Again.

And again.
 

And again.
 

One of these days, you’ll lose your bitchy, haughty attitude, and we’ll do the same thing you do with everyone. The same thing you did with me, once upon a time. Eventually, we’ll fuck again, and you’ll do it knowing I’ll tell all my buddies.
 

There’s no way to win. There’s no upside here, no way out. And it’s not fair, either. I spent all this time barely seeing or even hearing about Tommy Finch. That’s not easy in a town this small, but our circles rarely overlap. All this time, I’ve made it on my own. I delivered Mackenzie without a father. I raised her all by myself, with help but not money from my parents. She’s halfway through the time kids spend living at home, and I made it this far without having to face the man who helped me make her. I don’t want him around now, no matter what he claims his intentions might be.
 

Is he horny? Is that what this is — sexual blackmail with a girl who’s supposed to be easy, sparked by a hot story told by one of my more recent conquests? Or is it something worse? Is he just vindictive? Is he feeling somehow resentful, as if he’s always wanted his daughter but I’ve kept him away?
 

Whatever his reasons, is there any chance — any way in hell — that he could make a bid to take her away?
 

Despite my churning gut, I don’t think that’s possible. Even if I’m the world’s worst mother, he’s still the absentee sperm donor who spent a decade ignoring us. I have witnesses that Tommy knows he’s the father; he couldn’t claim I never told him. But even if he couldn’t win custody, surely doesn’t want it, and would be an idiot to try, that doesn’t mean he can’t make things
very
unpleasant for us both if he decides to try, no matter his reasons.

Now think very carefully,
I can hear a social worker asking Mackenzie.
Would you rather live with Daddy, who doesn’t care about you and never has, or Mommy, who’s had more dicks in her than a detective convention?

I’m sure it’d never go that far. But I can easily imagine Mac hitting high school and hearing rumors about me. I can also imagine the way adults would watch me as I walked by, thinking,
There she is. I heard about her.
 

It’s not fair.
 

And it’s not fair that when I think about Tommy coming back, my body responds even as my mind is screaming.
 

I hate him so much.
 

And yet it’s impossible not to imagine his breath on my neck. The way I know he’d handle me — not tender, like Grady, but rough. The way I’ve never really stopped thinking about that night in my fantasies, even as much as I instantly regretted it.
 

I end my shift feeling intensely conflicted then head home to clean up before rushing over to Mom and Dad’s, where Mackenzie will already be waiting eagerly for her new friend, Mr. Grady, to join us. I’m so emotional — although
which
emotions are hard to pin down — that I can barely think straight. I strip and toss my clothes in the hamper then start to get dressed in new clothes before remembering that I meant to shower in between, to rinse the diner smell off my body. But by that point I’ve already been walking around the house naked for a few minutes, and my nipples have responded, hardening over my mishmash of sensations and thoughts: the breeze on my bare skin, thoughts of Grady, loathed thoughts of Tommy. I’m running late, so I push it all aside. I slip under the shower and the water feels good, so my hand moves south and I come hard enough to nearly break the curtain rod off the wall. Then I dress, still overheated and blushing with my entire body, sure that if Tommy saw me now, he’d laugh knowingly like the motherfucker he is and has always been.
 

The entirety of the short drive to my parents’ house, I’m pretty sure I’m late, and I’m berating myself for taking the few minutes required to masturbate. My folks always liked Grady, and they know he’s not Mackenzie’s deadbeat father, but he still did run off when I needed him most. When I told them he’d be coming to dinner (hoping they didn’t ask why, seeing as I had no sensible answer), they reacted with the pleasure of reliving old times, but I’ve ranted a lot about Grady in the past and don’t know what of my old anger they might have kept — or what their unintentionally careless conversation might reveal today.
 

Poor Grady. He didn’t just inherit the ire he had coming when he left; he got Tommy’s, too, because I couldn’t admit those mistakes to myself. I remember blaming Grady for my pregnancy almost as completely as if he’d caused it. Tommy got my hate, but little of my day-to-day blame. Once it became clear what I was to Tommy and how few shits he’d ever give about my predicament or our upcoming child, I turned my brain off whenever it went in his direction.
 

I wasn’t at fault. The pregnancy was just something that happened to me.
 

Tommy wasn’t at fault because I wouldn’t think of Tommy.
 

Grady was the only one left to blame. The man, who, if he stayed in Inferno Falls, would have to live with his asshole uncle. Grady, who I more or less cheated on the minute we had a week of short-term breakup behind us.

When I pull into my folks’ driveway, I drop the visor mirror and look myself over. I guess I look good enough, if totally frazzled. But I still take a long moment before going in to have a wordless little chat with the girl in the mirror.

Tonight could be a good thing, so don’t screw it up.
 

No matter what happens with Tommy, it’s going to happen regardless, so there’s no point worrying about it now.
 

Stop feeling so damn guilty all the time. You didn’t do anything. Not today. Chadd was a week ago, before Grady was here … probably. Since then, you’ve been good. And there’s no point worrying about your past.
 

Things can be different, if you’ll let them be.
 

Before snapping the visor back up, I stare into my green eyes and wonder if there will ever be a day when I don’t second-guess everything. If there’s such a thing as a life that’s not always lived with guilt, regret, and questions of what might have been. I don’t remember that way of being, if I ever had it. I love my parents, but them plus the church made me ashamed of my first feelings, certain that I was a sinner. I worried when I was with Grady. I felt horrible when I was with Tommy, just that once. And for my entire motherhood, I’ve lived two lives as different women, neither of which I felt proud of. One has never been able to resist her base impulses — more of the Jezebel I always felt like even before my first time, just because of how I felt. The other was chaste, like I learned a mother should be … but that one could barely provide for her girl, couldn’t be with her often enough, couldn’t give her the family I had and the one she deserved.
 

I wonder what it’s like to do something and be proud of it. I wonder what it’s like to have something and appreciate it. I wonder what it’s like to be loved and to
feel
loved at the same time.
 

I raise the visor and open the car door, glad at least that I managed to arrive before the guest I probably shouldn’t have invited.
 

But before I even make it to my parents’ walkway, Grady is pulling up in his piece-of crap truck, running fingers through his hair even as he parks, making my heart beat faster, making all of my second-guessing that much worse.

CHAPTER 28

I guess I’m as content as a guy who just changed in a gas station bathroom can be.
 

I realized, after leaving Old Town in a rush, that I’d lost all the time I might have used to settle into a motel room. I barely remembered where the Hollands live and had to look it up (Maya gave me their address but I poo-poo’d it, insisting that my memory was top notch), and by the time they were in my GPS I realized my recollection of Inferno Falls geography was no more top notch than my memory for where old girlfriends once lived. Her parents are way past the developments — out by Reed Creek, of course, where Maya now lives — and two big shopping centers have been built since I last drove the roads between. Traffic wasn’t my friend, even on a Sunday. All things considered — including my stop at a BP to change in a stall — I’m thankful I made it.
 

It’s fine. I’ll get my room later. For now, I have fences to mend.
 

By the time I pull into Arthur and Charlotte’s neighborhood, I’ve been thinking long enough about my two competing futures for a clear winner to surface.
 

It’s funny what a difference a day makes. Vince called, and it was like God himself had reached down to tap my shoulder, coincidentally offering the exact opportunity I’ve been waiting for. With only Alaska and Hawaii left to cross off my map, I could have hit the north like a tourist, driving up, driving around, and driving away. But it’s not like I have bottomless funds, and I don’t know Alaska at all. There must be restaurants and gas stations and other shit jobs I could do, but I don’t know anything for certain. But then Vince called with the details I needed, down to suggested inexpensive lodging. Just like that, I was set for my most dreamed-of destination, giddy with anticipation.
 

But now, the memory of my excitement has faded. If Vince’s call felt like divine intervention, today’s chat with Ebon feels even more so. Thinking how easily I might have missed my new conclusions if not for that chance encounter gives me the chills. Because going in, I’d bought a damned Alaska
magazine
. I was ready to
go
, still thrilled no matter what Joe (who, let’s face it, was clearly talking out of his ass) had to say while sticking his nose into my business.
 

Ebon told me what I needed to hear, in the way I needed to hear it.