My eyes stared out the window, and I set my hands in my lap, tugging mindlessly on the hoodie’s sleeves. That dinner yesterday was miserable. Frankly, I never wanted to see that woman again. She was everything I didn’t want to be. She might make enough money to keep that house, pay the bills, and send Levi to college, but at what cost? She was a bitch, and she was all alone. I didn’t want to be like that. Not even a little.
It was a while before the silence of the car was broken. Levi glanced to me, asking, “You okay?”
“I’m surprised you care,” I muttered under my breath, albeit without thinking. Now was not the time to start drama. This—being in a relationship—wasn’t easy, and I…I wondered more and more if I could handle it. If I was meant for one.
What if I wasn’t?
“What?” Levi asked, immediately sounding annoyed. That was something about him—he never hid things from me. Not anymore. If he was annoyed, he let me know it, just as I did to him. You couldn’t tame wildfires like us easily. “Of course I care.”
My jaw tensed, my teeth grinding. I knew I shouldn’t say what I was about to say, but my mouth went ahead and said it aloud anyways, “You didn’t seem to care the other night when your mom said I was a slut.” Okay, it wasn’t exactly what she said, but paraphrasing worked. It was basically what she said, in fewer words.
“If I wasn’t on the fucking highway, I’d pull over,” Levi instantly said, practically growling like an animal. He tossed me a fast look, his brows furrowed. “You really think I don’t care? Goddamn it, Kelsey, of course I care. I’m sorry you heard what she said, but my mom’s a bitch—”
“Why didn’t you defend me to her?”
“You don’t need defending,” Levi said, blue eyes icy. “You can defend yourself just fine. And I—I didn’t say anything to her, because I knew if I did, I’d fucking blow up. I was trying to keep it cool.”
He was right when he said I didn’t need defending. I didn’t so much care about what his mom had said, more so that he hadn’t leapt to my defense. But, I was slow to realize, maybe he was right. Maybe holding back was better; keeping the peace. There was no point in blowing up and making the next day and a half miserable when we were going to leave there anyways.
Still, though. It would be nice if I knew I could depend on Levi to have my back. What if there came a day when I couldn’t defend myself? What if I was weak sometimes? It was tough being strong all the freaking time.
Honestly? I think Levi and I still had a lot to learn about this relationship stuff.
After a car ride that was nearly two hours long thanks to an accident on the highway, Levi pulled into a driveway that was both familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar because it was my house, the house I’d grown up in, the house I’d listened to my parents bickering about money and other things for years, but also unfamiliar because the only car I saw in the driveway was my old rust bucket.
The house only had a one-car garage. My rust bucket was parked beside it so it was out of the way, and usually my dad parked his car in it. My mom’s car always sat outside…but it wasn’t here.
That made me uneasy.
It was the day after Thanksgiving. I knew her office was closed today; it’d been closed every year the Friday after Thanksgiving. Unless they changed their policy…
Levi and I got out of the car. He was still kind of pissed at me for saying what I did earlier, but that was fine. The drama queen would get over it eventually. I headed to the front door, stepping up the steps that had seen better days. It wasn’t locked, which let us walk right in.
Immediately I smelled something good cooking and saw my dad in the kitchen…wearing the ugliest Thanksgiving sweater he could find, probably. A turkey sewed onto its belly, green sleeves, white everything else.
“Kelsey,” my dad exclaimed, dropping whatever he was doing—mashing potatoes, from what it looked like—and came over to greet us. He wore a big smile, and, for the first time in a long time, he didn’t look tired. No bags hung under his eyes, and the grey I would’ve sworn that was in his hair before was nowhere to be seen, its inch-length just brown.
Wait a minute. Did my dad dye his hair? What the fuck?
“Dad,” I said, totally confused.
“And you,” my dad brought his smile to Levi, about to offer his hand, but then he realized his hand was full of food bits. “Oops, sorry. You must be Levi. I’d say I’ve heard a lot about you, but Kelsey has been pretty tight-lipped.” He went to the sink to wash off his hands, returning to shake Levi’s hand like the father he was.
I could not roll my eyes hard enough.
“Good to meet you, Levi,” my dad went on.
“It’s good to meet you too, Sir—”
“Oh, none of that. Call me Kevin. No sirs in this house.”
Oh, my God. I wanted to die. This was…this was ten times more awkward than I imagined it being, and I imagined it being pretty fucking awkward. My dad was…acting all weird. And then I realized how he was acting.
Happy. He was happy.
Had my dad been miserable for years? I didn’t think I’d ever seen him like this.
“Go put your stuff upstairs,” my dad said. “I have a cheeseball we can eat.”
Ooh. Yum. A ball of cheese.
As we headed up the stairs, I saw that
