“It’s true, I know it is. Grandpa wouldn’t make up something like this.” K. J. takes a ragged breath and brushes her nose with the back of her hand before continuing. “And my fucking mom. She’s lied to me my whole life, told me Robert was my dad. She went on and on about what a shitty father he was for taking off on us. Why would she do that?”
I’m clueless about how to answer that question.
“She told me the affair with Sam happened several years before I was born.”
I shake my head, understanding finally sinking in. I turn to stare out the windshield, noticing the car parked in front of us has California tags. Somebody’s a long way from home. “My mom told me we were both babies,” I say quietly. “They changed the timeline so we wouldn’t suspect anything. Guess they should have agreed on the same story, though.” A strange sensation wells inside my chest as I realize this is all the proof I need. Grandpa was telling us the truth.
K. J. rams the heel of her hand into the dash, and the sound of it makes me flinch. “I’m done,” she says. “This whole bucket list thing. I’m done. I don’t give a shit about the money. My mom doesn’t deserve her share, and who am I kidding to think I can get through college anyway? I barely made it through high school.”
I forget my own jumble of emotions as my mouth drops open in surprise. “But we’re almost done. All we have left is the rodeo, and Grandpa said we just have to do one of the easy events. We can’t quit now.”
“I’m done,” she repeats, an evil smile forming on her lips. “I can’t wait to see the look on my mom’s face when I tell her it’s over. And when I tell her I know who my real father is.” She turns to face me, and even though the smile is gone, a wild look still blazes in her eyes. “And I’m moving out. I’m so done with my mom. She’s a fucking liar.”
I hold up my hands, unsure of what to make of this whole new side of K. J. I’m seeing. Everything feels so volatile and confusing right now. “Hey, we have a long drive ahead of us. Plenty of time to think, and maybe talk.”
“It won’t change anything,” she snaps.
I hope she’s wrong for both of our sakes. Looking in the rearview mirror, I pull out onto the street when the coast is clear, and Google Maps directs us toward U.S. Route 1, the highway that will take us back to the mainland. On the way here, K. J. informed me that it’s the longest north-south highway in the United States, going all the way up to the tip of Maine—another one of those random facts she always seems to know. I glance at my ladybug, an unsettled feeling still circulating inside me. Getting our tattoos felt like we were making progress, like we were finally connecting on some level, but now I’m wondering if all of that is over for good.
I turn on the radio, using the auto-scan to find a station, and it stops on one playing “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” which feels kind of like the universe rubbing salt in our wounds. No one is having fun today. I press the scan button again, but it appears the only other option is a station playing classical music, so I go back to Cyndi Lauper.
K. J. stares out her window as we start across the bridge and officially leave Key West. The ocean stretches in every direction, beautiful and completely indifferent to our family drama.
“So where do you want to stop tonight?” I ask. “It’s twelve hours to Atlanta. Probably don’t want to go that far since we got a late start.”
“I don’t care. You can pick somewhere.” There’s an almost bored tone to her voice and I’m not sure if it’s from exhaustion or something more.
K. J. digs through the bag at her feet, pulling out her earbuds and connecting them to her phone. I guess the eighties station isn’t cutting it. I turn the radio off and roll my window partway down, hoping the wind and the ocean might have a soothing effect on me. The next four hours will probably be okay, but I dread reaching the mainland and the familiar views of cities and the empty farmland in between. The world we left behind, and now will never be the same again. Not after this. It’s going to be a long drive no matter how we slice it.
Of course, there’s something else I’m dreading aside from the nearly twenty-four-hour trip back home: confronting my mom and telling her I know all about her big secret. As my thoughts shift to that scenario, my hands tighten on the steering wheel, and a bubble of anger expands inside my chest once again. My aunt isn’t the only one who’s been lying to her daughter all this time. Maybe Mom thought she was protecting me from the truth, but I deserved to know. We both deserved to know, and Grandpa shouldn’t have had to be the one to tell us.
CHAPTER 24K. J.
I DON’T REMEMBER EXACTLY WHEN I QUIT GIVING A shit, but it was somewhere around the end of middle school. I used to have a few interests—art being one of them. I was also into Rollerblading and writing bad poetry, but somewhere along the way, I abandoned everything and took up smoking instead. Looking back now, maybe it was because I realized no one really had any expectations for me. Why did I need any for myself? Mom was too busy working or going to the casino, so I spent most of my time
