Chapter 1
Frankie
“I need to go home.” I sigh into the phone when I’m met with silence on the other end. “Mom, please.”
“That’s not possible,” Mom argues. I can tell she’s distracted. Both of my parents are always distracted. Why they even had a kid when they’re never around is beyond me.
“It’s simple. I can get Nan to take me right back to the airport. I’ll even use my own money. Piper needs me.”
“Piper has her parents, and from what you told me, she’s going to be fine. You’re needed there. Nan needs your help.”
My dad is somewhere in the room urging Mom to get off the phone, and just the sound of his voice through the line grates on my last nerve.
“She was in a major car accident. I need to be in Westover, not in the middle of a field in Utah.”
“You agreed to help Nan this summer. We’re not letting you back out of that promise. Now I need to get off the phone. I haven’t even packed for our trip.”
“But, Mom—”
Silence fills my ear once again, but this time I know it’s because she hung up on me. There was no goodbye. No I love you before she ended the call. Nothing. Just dead air.
My parents are heading to Europe, a vacation they’ve been saving for and planning for the better part of twenty years. I don’t begrudge them their once in a lifetime twenty-fifth wedding celebration, but there’s no point in me even being in Utah. They leave me home alone more times than not, and I get along just fine. As a pharmaceutical rep, my dad is gone for weeks at a time. My mother is a flight attendant, and I see her less than once a week because she opts to stay in a hotel near the airport on her days off, or she spends her time off out of state. I’ve always been an afterthought. For the last two years, they’ve deemed me responsible enough to stay alone.
Their excuse of wanting me to help my nan on her farm is ridiculous. Even at sixty-five, Nan is up with the sun and works all day long. She’s not some feeble old lady who needs help with her daily life. But since Mom hasn’t bothered to visit in years, she assumes that her mother is frail and in desperate need of assistance.
I squeeze my cell phone in my hand until my palm aches from the pressure. Frustration fills every cell in my body. My best friend Piper was in a car accident two days ago. No one notified me that she was hurt. Why would they? We’re the outcasts, the girls everyone likes to make fun of, the bullied of Westover Prep.
I got on a plane mere hours after leaving the end of the school year party without even knowing that my best friend was in the hospital. Before getting into my own car, I’d heard people talking about her leaving with Dalton Payne, and although that was weird because they hate each other, they also live right next door to one another, so it sort of made sense in an alternate universe kind of way.
They ended up in an accident, and Piper didn’t even mention Dalton when she called to let me know that she was going to be okay.
And here I am, in the middle of Nowhere, Utah when I’m needed there.
The room Nan directed me to just under an hour ago is bright and clean. It’s the same room my parents would stay in when I was younger, and as happy as I am to have an en suite, I still would rather be anywhere but here.
I don’t know a dang thing about farms or crops or smelly animals. Westover isn’t exactly urban, but since it’s in the center of Colorado, we have mountains and steep upgrades rather than mooing cows and clucking chickens.
Looking out the window only increases my annoyance. Other than a small house about a quarter of a mile away, there’s nothing but fields dotted with cattle as far as I can see. I can only imagine what it’s going to smell like around here when the temperature increases.
I’m supposed to be up here resting, per Nan’s instructions, but sleep is the last thing on my mind. I’ve been here less than two hours, and I’m already bored out of my mind. An entire summer of doing nothing is going to be the death of me. I cringe with the thought, knowing just how lucky Piper is to have survived the crash. Tears sting the back of my eyes as a heavy sense of helplessness settles in my bones.
I’m considering taking a nap just to pass the time when an old pickup truck enters through Nan’s front gate, making its way down the winding dirt drive. Kicking up dust as it nears the house, the truck turns toward the barn rather than pulling up directly in front of the house.