I opened Poppy’s Instagram again, and sure enough, the photo was still there. Three hundred thousand Likes, no less. Way too much for a high school kid. She only had about ten thousand followers. Nothing about this whole situation made sense.
I scribbled Josh a note, telling him I needed to catch my flight home—which wasn’t a lie—and I’d text as soon as I landed, which I promised myself wasn’t going to be a lie, either.
On my way to my dorm, I passed the cafeteria adjoining the different housing sections of the college. I spotted Ryan napping on a table, probably because he’d given Josh the room for the night. I bought him a croissant and a huge cup of coffee and asked the barista to give it to him. Then I got myself the greasiest grilled cheese ever made in the history of bread and cheese and chugged two gallons of water to try to fight my hangover from hell. I sneaked into my dorm and locked myself in the showers, not coming up for air until I was sure my body didn’t smell of anything other than soap.
But it did smell of something.
Something I had no business feeling.
A sour, tangy scent I couldn’t shake off.
A mistake.
I’d been watering the plants for forty minutes.
The fuckers drowned some time ago. If I wasn’t careful, we’d have a second pool in our front yard.
It had rained all of yesterday, and the field had been muddy as fuck during the game. But none of it mattered, because Luna was coming home tonight. I’d been watching the Rexroths’ empty garage for nearly an hour, hoping to catch Trent’s Tesla rolling in with his eldest child, to spot Moonshine getting out of the car so I could do the casual oh-fancy-seeing-you-here-it’s-not-like-I-fucking-waited-for-you-for-the-entire-semester-or-anything.
I’d never gone longer than two weeks without seeing Luna—even that had been a one-off vacation—and by fucking God, it had been a form of torture we should apply to child molesters. But not seeing her for months on end? That shit sucked the life out of me.
Her choosing North Carolina came out of left field. I’d been so unprepared, I’d spent the first month too angry to even acknowledge her absence.
Amazingly enough, everyone else seemed to be on board with this bullshit.
Vaughn had shrugged her decision off, and my parents reported she was doing great.
Great.
She was fucking doing great.
Awesome for her.
Not.
Me, I wasn’t doing so fresh. Luna was my center. My fuel. I was running on an empty tank. I’d self-destruct if it wasn’t for Mom. But I couldn’t do it to her. So I ran on autopilot, acting like everything was fine, but as soon as the weekend rolled around, I was all about drinking myself to death and popping whatever pills were available at parties.
Look, I was mad.
Okay, fucking furious, more like.
Luna had left. She’d just left.
I bailed on her ass one miserable night to show her that, in fact, it wasn’t cool to slap me because she was a Jelly Nelly, and she’d. Fucking. Left.
Like my biological mom.
Like Val.
Like the people we hated.
All right, Debbie Downer, time to shut down the pity party before the fun police throw you in the can.
“Just a sec,” I growled, answering Mom when I saw her face peering from the kitchen window.
She was probably wondering what kept me in our front yard. Come to think of it, Mom never called out for me. My bad. But she was here now, leaning against our doorframe, wearing a brown polka dot dress and looking beautiful with her hair twisted in a loose chignon. Rosie Leblanc-Cole offered me a pumpkin cupcake from an orange tray. I shook my head, turning off the hose.
“You are so transparent.” She dipped her finger into a half-baked cupcake, sucking the batter.
She loved half-baking shit. Lived for the batter. I liked that she liked imperfections. It made believing she actually loved me easier.
“Oh, yeah?” I tore my eyes from the Rexroths’ open garage to her.
Normally, I wouldn’t entertain that type of observation, but Mom had more leeway. I wish I could say it was because I was a good son. Truth was, it was because I was a guilty one. Not that I’d done anything overtly wrong, but with Mom’s situation and everything, being a shitface felt excessive and wrong.
“She’s going to be here any minute.” Mom grinned, calling me on my bullshit.
I dug through the pockets of my gray Gucci sweatpants. “Shit, Mom, I think I ran out of fucks to give.”
“Funny, you look like you’re full of them. Why else would you be standing here for four hours straight?”
Forty minutes, four hours. Who was counting? Not this asswipe, that’s for sure. Apologies to California were in order. I might have created a drought.
“Didn’t you tell me to take care of the front yard? Practically begged me, in fact?”