"Yep."
"She mentioned me?"
I scoffed. "Mentioned you? Yeah, she mentioned you."
He nodded, but didn't say anything else.
It was so hard to sit there in the same vehicle with him, and instead of saying all the things I had always wanted to say to him, asking him the questions my mother and I had both wanted to ask, instead of finally getting the answers to questions I've wondered about for years, I had to sit there quietly and be polite. I didn't want to be polite to that man.
Stupid Derek, putting me into that uncomfortable position.
"You live in this trailer park with Alex, don't you?" he finally asked, putting his turn signal on.
"Yeah," I said.
"I used to live in this trailer park," he remarked.
"I know you did."
He half smiled. "Is there anything she didn't write in those journals?"
"Yeah," I replied, not even trying to hide my bitterness. "Goodbye."
His smile fell, and he didn't try to talk to me again until he asked which road I lived on. I told him he had brought me far enough, flatly thanked him again, and got out of the car, making my own way down my road.
I heard his car not moving, and it made me unreasonably angry that he seemed to be just sitting there, watching me walk down the road.
One lousy ride home didn't come close to making up for all the damage he had done. It didn't make up for breaking my mother's heart, for all the tears she cried, for marrying Sarah when he actually admitted he didn't love her. And it sure as hell didn't make up for me losing my mother.
So I stomped down the road, but I finally got pissed that he was still just sitting there like some sort of stalker, so I whipped around, planning to give him a dirty look, but I saw that he wasn't watching me at all. He was just sitting in his car, staring blankly out the windshield, still not moving.
I frowned a little, wondering about the state of his mental health, and continued on to my trailer.
I ended up picking up another shift at work that night, so I didn't get to talk to Derek. When I finally got off, I had a voicemail from him saying he was sorry about earlier. I was too tired to call him back, so I just took a shower and went to bed, figuring I would see him the next morning at school.
At one in the morning, my cell phone started ringing.
I grimaced, rolling over and sleepily mumbling, "Hello?"
"Hey. Sorry, did I wake you?" Derek asked.
"Yes," I said, chuckling a bit.
"Oh, sorry. I was finishing up some last minute homework, I didn't even think about the time," he admitted.
"Mm, that's nice."
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Um... sleeping."
"Right. Sorry about earlier, by the way. I don't know if you got my voice mail or not, but..."
"It's okay, you were running late, I get it. But hey, I'm kind of half asleep, so can I talk to you tomorrow?"
"Oh, yeah, of course. Hey, you want me to come over and give you a ride to school? Kind of make it up to you?"
I accidentally yawned in his ear. "If you want to."