“Well, I think it’s good that you’re not drinking so much lately,” Mom says. “That’s not healthy for anyone, especially at your age.” She pulls a face, and I know she’s holding back what she wants to say, some more scathing words about my real mom’s permissiveness.
My phone chimes with a text, and I glance down at Crystal’s message.
Unsweet Dolce: OMW.
Those three little letters get my head all turned around and my dick stirring.
“I’m going to head up and get some rest,” I say, pushing back from the table without finishing my food.
“Sure, Dev,” Dad says. “We’re turning in ourselves, but I’ll leave the back door unlocked for your guest. I hope you’ll bring her through the front and introduce her to us soon.”
“I will.”
We stare at each other a second. I wonder if he knows who I’m bringing up to my room. He’s not stupid—he knows I’m acting shady because I’m bringing a girl home—so he probably knows who. He’s seen her here before, but that was before we both got arrested because of her family. Knowing Dad, he’s happy for me and doesn’t blame her a bit. The man is a fucking saint. It’s kind of disgusting.
“Dad,” I say slowly, rethinking my exit. I grip the back of my chair, staring at my hands, the same big hands he has. I’m like a carbon copy of him on the outside, but inside, he’s good through and through, while I’m lucky to be called anything less than a monster. “How do you manage to live in this town and be your own man?”
Dad clears his throat and wraps an arm around Mom’s trim middle, shifting her weight onto one knee. “I wouldn’t say I’ve been able to be my own man,” he says. “And if I am now, it took more sacrifices than it was worth to get here.”
Mom wraps her arms around him, snuggling tighter against his chest. She’s one of the sacrifices he made, one he was forced to make when Grampa Darling chose who Dad married the first time around.
“There’s no way to change his mind?” I ask.
“He doesn’t see what he did as a mistake,” Mom says. “He thinks we made the mistake.”
“There is a way,” Dad says quietly, frowning down at the table in front of him. I can read the pain etched into the lines on his face, lines caused by worry, years of court battles, the loss of two of his brothers. Lines caused by my grandfather. I don’t know how he had a father like that and turned out so good, while I had him and turned out so bad.
“A way that doesn’t involve giving up our whole family and living destitute in the trailer park across town because no one will hire me?” I ask. It’s one thing to leave my name, but Colt and Preston are part of me like my limbs. Who else in the world will ever know the ins and outs of our family, understand the intricacies of our fates? Who else would be able to know without a word what I needed, what I meant by some obscure remark because they know my life like it’s their own, the same way I know theirs?
“In this town, with this name?” Dad says, leaning back in his chair. “I know I’m supposed to give you a pep talk, but… I can’t think of a way.”
“You could do worse than Dolly Beckett,” Mom says. She always loved Dolly. Hell, the girl is a copycat of Mom—magnified tenfold. Maybe that’s part of the reason I could never feel what I was supposed to feel for her.
“It’s not just that,” I say, kicking my toe against the leg of the chair I’m leaning on. I admit, it’s a big part of it. But I want the freedom to live like anyone else, to make a name for myself instead of bearing the burden of someone else’s. I know that’s impossible, but for a moment, I think about it. I can’t run away from who I am.
“What is it, honey?” Mom asks, bringing me back to earth.
“Nothing,” I say. “Thanks for coming to the game. I hope y’all enjoyed it.”
“We did,” Mom says. “You were brilliant, as always. Don’t forget your ice packs.”
I pick them up, say goodnight, and head up to my room to wait for Crystal. This is reality. Like Preston said, I better enjoy it while I can. Four months. That’s how long I have until graduation. The longest I can possibly hope to have with the girl I love.
I try to imagine a life outside Faulkner, but I can’t. I couldn’t leave my cousins, anyway. It’s no different than being disowned. It doesn’t matter if I’m across town in the trailer park or in New York City with Crystal. If I broke from the Darlings, I’d never see them again. And not only that, but they’d hurt because of it. If I took us off the game board, if I pulled my card from the crazy card house, it might free me, but it would send everyone else tumbling down. I could leave behind my name, my inheritance, all of it—if it only affected me. But I can’t make anyone else pay for my sins.
As if in answer, my phone chimes. Crystal’s here. Now it’s time to pay for my sins like I do every time I’m with her, every time I have to remember what I did to her, and know that she’s a big enough person to forgive what no person should have to—a bigger person than I am.
When does that end? When can I stop paying? And what exactly is the total cost of my sin?
fourteen
Crystal
Life in limbo. There is no fighting, but there’s no peace, either. Weeks pass, and even though Devlin very publicly stood up for me at school, I can’t sit with him. I am a Dolce girl, not a Darling Doll. People stare and speculate. They’re still waiting to see what I’ll do. Or maybe they’re waiting for the Darlings to tell them where I belong.
Even I’m not sure of the answer to that. At home, I am a good Dolce daughter. At school, I’m a curiosity, a mystery that no one can solve. Only on Friday nights can I sneak away and be a Darling girl—Devlin’s darling. I love my family, but I live for our Friday nights together. I can get through each week only by counting down to the time when I can be with him again. When I can be myself again. A few hours stolen each week is all I get. I take it greedily, wallow in it, glut myself with enough genuine acceptance to last me for six more days. Funny how what started as a game has become the only real thing in my life.
As I’m waiting with Dixie next to Dolly’s pink monstrosity of a truck after the game a few weeks later, a dark green mustang slides up in front of us. The window lowers silently, and Preston leans down from the driver’s side to see us. “Hop in if you’re going to Dev’s tonight.”