3
Katrina
Iwas a fifteen-year-old virgin when I was talked out of my underwear in the back seat of Zeke Douglas’ Chevy Lumina on the Fourth of July just before my junior year began. We’d snuck out for a little fun, because my daddy was always so damn strict and watched every move I made. I was forced to sneak, because otherwise, George Blair ruled with an iron fist and protected his little girl – his only child – mercilessly.
I remember how it felt so romantic being with Zeke. He was so handsome and quick to grin. The moon was bright; the cicadas were chirping, and our adrenaline was running high. It was a sticky day with humidity, but the fireworks provided the most amazing backdrop for the night that would forever change my world.
I was fifteen; Zeke was seventeen, and we were both making decisions only grown adults should be making.
Back when you’re fifteen, you assume the boy looking at you with smiling eyes is your prince charming. Everything he does seems romantic, but everyone else can see the truth: his wild driving was sexy and fun in my eyes, but to the police, it was stupid and reckless. His lack of a job made him seem like a bad boy hell-bent on not conforming. But everyone else saw that he was just lazy. His reputation with the law,because of course they knew him by name, seemed kind of exciting, like an outlaw you read about in all the swoony books, but in reality, it meant picking up trash to pay off fines. Zeke’s shitty grades in school gave me a chance tosavethe bad boy, but the teachers knew his grades were because he was too lazy to try.
The naïve, fifteen-year-old me labeled him a bad boy, and every girl with a strict daddy wants one of those. I was blind to Zeke’s flaws, seeing only his lopsided smile and pretty eyes. So when I turned sixteen a couple months after that night in his car and was rewarded with two little blue lines and an appointment at the local clinic, Zeke ran so damn fast, it was like his ass was on fire.
Though I could never be sure if it was responsibility he was running from—or my dad’s shotgun.
Nevertheless, Macallistar Blair was born the following May to a terrified, unwed sixteen-year-old girl who had only her daddy to lean on for help. I hadn’t graduated high school yet, let alone college, and every day that passed and I grew rounder, I hustled as hard as I could in Franky’s Diner to save a little cash. My grades slipped fast – because working every waking moment and worrying about a baby will mess with anyone’s concentration – until finally, once Mac arrived, I gave up and walked away from what used to be a 4.0 GPA and a position on the coveted cheerleading squad.
I had to accept my new life.
I would be a single mom with no education forever, destined to struggle, sure to fail.
Awesome.
Zeke skipped town before the pee dried on my pregnancy test, and he didn’t show his face again for a whole decade. So when it was time to sign Mac’s birth certificate, I left Zeke’s name off. Even at sixteen, I was smart enough to know he would only drag us down.
I would forfeit the child support Zeke never would pay anyway for a little peace of mind.
The next several years of my life were the hardest. Harder than even my worst nightmares could predict. My daddy was disappointed in the direction my life took, but he remained my safety net. Our relationship had changed – of course it did. I wasn’t his baby anymore, but a woman with a baby – but although the foundations of our relationship were cracked, he stood by me with a broken heart and did the best he could.
My son was born at a modest eight pounds, six ounces, with cute little dimples on his chin just like mine and my dad’s, and with a bunch of dark hair that is, again, a Blair family heirloom. His birth went as it should; it hurt so much that I thought I couldn’t live through another moment of agony. But eventually pain made way for relief; Mac was laid on my chest, and in the silence of that birthing suite at two-thirty-five in the morning, my baby and I made silent promises to each other.
Our tiny family would be okay. We were a team, and we would make it.
Butttttunfortunately for me, we wouldn’tmake itthat first year. Mac was a horrible baby. So bad, he might get the award for being the absolute worst baby of all time. Reflux, constant ear infections, diaper rashes that just wouldn’t go away, eczema that required wet wraps and expensive hospital stays. He was a non-sleeper and wore me down until I was just a robot in survival mode. I lived on a couple hours of sleep a night for years, but it was always broken.
Always.
That first year was the worst of my life. It pains me to admit it, because I was probably supposed to be floating in that new-mom-new-family bliss, but it was straight up horrible and I hated every single moment.
I was sixteen! I was supposed to be attending prom and having fun with my girlfriends, but instead, I was dead tired, flat broke, and crying every single day as I mourned the life I would never have back and the exhaustion I wasn’t sure would ever lift. Life wasn’t supposed to be this hard yet. It’s supposed to be an adventure, an exciting quest to find happiness and the pot of gold.
Alas, I had to work extra-extrahard to unlock that level.
Now my son is a teenager; I still work in Franky’s Diner; I still struggle to sleep most nights because, although Mac looks like a Blair, he behaves like a Douglas and has a tendency to look for trouble, which means all these years later, I’m still exhausted.
But we’re seeing the light. Things aren’t all bad.
My rent is paid; we have food, and I’m paying off medical debt that my kid continues to accrue through bad decisions. But most importantly, beneath the smartass attitude and witty jokes, my son is perfect. He’s a sweetheart, neverintentionallyhurts me, and actively works on his impulse issues.
He might be part Zeke Douglas, but he’s aware of it, and he tries to do better.
Zeke never even tried.
The bell above the diner door rings and draws my eyes up to the nighttime darkness outside. The diner is empty but for an elderly couple in one booth and a single man in another. But the man who draws my eyes now, the one in jeans, heavy boots, and grief in his eyes stops on the threshold and watches me.
Eric DeWhit watches me with an odd intensity. We’re not friends; we’re not anything, but he’s been in here enough now that I know his name and face, and he knows mine, because part of my job is to introduce myself to my customers.
Eric stops in here every single day, often more than once, and like some unwritten rule, he’s becomemine. I never laid claim, and neither did he, but I make up fifty percent of the serving staff here, and he never sits in Tammy’s section.