Two seconds later I’d heard a guy’s voice in the background and Morgan had ended our call in a hurry.
God, if I fucked up my family’s chance for a relationship with Etta I was going to start wearing a hair shirt under my clothes. I’d never understood that method of penance—it seemed pretty weird—but I was starting to understand it now. The constant reminder of my stupidity would help me be smarter in the future.
Hell, maybe I should order one online just in case.
Flirting was halfway acceptable. Some men flirted with anything that walked on two legs—it didn’t mean anything. But saying something like that? Telling her I was having withdrawals from her? That crossed the line, big time.
Unable to stay in the house where the walls seemed to be closing in, I threw on my coat and headed outside. A ride would clear my head and I’d just changed the oil in my four-wheeler, so she was ready for a trip. I started the engine and then glanced at the house, wondering for a split second if I should go back for my phone, but decided against it. I needed to unplug for an hour or six. Maybe if I didn’t have the thing with me I’d be able to put some figurative distance between me and Morgan.
I rode through the woods and over wide fields of waist-deep grass, up massive hills and down into canyons. My parents’ land butted up against my uncle and aunt’s, the lines so blurry that we’d always considered it one big piece of property, and I knew every foot of it like the back of my hand. Sometimes I ambled along, and sometimes I practically flew, but I didn’t stop. I rode by the light of the moon and a single headlight until I was out of gas, filled up with the extra gas can I carried on the back, and finally headed home.
By the time I got to my house I was covered in mud, soaking wet, had scratches all over my hands from blackberry bushes and a pretty nasty-looking scratch on my calf where a stick had pierced through my jeans. On the bright side, my head was clear and I’d stopped chastising myself for a comment that Morgan may not have even heard or cared about.
Sometimes I found myself fixating on things I should have or shouldn’t have done. It didn’t happen often anymore. It had been worse when I was a kid and worried constantly that I was doing the right thing, the thing that would make me the most friends or convince some family to like me. The panicky sensation of saying the wrong thing had mostly disappeared after the first year with my adoptive parents, but occasionally I fixated on a certain specific sentence or phrase that I wished I hadn’t said. I hated feeling that way, so I always made sure to think my words through before I spoke.
The problem was, I had thought about those words before I’d said them to Morgan. I’d run them over in my head twice before I’d even opened my mouth. It hadn’t changed the fact that I really shouldn’t have said them, and the response I’d gotten had made me instantly regret them.
It was the middle of the night by the time I kicked my boots against the side of my porch to knock off the mud and shrugged as if knocking off the last bit of my panic. The words were said and the damage was done. They hadn’t been that bad, and if I was honest I knew that I could spin them any way I wanted. If Morgan started acting strange or uncomfortable, I’d get us onto solid ground again. There wasn’t any other option.
Checking my phone as soon as I’d walked inside seemed like playing into my panic, so I ignored it. After a shower and downing an entire bottle of water, I finally allowed myself to grab it from under the recliner. There were two messages waiting for me, and both were from Morgan.
The first was a photo of Etta in her crib. She was sleeping with one hand hanging out between the rails and the other flung out above her head, wearing nothing but a T-shirt that had a motorcycle rally logo on it and a hot-pink diaper. The next was a text message.
Sorry about that. My dad has people over. I’ll text you in the morning.
Once I read the message, the photo seemed a little like a peace offering. I wasn’t sure why she felt like she needed one, but I wasn’t going to complain. Checking the time stamp, I huffed when I realized she must have sent it less than a half an hour after I’d left the house. She was probably asleep by now, so I didn’t bother replying. I should probably keep my mouth—or in this case, my typing fingers—to myself anyway.