Bittersweet Wreckage Read online

  As I drove down Bascom Avenue toward downtown, I spied Jesse’s navy-blue SUV cruising ahead of me, the male father stick figure on the back window laughing in my face. I ogled the vehicle. “What the hell? He’s supposed to be in Santa Cruz at band practice.” From a safe distance, I followed him until he pulled into an old strip mall and parked in the rear lot behind a music shop.

  After waiting at the curb for five minutes, I parked behind a smoke shop two doors down and sneaked to the music store’s glass doors. Peeking through the front window, I spied Jesse playing a guitar off to the left, a gorgeous Amazonian woman, probably in her twenties, hanging all over him. She had long dark hair and boobs stretching to the smoke shop. She batted her eyelashes and giggled moronically. The type of giggle guys tripped over themselves to latch onto. He smiled his wide smile I fantasized he’d always reserve for me. Her red claws lay on his thigh possessively, and a little too close to his zipper.

  Talk about slow on the uptake. Sucking at relationships was an epic understatement.

  A siren blared on a cop car at the intersection, scaring the cluelessness out of me. I banged my elbow against the glass. Jesse’s head shot up and he peered through the window display of guitars. I sprang out of sight. Too late.

  “Ivy!” His muffled shout drifted to me. I beat a hasty path to the parking lot. “Hold up!” He was gaining on me since flip-flops weren’t designed for quick getaways.

  As I rounded the corner to the parking lot, he seized my arm from behind.

  “What’re you doing here?” he asked.

  I wheeled on him, fury shooting sparks from my eyes. “I could ask the same of you. Were you lying about going to band practice? Or was that band practice?” I cut my hand through the air to indicate the music shop. “What’s your angle, Jesse? Really, because I need to understand where you’re coming from.” Because I was going psycho loco. Visibly, I went sub-zero on him, crossing my arms over my breasts to keep a lid on my emotions, my heartache splitting my ribcage in two. “Is Jade right about us?” Had he only found comfort in me due to our circumstances, or did we connect on a visceral level men and women shared? Was I a hit and run? Had he moved on because I hadn’t told him I loved him? Or because he’d sensed the million secrets playing hide-and-seek in my head. Suddenly, I wanted to sink into a fairy mound and live in a fantasy book world.

  He dug his hands in his pants pockets, his sight landing on the black globs of old, dried gum on the sidewalk. A new pink glob softened under the noon sun near my right flip-flop. I wanted to become that discarded sticky blob of nothing.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Do your lines work on your other girlfriends? Tell me what I don’t think.” The sidewalk blurred. He took my hand in his. Instinctively, I jerked my hand back in case I needed to hit him with it when he dumped me for meddling in his life. Or I dumped him first for lying. I expected more denials, but I’d suffered enough lies and secrets of the man kind to last a lifetime. Maybe it was wrong of us being together, and we were merely using one another. No better than him with hiding secrets, I’d kept the greatest secret of all from him and Jade. Newsflash: Ivy Lynwood has won the snake oil lottery. Come get your piece of the smoke and mirrors pie.

  “I’ve been lying to you.” The mottled red shame of becoming Lying Leo Lynwood aged his face beyond his seventeen years. Tiny lines bracketed his eyes and furrowed his brow. I braced for the roadkill-splattering pain of hearing he was dating someone else.

  “I left the band. After the sailboat fire, my head wasn’t in my music. You’re the one bringing music back to life, helping me get my head straight.” He whipped a plastic name badge out of his rear pocket. Jesse. Sales and Tutorials. “I got a job at the music shop. I wanted to help out financially and not put a strain on your mother. Repay her for the earrings. I’m also gaining great contacts to form a band and learn about production.”

  “Oh, Jesse,” I said softly. “I wish you’d told me.”

  “I wished I knew how.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know how to fix the antagonism between you and Jade without choosing sides. I couldn’t deal with all of it. I just needed to get my head on straight… about everything.” He took my hand in his again and I let him, squeezing his fingers. “Yesterday meant everything to me. You mean everything to me.”

  A mountainside of wet sand slid off my shoulders and down my arms, my own secrets halting the weight from tumbling off me completely. The door to my new life opened wider. Yet I wasn’t quite sure where Jesse fit. Brother, boyfriend, friend?

  “Say something.” He weaved his fingers in mine, and I held on for our ever after. The rough texture of his hand thrilled me and I never wanted him to let go.

  Was he waiting for me to say “I love you” in response to his declaration yesterday? Maybe it was easier for him to say those three important words, since he’d had other girlfriends. I hoped not. I loved him, but had a hard time saying it, as if I’d lose an integral part of myself upon confessing my feelings. Well, duh. Doesn’t that always happen when you fall in love? Where’s the love, cupid? Cobwebs spun tangles in my head. The brain matter explosion was imminent.

  “You know how I felt about my father lying to us all these years. You lied to me too. Why couldn’t you just tell me? There’s no shame in fumbling under your grief. We’re all fumbling through it.”

  “Pride. Ego,” he mumbled. “You liked Jesse the rocker from the start. Once I left the band, I became nothing.”

  “No.” I cupped my free hand on his cheek. “I love you because you’re Jesse Jerome. Don’t let your rock persona define you. I haven’t even really seen that part of your life. Music may have encouraged a mutual passion, but it doesn’t define us.”

  “I’ve waited for you to tell me you loved me for forever.” He rubbed his cheek against my palm and hauled me against him, his arms tight around me. “There’s a bigger wall between us, like we’re not on the same page.”

  Head on his chest, I closed my eyes and uttered a whimpering sob.

  “I’m done putting up fake or real walls between us. Don’t push me away.” His voice grew rough trying to contain his emotions. “I’m sorry I’m such a dumbass. You’re the best part of my screwed-up life. I don’t want to break up. Not for Jade, not for your mother, not for anything shoving us apart. No matter what your mother says or does to us. We’ll be eighteen soon. I still have my house if she kicks me out. I can get another job and get emancipated.”

  What if I told you my mother had killed your mother? I bit down on my bottom lip, forcing the truth back down my throat. Hypocrite, much? I bit harder until a coppery tang coated my mouth. I refused to allow my festering secrets and suspicions ruin our tenuous new family. If I hit the reset button on my life, it had to be a total reset, not a trip and burn. I decided then that I would tell him about my suspicions regarding my mother.

  “Oh, shit.” He released me, his arms tense. “I left the music store unattended. I gotta get back to work before someone jacks it.”

  “But I need to tell you something.” I pushed down my panic. “My own confession, about this wall you sense.”

  “I’m sorry, babe. Can it wait until I get home?”

  “Sure,” I whispered. “Except for this. Yesterday meant everything to me too.”

  He kissed me, his soft lips lingering for only a few seconds before his smile chased away my temporary darkness, and then he returned to the store. He stopped in the doorway to watch me walk away.

  Thoughtful, I drove to the rose garden and hid among the beauty, hoping to expand that bloom of joy in my own life. Thinking and agonizing, I huddled in a grove of trees, knees tucked under my chin. I cried for what could be my life’s destruction when I unloaded on my mother. Had I become a hormone factory dispensing tears and idiocy? I guess if the world didn’t suck, we’d all fall off.

  I wiped my face on my T-shirt, ticked that my summer of malcontent had altered me into a blithering teenage girl, grief- and guilt-stricken, heartbroken,
and most of all confused at these emotions I’d never experienced. Welcome to Club Ivy. Join me in the pool of abysmal agony.

  “Well, dragon of mine.” I touched my necklace and gazed pensively at my new ring. “Shall we go home and confront this new beginning?” One way or another, I’d embrace my fate that night.

  The time had arrived to lay my stack of cards on the waffling table of Mom and Jesse’s lies and secrets. And my own lies and secrets. We were all a bunch of frauds living Leo Lynwood’s legacy, me most of all. I knew then that I would not sneak around in a secret relationship like my father. I will never be like him. Fear and happiness cannot coexist in my life.

  But would I lose my mother and boyfriend in one fell swoop? At least I’d have Jade. Not. The consequences scared me, and the secrets and lies killed me. Someone would have to peel me off the walls soon, and I doubt they’d ever piece me back into the Ivy Lynwood I knew either Before Death or After Dad.

  No Mercedes and no Ax beater sat in the garage or driveway. I parked in my garage spot, heaving out a mix of emotions, including relief. I wanted time to clean my face and pull my head out of the sand before confronting my mother. Jesse was second on the list. Then Jade. Let the pissing and shit-flinging contests begin.

  Yet when I entered my bedroom, the sound of sobbing from my bathroom unseated my priority order. Had Jade’s inner bitch slapped her? Had a voodoo curse backfired? Maybe she couldn’t find more of my hair since I no longer brushed my hair in there. The crying and sniffling continued, and the heartrending sound reeled me in. I inched the door open. The Rock was curled in a ball on the floor, her back against the vanity, facing the tub.

  A rainfall of tears streaked her cheeks and she buried her face against her knees to hide from me.

  Grabbing the box of tissues off the vanity, I sagged down to my knees and touched her shoulder. “Are you missing your mom? Dad?” I swept her black straw hair off her forehead. Dread settled in a chilly mantle over my shoulders when she didn’t push me away, yell at me, or snap her voodoo pins.

  “No. I mean, yes, but—” Hiccups erupted out of her.

  I waited for her hiccups to quit. “Tell me what’s wrong. I promise I won’t judge.”

  “I messed up bad, Ivy.”

  Whoa, Nelly. She called me Ivy. “Is it Ax?”

  Nodding, she tipped her head back, her nose running. I wadded up tissues and wiped her nose until she took the wad and gave me a wan smile. A smile that didn’t tell me to watch my boundaries. Score. Another first.

  “He dumped me. Told me I’d ruin his life.” Sobs shook through her and she knocked her head against the vanity. “Bros before hoes he said. Fucking asshole.”

  “His loss. Screw him. You can do better. I always felt like I was listening to a road cone whenever he spoke. Ya know, the bus didn’t ever stop at his house.” Without hesitating, I hugged her. Screw the consequences, the fat lip, or the voodoo curses. But she clung to me and I wanted to absorb her pain. “So much better. Even living in the Pink Princess Palace. There’s Goth in San Jose too. Will can probably hook you up,” I hinted. “He’s dabbled in the black arts.”

  She uttered a stilted laugh. We sat on the floor, me rubbing her back, her clinging to me, her head in the crook of my shoulder.

  “I don’t hate it here,” she confessed.

  “Whoa. Do you need a power nap or something?” I gave her a playful squeeze.

  “Why did he do this to us?” A catch in her voice revealed acceptance of our real father more than anything else.

  “I wish I knew. I guess he couldn’t give either your mom or mine up. He loved them both in his way. He loved you, Jesse, me and Kristen in his own ways. I’m not sure we’ll ever understand him. Maybe we don’t need to. Maybe we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I did envy your relationship with him, though.”

  “Do you think we’d have ever met if he’d lived?”

  I’d wondered that a million times. “Eventually. Somehow. Somewhere. Sisters before misters now, huh?”

  “Do you hate me?” She stiffened, waiting for my answer.

  “At first, I resented you because of him. But I want to get to know you. The T-shirt was a peace offering.”

  “It made me mad that you had extra money to buy gifts and stuff. Ax made me rip it up to show you I didn’t want anything to do with you.” She sniffed into her tissues.

  I shook back another round of shock. “Seriously? No offense, but he’s an ass with his head stuck up himself. I didn’t just want to like Jesse, I wanted to like you too. True, Jesse and I have a deep connection, in ways that freaked us both out. I guess to the exclusion of you.”

  Jade collapsed into another long crying jag and I held her. This time was for her, not me, not Jesse, not Dad.

  “Shhh, Jade. It’ll all work out. Look where we are now. We’re actually touching without cursing each other out or drawing blood.”

  She strangled a laugh. “I need a sister.” Tilting to the side, she reached her right hand to her rear pocket.

  “Good. ’Cause you got two sisters. I need a little sister to boss around the way Kristen does to me. We can gang up on her too!” More tears, more sobs, until she brought her hand forward, clutching a small white plastic stick displaying a plus sign in the middle.

  “Whoa, what? You’re pregnant?” Without thinking about the pee consequences, I grabbed the stick and ogled the plus sign, like my eyeballs almost bounced on top of the stick ogled.

  “I’m screwed. Your mom’s gonna kick me out. Then where will I go? Jesse’s gonna be pissed at me. He’ll shun me. I won’t have anyone left.”

  I didn’t even have to think about my response. “You’re not going anywhere. Jesse won’t turn his back on you. I promise I won’t let you go through this alone. As long as you let me in, and stop sticking pins in me.” I held out my pinkie. “Pinkie swear.”

  I wouldn’t let me go through this alone. I knew that then. Jesse and Jade were my family. They’d woken me and my mother up in such unexpected ways, more than Dad’s death had.

  Ignoring my pinkie, she knocked her head back against the vanity. “Do you miss Dad at all? Did he have any redeeming qualities on this side of the hill?”

  I stretched out my legs and eased my back against the cabinet, sitting next to her. “Part of me misses parts of him. I remember how he loved my mother years ago, the affection he’d extend to her in front of the world. I used to fantasize that a boy would bring me flowers, jewelry, and gifts the way he showered them on her. Then behind closed doors he became someone else, and I learned why he gave her those gifts. They usually followed a fight or one of his tantrums, when he hit my mom. It became clear that having a boyfriend or husband wasn’t cake. I withdrew into myself and just stayed away from boys.”

  Jade stiffened beside me. “I’m sorry I said that about you not being able to get a boyfriend.”

  I snorted. “It’s true, only because I put a wall up around me. Boys used to ask me out and I shut them all down. We moved around so often, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t want a boyfriend, or friends for that matter, just to have to leave them the next time we moved.”

  Jade leaned her shoulder against mine. “Why did he keep us from each other?”

  “Wish I knew. Maybe it all spiraled out of control and he didn’t know how to fix it as time went by.”

  “Do you think he felt guilty about hiding me, Jesse, and my mom and became another person with us?”

  I nodded. “I do. I think he gave you liberties he took from us, like allowing you to have a cat to make up for his absence and lies.” My concession lightened my heart, and I felt those perpetual bands unravel around my chest. “Maybe we can trade stories about growing up and see where our lives mesh or diverge. I bet we can make sense of some of it.”

  The rest of the lies and secrets would die with Dad and Jillian Jerome.

  Chapter 31

  Jade and I moved into the cave-like discomfort of her bedroom
. I lay on her bed, on my side, my head propped up on my hand. She’d opened her window and fresh air cleansed the palette of cloying incense and eau de Cat Turd. Shadow jumped on the bed between us, head-butting our arms. I tweaked my nose to stifle the sneezing fit raring to go.

  “I’m allergic to your cat,” I announced. Mom had forgotten to tell me the doctor had left a message with my test results before we split for Tahoe. “Weird. The neighbor’s tabby doesn’t bug me.”

  Jade stiffened and hugged Shadow to her, wide-eyed panic joining the misery on her face. “Don’t make me get rid of her. I need her.”

  “I’m on antihistamines. I’ll have to be careful. I think she only affects me when I’m this close.” As if Shadow heard me, she vaulted onto the windowsill.

  “I’m taking her outside to acclimate to the yard, so she won’t be cooped up in here all day. She likes the backyard as much as you and Jesse do.” An implicit innuendo piggybacked on her comment. I didn’t take the bait.

  “You really believed I’d put a voodoo curse on you?” Jade snickered.

  Her darkened voodoo shrine drew my attention. “Well, duh.”

  “You believe in voodoo magic?”

  “I’m a fan of fantasy and paranormal fiction. I have a healthy respect for dark arts and magic myth and lore.”

  “Me too!” Jade’s eyes lit up. “My mom was big on occult too.” More tears slipped down her puffy cheeks. “She would’ve kicked me out if she’d discovered I’d gotten knocked up. She warned me after she found out Ax and I’d had sex and I wanted birth control pills.” She flopped onto her back. “What am I going to do?”