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“Yeah, that’ll go over about as well as managing you,” he laughs.
But it isn’t funny—not to me, anyway. We both know who really runs this place, and it isn’t him.
This entire town isn’t big enough for Jacqueline Walker’s personality.
I need to find a new job. I need to find a new town…away from her. Because everyone knows exactly who she is, too. And the weight of that is heavy. Someday, Emma will feel it, too.
By the end of my shift, it’s late afternoon, and my mom is sitting at Grant’s table, laughing over coffee and a slice of cherry pie while I bus her tables. I don’t feel bad at all about pocketing the tips.
I hang my apron inside the kitchen, then head to the parking lot and straight to Ty’s old Ford truck.
“Hey, Mellie,” he says as I climb inside. “How was your day?”
“I am going to murder Heather.”
“Really? When?” he asks.
I shrug, propping my aching feet up on the dash. “Probably tomorrow.”
“Well, I’ll miss you while you’re in jail, baby, but I’ll wait for you.”
I turn toward him, intending to shoot him a glare, but he looks over at me with a crooked smile and brushes sandy brown hair away from his face, and we both end up laughing instead. And once I start, I can’t stop. Everything that wasn’t funny at all throughout the entire day is suddenly completely and utterly ridiculous.
“She’s such a bitch,” I say through my laughter, wiping tears away from under my eyes. “She was…fucking making fun of me for being poor and stuck here. She never would have spoken to me like that a few weeks ago.”
“Fuck her. And you know what? Heather is poor, too. We’re all fucking poor.”
“Not like me,” I tell him.
He pulls into my driveway and puts the car in park. I unbuckle my seatbelt and sigh, just sitting there, not ready yet to go inside.
“Just because you aren’t going to college now doesn’t mean you can’t ever go.”
“I just wanted it so bad. I feel like…I failed. I’m not used to losing,” I tell him. My lower lip starts to quiver. “It’s not a good feeling.”
I let out a heavy sigh, and tears run down my face. He slides over next to me, wrapping his arms around me, and I cry into his chest. My best friend. My forever. The only person who ever gets to see me like this—vulnerable, unfiltered.
To the rest of the world, I have to be a rock. Otherwise, they’d all know how close I am to falling apart.
“You aren’t losing, Mel. This isn’t a contest.”
“I don’t want to be stuck here,” I say. “I hate it here.”
“It’s not so bad. We have each other.”
“We should just leave,” I tell him. I place a hand on each side of his face, feeling the stubble against my hands as I run them over his cheeks and then push them through his hair.
“We can’t,” he says. “You know we can’t. My dad is getting worse. He needs my help at work, and my mom needs my help with the twins. And what about Emma?”
“I’m not Emma’s mother.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I shake my head. “I took care of myself when I was her age.”
He shrugs. “So did I. Doesn’t make it right.”
“She’ll be fine.”
