Don't Let Go (15 page)

Becca had made her curfew, which normally would have me feeling all kinds of happy toward her, but I wasn’t finding the happy. Not with her, not with her dad, not with Noah. Not even with myself when I thought about how unfair I’d been to Patrick.

He wasn’t an emotional attachment, no, I didn’t allow myself those. But I did like him. He was funny and witty and fun to be with. He was a good guy, and I’d been a real bitch. I wasn’t proud.

Becca, however, kept coming back to the forefront. Most of the night I’d spent working out the scenario. Working on my initial approach. It wasn’t going to go well, I knew that instinctively, and once she was pissed she would tune out everything else. Therefore, anything I needed her to soak up had to be up front.

Becca, I love you. There’s more to protection than birth control. Condoms protect your life.

Yeah, no.

Do you love this boy? Because having sex will affect all of you, not just your body.

Becca was a savvy girl, and unfortunately had inherited my ability to spot bullshit from a mile off. While all of my points were valid, none of them completely covered my real agenda in the two actual sentences she might hear. Which was basically
Having sex before you’re ready and with someone you don’t actually love or even know all that well just to get it over with is a bad idea, and, oh, yeah, you can catch a life-threatening disease or end up pregnant with life-altering decisions at the age of seventeen.

Deep breath.

If only I could do that. Write it in a card, or better yet, text it to her. That would increase the likelihood of it being read.

I swung my legs down and rubbed my tired eyes, thinking orange juice sounded good and knowing we didn’t have any. I wondered if I should send her to the store before she got angry with me or just do without. She wouldn’t be up yet anyway, since it was only eight o’clock on a Saturday.

I trudged downstairs to make coffee and was surprised to see her curled up on one of the couches, pillows piled around her, reading a book.

“You’re up early,” I said.

She looked up with a yawn. “Had a scary dream so I thought I’d come down here and read.”

I felt the old heart tug. “And the pillow brigade?”

She grinned. “My protection against the evil forces.”

I laughed, heading around the kitchen bar to the coffeepot. “I remember the days when you’d come jump in bed with me after a nightmare.”

“Don’t think I didn’t consider that.”

It was an easy morning, no animosity, no drama, no attitude. Why did I want to go and ruin that with parenting? I rounded the kitchen island to get the coffee going, knowing full well she hadn’t been that helpful.

“So, what are you reading?”

Becca held up a copy of
The Great Gatsby
.

I raised an eyebrow. “On purpose?”

“For school,” she explained. “Supposed to be done by Monday.”

I chuckled. “And you started it—?”

“This morning,” she said on a sigh that lent itself much better to the attitude I knew would be coming.

“Ah. Good luck with that.”

I got the coffee gurgling and just stood there, not quite knowing where to begin. Yes, I did. Of course I knew where to begin, I just didn’t want to begin. I was operating on no sleep and too much drama and wasn’t in the mood to dive off into a battle of wills. Not that there was anything saying I couldn’t wait to battle it out later. I didn’t have to kick off the morning with it.

I perched on the armrest of a sofa, not wanting to invest in complete comfort till I had my steaming mug in my hand.

“So, how was your night?” I asked. “Didn’t get to talk to you last night.”

She raised her eyebrows, mocking me. “Yes, I beat
you
home, missy.”

I chuckled and rubbed my eyes, remembering the drama of bringing Hayden home and how he kept hugging and apologizing at the door.

“Yeah. Regular party animal.”

“Did you and Aunt Ruthie have fun?” she asked, deterring off of herself.

I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Sort of,” I said, finally. “At times.”

“What does that mean?” Becca said on a laugh, setting the book in her lap.

“Well, the night had its moments,” I said. “Good and bad.”

She gave me another haughty look. “Sounds like you
were
a party animal.”

I shook my head and laughed quietly. “No. Not those kinds of moments.” I wasn’t about to tell her that her dad got stupid drunk and tried to brawl it out with my high school boyfriend, or any other highlights for that matter. “What did you and your friends end up doing?”

Becca shrugged and picked her book back up. “Went to a movie, walked around the mall, just stuff.”

Just stuff. Love that.

“Get anything at the mall?” I asked, knowing how to find the details if I wanted to.

“Yeah, that little kiosk by the food court with the leather stuff and jewelry? They had bracelets two for one, so I couldn’t resist.” She grinned and held up her wrists to show off two beaded and braided leather strips. I got up to look closer and smiled.

“Cool,” I said. “Very you.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” she said, smiling to herself.

I kissed her forehead and messed up her hair before I headed back to the kitchen for my coffee, batting around my options. On the one hand, I didn’t want to ruin a good mood. On the other, being a parent sometimes just had to suck.

“Are we donating to the clothes drive this year?” she asked as I came back in.

I sighed, feeling that familiar Winter Carnival annoyance like a fly buzzing in my ear. Only this year, more so. I attributed that to Noah’s return, stirring up things I’d pushed down for years.

“Do you have clothes you want to get rid of?”

“Only so I can make room for new,” she said with a cute little grin.

“Well, as long as your priorities are in place.”

“I was asked to help with a float this year,” she said. “Lizzy’s mom and dad are doing one with their four-wheelers, like I think they are connecting them or something.”

Of course they were. The Cleavers. On four-wheelers.

“Oh, cool, that’ll be fun,” I said, pretending it would be.

“Why haven’t we ever done that?” she asked. “We could have done something with Dad’s truck.”

Because I’d rather be buried alive.
“I don’t know, Bec, I guess we never jumped on it in time.” How old would she be before that excuse stopped playing? “Go through your clothes and get me a bag if you want to donate.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

I sank onto the couch next to her with my coffee, sitting sideways to face her while pulling a pillow on my lap. Comfort moves. She put her book down again, looking at me questioningly.

“So, I heard that you have a new boyfriend,” I said, a small smile in place, hoping to nail that let’s-talk-girl-stuff ambiance.

The change in her eyes, however, told me I didn’t. Or that girl stuff wasn’t a place she wanted to go with me, at any rate. I saw the walls come up.

“Did you?” she said, her voice edgy.

“Yes, and don’t be mad at Ruthie,” I said, tugging on her oversized T-shirt.

“Of course not,” she said. “Why would I be mad when someone lies to me? Can’t imagine.”

“She’s looking out for you, Bec,” I said. “She felt that I needed to know what was—”

“If I wanted to talk to my
mother
about it, I would have,” she said, tossing her book on the coffee table. “I thought I was talking to a friend that I could trust.”

I licked my lips as the dig hit home.

“Aunt Ruthie
is
a friend, Becca, but she’s also an adult who knows that sometimes you have to make tough choices to take care of people you love.”

“Well, she won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Becca said, pushing the blanket off her lap and swinging her pajama-clad legs down. “I’ll keep my crap to myself.”

“Becca—”

“Seriously, Mom,” she said, facing me with the most mature expression I’d ever seen on her. “Of all the people I thought I could trust to keep their mouth shut, it was her. Now I have nobody.”

I flinched. “Excuse the hell out of me? You have plenty of somebodies, Becca. You have Ruthie, you have Nana Mae, your dad, your friends—
me
.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “You always, always and forever have me.”

“Only if I’m saying what you want to hear,” she said quietly.

“That’s not true,” I said, my mind frantically pulling at itself, wondering if it was. Something was eerily reminiscent.

“Whatever, Mom,” she said, getting up.

“Becca, please, sit down,” I said. At her look, I gestured to her seat.

Instead of sinking back down, she walked around the coffee table to the opposite sofa and sat, pulling her feet up to her chest and gazing absently at nothing.

It was going well.

“Like it or not, sweetheart, you aren’t an adult yet,” I said, adjusting my position to face her. “There are things I need to know.” At her silence, I took a swallow of coffee, relishing the burn on the way down. “Like who this boy is?”

“I’m sure you already know that,” she said flatly.

“How long have you been seeing him?” I asked.

She closed her eyes and gave a tiny head shake, as if she couldn’t believe the conversation. Seeing as I’d felt that way the night before, I didn’t care.

“A couple of weeks.”

“A couple of weeks,” I repeated. “And you’re asking about birth control?”

She rubbed her face and kept her hand partially covering her eyes. “We aren’t talking about this,” she said, as if to herself.

“Oh, but we are,” I said, her attitude spiking mine. “Do you know that safe sex isn’t just about avoiding pregnancy?”

“Fully aware, actually,” she said, still resting her face in her hand. “There are these balloon thingies. I think they’re called
condoms
.”

I swung my feet down and set my mug on the table with a thud, causing a tiny splash to spill over the edge.

“You have some nerve talking to me like that, little girl,” I said, her mouth setting off my ire the way it always did.

“I’m not a little girl, Mom—”

“Oh, when you get snarky with me like you think I’m your equal, Becca, that shows me just how little you still are,” I said. My tone brought her hand from her face, and I saw the tiniest worry over what she might lose in her eyes. “You want to be treated like an almost-adult, act like one.”

Both her hands went to her face on a deep sigh, then she dropped them. “Fine, what do you want to know?”

“Why keep this boy a big secret?” I asked.

“He’s not.”

“Really? Then why not bring him over here? Introduce him.”

She scoffed. “So you can put him through the Spanish Inquisition? No, thanks.”

“I don’t do that.”

“You totally do that,” she countered. “You do that with my friends that I’m
not
going to make out with, so God help the ones I do.”

“Becca,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and rational. “You are considering something far beyond making out. Something that should be special with someone you love.”

“Oh, my God, Mom,” she groaned. “Are you seriously trying to sound like an old woman?”

I gaped at her. “Are you seriously trying to be a brainless twit? You want to throw yourself away just to say you’ve done it?”

“Jesus,” she muttered, pressing her forehead against her knees. “I don’t want to do anything. I was just asking some questions in case it came up.”

Right.

“Well, if he’s someone you’ll consider falling into bed with if the subject
comes up
, why don’t you bring him around?” I asked, knowing full well that wouldn’t happen. Especially not now.

“So you can ask him a million questions?” she said, raising her head. “Hover over us in case we accidentally kiss? Have a meltdown if we go upstairs to watch TV?”

“Oh, you won’t go upstairs,” I said, sitting back and pulling my feet under me.

“Well, of course not,” Becca said, melodrama now in full gear. “Because that’s rule number 553 of the Julianna White book of etiquette. Never, under any circumstances, have a boy in your room. His sperm might jump out and infest you!”

I dropped my head into my hand. “Becca—”

“You must have been a dream child for your parents,” she said. “Did you keep a log of your gold stars, too?”

I looked up and stared at her, feeling my skin create a million goose bumps. “No,” I said quietly. “I was no dream child. And I’m not expecting you to be. But when I find out that you are talking to someone else about sex when I didn’t even know there was a guy in the picture, and then you tell me it’s only been two weeks—baby girl, I worry. Somewhere along the way, you got the idea that sex is all physical.”

“Oh, my God, Mom,” she said, rising to her feet. “No, I don’t. But that’s what you hear because all you hear is you. This is exactly why I didn’t come to you.” She gestured around her. “I didn’t want a lecture on love and birds and bees. I’m not stupid, Mom.”

“I never said you were stupid.”

“No, you said I was a brainless twit,” she said, snatching her book from the table.

Of all the things I’ve said in her life, that’s what she remembered.

“Bec—”

“I’m not a five-year-old, either,” she said. “If you’d actually listen to me, and hear me for once, you’d know that—yes, okay, maybe I’m asking questions and I’m interested but I’m also not an idiot. If I was an idiot, I wouldn’t be asking about birth control.”

I met her gaze and let a few beats pass. “I just don’t want to see you do something foolish and ruin your plans, baby.”

Becca let out a long breath and shook her head, walking up the stairs. “Whose plans, Mom? Mine or yours?”

Chapter 10

Saturdays were always my biggest days at the store, and at this time of year it jumped up to chaotic at times. Ruthie did a children’s story time right before lunch, so many moms could bring their kids for an outing of stories, lunch at the diner, and dessert at the ice cream shop just down the sidewalk. Also, since everyone else with normal jobs had Saturdays off, many of them saved their holiday shopping time for the weekends.