Chapter Nineteen

Scarlet

“I don’t get it,” I say, cutting apart a piece of chicken. Well, if you can consider this over-processed mess chicken. “If the issue is he wants to get up and walk, then why can’t someone walk with him?” I stab a small piece of chicken on the fork and feed it to my father. “He wouldn’t fall then because someone would be helping him, right?”

“Girl,” Corbin says, feeding two patients at once. “We are so understaffed I’m thrilled if we get through our shower list. You’re right, and it’s not fucking fair, but it’s all I can do just to get two aides to cover the south wing with me.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say, making sure he knows I don’t hold any blame on him. Corbin works his ass off, as do many of the others here. The problem is there aren’t enough of them. This place is a dump, and nobody wants to work here. Unfortunately, most of the residents here have similar financial situations to mine and can’t go anywhere else.

“You need to get out of here,” Corbin says quietly, as if he’s reading my mind. “I’m trying to, and I have an interview at the hospital next week.” He looks around the table and shakes his head. “I don’t want to leave these guys, though.”

“You deserve better,” I tell him.

“So do they.”

I give Dad another bite of chicken. “This fucking sucks.”

“I know it.” Corbin shakes his head. “It’s lose-lose no matter what we do.”

I let out a sigh. “Yeah, it is.” I pick up the water and put the straw to Dad’s lips. He swats my hand away.

“I can feed myself, Wendy.”

It’s not the first time he’s called me by my mother’s name. Once upon a time, before the meth and the heroin, my mother and I shared a resemblance. I remember looking through her high school yearbook once and thinking she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Ignoring my father, I move the water away and wait a few seconds before trying again. This time he takes a drink.

“So,” Corbin starts. “You pulled up here in a Jeep Wrangler, not a Caddy. Did the new job not work out?”

My stomach tightens. I’d moved past conning Wes, and dare I say I almost forgot about it? I didn’t, not by a long shot, but a girl can dream, right?

“I’m still working as a nanny, but in the traditional sense this time.”

Corbin gives me a quizzical look. We never hang out, but he’s the closest thing I have to a friend. He’s one of the least judgmental people I know, and there’s just something humbling about the guy who wipes my dad’s ass and gives him a shower. There are two people in this world who know the nitty-gritty details of my life. One is my sister, and the other is Corbin.

“But you don’t like kids.”

I shrug. “This kid isn’t so bad.” I smile. “He’s great, actually. And his dad—my boss—is a great guy too. His whole family is great, and now I’ve said great like a million times.”

“They must really be great.”

I roll my eyes at Corbin. “They are, though, and it’s been nice hanging out with them,” I say, lowering my voice. I’m not sure what state of mind Dad is in, but there’s always a chance he’ll hear me, and I don’t want to make him feel bad.

Not that his behavior is excused. He and Mom had a tumultuous relationship that imploded when Mom cheated on him. Dad always drank too much but spiraled after that. He left us, and Mom went into a depression. She wasn’t without her vices before, of course, and things got worse from there on out. We never realized how much Dad tried to keep Mom clean until he left.

He wanted to leave her, but he also left us. When he showed back up in our lives, I refused to talk to him for half a year. I caved only because I wanted to go back and graduate high school.

“And his wife?” Corbin asks, raising his eyebrows.

“He doesn’t have one.”

“Ohhhh.”

“It’s not like that.” I shake my head and trade the fork for a spoon and test the soup before giving some to Dad. It’s not terrible, but it is lacking a bit in flavor. I add some salt, stirring it up. “They’re just good people. Maybe they’ll rub off on me. They all get together on Sundays for dinner, and by all, I mean my boss and his four siblings. At their parents’ house. Like a TV family.”

Corbin shakes his head. “Perfect families like that freak me out. Lord knows what’s hiding in their closets.”

I smile and laugh, but I know the Dawsons aren’t like that. They’re perfect in my eyes. But they’re not without their faults.

Maybe we’re not so different after all.

*

“I thought they misspoke when they called my name.” Heather’s arms are crossed tightly over her chest, and she’s sporting a new bruise on her temple. I’m not even going to ask.

“Funny, Heather.”

“It’s been, what, two weeks since I’ve seen you?” She cocks her eyebrows and stares me down as if she just caught me with my hand in the cookie jar.

“That’s not my fault.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means the reason I haven’t seen you is because you’re in jail.” My words come out harsher than I meant. Trumpets will sound the day she grows the fuck up and takes responsibility for her actions. “I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy to see Dad?”

“I saw him today.”

“And that was the first time since you came out this way last?”

The woman who obviously eavesdropped on our conversation the last time I was here comes into the room. Her eyes fall on me for a few seconds before she moves in and takes a seat at a nearby table.

“No, I saw him last week.”

“And you didn’t come see me?” The pitch of Heather’s voice goes up. Dammit. She takes things too personally, and I know she has to be miserable in here. Knowing I was in the area but didn’t stop by stings, but it’s not like that.

“It’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive from here to Eastwood, and I was tired. Plus, I needed to get back for…for dinner.”

“You couldn’t come see me so you could fucking eat dinner? It better have been a damn good meal.”

“The food was good,” I admit. Though the company is even better. “What happened to your face?” I change the subject, knowing asking about her injuries will piss her off too, but at least she’ll be pissed off for a different reason.

“This is what happens when you try and stay out of trouble.” She motions to her face. “But it’s been handled.”

“Handled?”

Heather lets out an exasperated sigh. “It’s hard to explain unless you’ve been in here, okay?”

I nod. “Okay. I just want you to come home.”

“Do we even have a home anymore? Aren’t you living with some rich family in East-something-or-other.”

“Eastwood, and I told you, he’s a single dad and not rich.”

“So that’s your home. Where am I going to go?”

I shake my head. “I’ll figure it out.”

“What if I get out tomorrow?”

She won’t, so that’s not even a concern. “I’ll come get you.”

“And then what?”

“I’ll take you back with me.”

She lets out a snort of laughter. She’s angry at something else and is taking it out on me. “And I could stay in the house you’re living at?”

“No, I don’t think Wes would be okay with that,” I say honestly. “But we’d get you a hotel room until we could set up something more permanent.”

“We?”

“Yes, I know Wes would help me. He’s a good guy.”

Instead of coming back with a sassy comment, Heather smiles. “You really like this guy, don’t you?”

“I do like him, but not in the way you’re insinuating. He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

Heat rushes through me. “Okay, yeah…he’s attractive, and if I wasn’t his son’s nanny, I’d make a move. Another move, since Jackson kind of cock-blocked us the first time.” I shake my head. “But he’s a good guy, Heather. One of the rare, really good ones. And I’m, well, not. I took the job as a nanny with the intentions of conning money out of him. I’m a horrible person.”

Heather laughs and reaches across the table, taking my hands. “Scar, don’t even say that. You’re not a horrible person. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. And this orange jumpsuit proves it on my end.” She gives my hands a squeeze. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? That’s not my older sister talking.”

“He’s my boss. What if we hook up and then it’s weird? I live with him and his son.”

“But what if it’s not weird?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. He doesn’t strike me as the kind who would be okay with a fuck-buddy type of relationship. If we hooked up, things between us would go to the next level.”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

God yes. I’d love to be Weston’s girlfriend. To go out together and actually cuddle on the couch as we’re watching horror movies, staying up way too late and then crawling up to bed together. We’d be so tired but unable to keep our hands off each other, and we’d have sleepy, lazy sex that only couples who have reached a deep level of comfort have.

“I wouldn’t mind,” I tell my sister. “But then I’d have to disclose personal info, and I don’t know how he’d feel about me if he knew, well, everything.”

“That you’ve been conning people for years, Dad was a drunk, Mom died with a needle in her arm, and your baby sister is in jail?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Just brag about Jason a bit first.”

I give her a lopsided smile. “I already have. It doesn’t matter. He won’t understand where we came from, and more importantly, I’m not going to sleep with my boss.”

“You’re in love with him.”

“No. I don’t believe in love.” The words escape my lips and feel like a lie. I didn’t believe in love, but now I’m not so sure. Being in love meant having a heart, and I convinced myself mine stopped working long ago.

But now when I close my eyes and the world becomes still, I feel it fluttering back to life.