“The warehouse explosion in Ocala. That you?” King asked, unfazed by Rage’s predicament.
Rage stood up straight and smiled, and I had to lean to the left in order to avoid being whipped by her ponytail. Her asthma attack suddenly forgotten and her eyes turned dark, her pupils grew large, like she’d just snorted a line of something. “That was beautiful wasn’t it?” she said excitedly, jumping up and down, clapping her hands together. “My best work yet. A symphony if you will. It was magical.”
“You blew up a building, Rage. You’re not fucking Mozart,” King said sarcastically.
She looked off dreamily into the distance. “Mozart was a visionary. His brain saw things, the world, differently.” She raised and lowered her arms, holding an imaginary baton as if like she were a conductor, instructing her orchestra, “And so do I.”
It was King’s turn to roll his eyes.
Rage dropped her arms and tapped her foot. She held her bag tightly to her chest. “I don’t know you, but unfortunately if we stay here any longer, I am going to blow up this fucking motel, and you might be collateral damage if that happens, and I super love your hair so that would be a real shame, since I’ve been put in charge of keeping you safe and all.”
“Her?” I asked King, not caring if she could hear me. King’s knuckles were white and it looked as if it pained him not to set the girl in her place after she’d insulted him.
“Oh. My. Shit,” Rage exclaimed. “I think some of the mold in the corner just moved. Let’s motor before I decide that babysitting Jem over here is a really fucking bad idea.”
King opened the door and we filed out.
“This is going to be fun!” she announced sarcastically, as she got into the truck and tossed her bag to King who set it in the truck bed. She shifted to the middle as I got in beside her and we headed off to Jessep.
Bear was in jail for me, because of me. If he wanted me to go home and he wanted Barbarian Barbie to accompany me, then I would do it.
Rage popped her gum in my ear, and I bit my lip to the point of almost drawing blood. “It smells like sweat in here,” she complained, turning all the air conditioning vents toward herself.
Trust, I reminded myself.
After all, it wasn’t like it was going to be that long.
I mean, it couldn’t be that long because Bear was going to get out soon and everything would be okay.
I started saying it over and over again. By the time we breezed into Jessep it almost sounded believable.
Almost.
CHAPTER NINE
Thia
It was another lifetime ago when I was last in Jessep. At least that’s how it seemed, although in reality it hadn’t been very long at all.
Yet the stench of rotting oranges was more pungent than I remembered, so strong that Rage covered her mouth too just as we passed the WELCOME TO JESSEP sign. If possible, the dirt roads had gotten even harder to navigate, as evidenced by the truck bouncing from side to side as I tried—and failed—to dodge crater-like potholes and large rocks.
Home.
Is that still what this place was?
It didn’t feel that way.
We passed the small cross on the side of the road marking where Kevin Little rolled his John Deer, trapping himself under the shallow water of a retention ditch. I never knew Kevin, but I knew his family. The cross had been there for as long as I could remember. Wilted wild flowers were piled up on the ground around it. Limp balloons tangled with each other, the strings were probably the only thing holding the warped wood upright.
That cross used to be the first sign that I was coming home. It was the first thing to give me that warm and fuzzy feeling of familiarity whenever I turned off the main road and onto the first dirt road that lead into Jessep.
Coming into town this time was different.
It seemed familiar, but it no longer felt like home.
I don’t know when that happened. Was it when my parents died and I skipped town? Was it before that and I just hadn’t noticed?
In Jessep, the children of farmers either became farmers themselves or married farmers. I’d known from very early on that it would fall on me to take over Andrews Grove. It was all I knew. It wasn’t that I liked the idea. I never really even thought about it