the buttons. This is reality, Mia. This is your real life. Not Arrow saying sweet things to you under the stars or waking you up with kisses. This. Your dad and alcoholic benders that make him wax poetic about suicide.
I hurry with the last few buttons as I rush to open the door. “What does he want?”
“He’s flipping out about talking to you,” Nic says.
Since all he’s cared about for the last eighteen months was Nic getting out of prison, this surprises me. “Why?”
He shrugs. “Just come home so we can talk him down.”
I nod and cast an apologetic glance to the closet where Arrow’s hiding. I hate leaving him like this, but I don’t have a choice. Maybe he needs the reality check, too.
When we get to Nic’s car, I hesitate with my hand on the door handle.
“Get in!” my brother calls.
I fold my arms across my chest. “Let me see your eyes.”
“I’m clean. For Christ’s sake. You know I’m clean. Hell, you’re probably the only one who does know.”
I can see in his eyes he’s telling the truth, and I trust him to be honest. He knows how I feel about riding with him when he’s stoned—or anyone, for that matter. Not happening.
When we get to Dad’s trailer, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, crying—blubbering, really—a handgun hanging from his fingertips.
Nic and I exchange a look, and he nods. I’m hoping in our silent communication he’s thinking that he’ll get the gun while I distract Dad.
“Daddy?” I step closer slowly. The last thing I want to do is startle him.
Dad’s head snaps up and his jaw hangs open for a minute as he takes me in. “My daughter,” he says. “My daughter. Tell me it’s not true.”
“What’s not true?” Another step closer. A shallow breath. A silent prayer.
“Frank told me he saw you with the Woodison kid at the Dairy Maid last night. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me they’re not going to take you away from me, too.”
“No one’s taking me away, Daddy. I’m right here.” Another step, and then I jump as the gun hits the ground with a thump.
“They can’t have you, too. Not my daughter. It’s bad enough that they took Isabella.”
Nic grabs the gun off the floor. I try to catch his eye and fail.
“Who took Mom?” I ask. “What are you talking about, Dad?”
“Tell me it’s not true,” Dad says. “Tell me you aren’t letting a Woodison ruin you.”
Ruin me. Dear God, do I hate that expression. “No one is ruining me.” I wrap my arms around his shoulders and hold him while he cries.
Nic and I work together to calm him down and get him into bed, and when the trailer is quiet, I follow my brother outside.
“What was that about?” I ask.
“He fucking hates Woodison. The dude fired him. You know that.” But Nic still won’t look me in the eye.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
When he meets my eyes, it’s with a resigned sigh. “There are things little girls shouldn’t have to know about their moms, Mee.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not a little girl anymore. Tell me.”
Nic pulls a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, taps one out, and lights it, and I watch his every move. After his first, long drag, he says, “Mom had an affair with Woodison before she left town. She’d been fucking him for months, and Dad found out and threatened to kill him.”
For a hysterical, panicked moment, I think he means Arrow, and then my brain kicks in. “Uriah Woodison?”
“Yeah.” He grunts and shakes his head. “Mom knew she couldn’t live with Dad after that—that he’d make her pay for it every day—so she left.”
An iron fist closes around my throat. “Mom and Uriah Woodison? Are you sure?”
Nic nods. “He has a right to hate the fucker.”
A car roars into the trailer park. Gravel sprays out as the red Jetta screeches to a stop in front of me and Nic.
When Brogan climbs out, I’m still hung up on what I just learned, and for a minute I forget what he did last night. In the same moment, I forget what I did last night.
“Mia!” His eyes are swollen, bloodshot, and his face is pale. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where have you been?”
I blink at him, but I can’t register anything when my brain keeps playing my dad’s sobs on a loop. “Tell me they’re not going to take you away from me, too.”
My mother was having