Page 37 of Avenged

Leena looked around the table, and it seemed to just dawn on her what it meant for Jersey and Violet. It had been the first place my mind had gone. If Jersey couldn’t afford an ER visit, I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to afford to stay at some hotel for a month.

“Oh.” Leena put her hand to her mouth. “What about the girls?”

Mandy looked over at them. “They can come with us.”

Jersey was already shaking her head. “No, I’ll stay and cover the bookstore. Plus, I have my doctor’s appointment this week. We’ll just stay at the Homestead Inn. We’ve done it before.”

“I remember you couldn’t afford it for the week you were there before you moved in here,” Leena scolded.

“They can stay with us,” I said calmly. It was a calm I felt far from. It was a calm that was all exterior facade because, even though I’d lived with Jersey here at the house, it seemed like everything had changed since I’d signed my name next to hers on a marriage license.

Jersey was frowning and looking at Violet and then Dawson, and I saw what she saw: the disadvantage to having the two under the same roof again. “No.” Jersey was shaking her head. “You don’t have room for us in that tiny cottage.”

“You two can share my room. I’ll bunk with Dawson,” I told her.

“You taking over half my bed without asking?” Dawson joshed, then he drawled out, “Fiiiinnne. You can sleep with me. I know you’re a big scaredy cat, anyway. I’ll keep you safe this way.”

“What’s Truck scared of?” Violet asked, but she was smiling. She loved the idea, which was another reason this was a disaster waiting to happen. Bigger than the foundation falling out below us.

“Everything,” Daw responded, snickering.

“I am not,” I said, snapping the dish towel at him.

“You wait, he is. Just ask him if he wants to watch any of the horror movies we have on DVD.” Dawson smirked.

“Horror movies were created in someone’s perverted mind. If you’re crazy enough to think that shit up, who knows what you’ll do in real life.” I shrugged, allowing myself to be the butt of the joke in hopes the room would lighten of the tension filling it once more. I watched Jersey as she rolled her thumb ring around and around.

She wasn’t putting up a fuss. It was as if she’d given in, and that was way too easy. It wasn’t the independent, stand-on-her-own-two-feet-until-she-couldn’t-stand-anymore Jersey I’d come to know. Something else was going on in that brain of hers.

Randy seemed to feel like his job was done. He shook hands with Mandy and Leena and said he’d call when he had a better timeline for them and then left. Mandy left to go call Eli, Leena left to go get plane tickets, Violet went to pack, and Dawson left to go to work.

It left Jersey and me alone together once more.

“What gives?” I asked.

She jumped as if she’d forgotten I was in the room. “What?”

“What’s going on in that pretty brain of yours?” I tapped her temple, and she pulled away as if I’d zapped her. I’d felt it, too. Anytime we touched, it was there. A feeling like standing on a boat just as the engines started up. The vibration starting at the base of your feet and journeying all the way up and out the top of your skull.

“Nothing.”

“Hardly.”

She moved across the room to the doorway. She looked around as if to see if anyone was there and then came back toward me. She spoke quietly, even quieter than her normal whisper. I had to lean toward her to catch the words. “I don’t want Leena and Mandy to know. We’re just going to stay at the Homestead, but if I tell them that, they won’t go to Texas. Or they’ll insist on paying for part of the bill. Or just… I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead again. She was frustrated and tired. I wondered how much it cost her. The burdens she chose to bear alone, taking care of her teenage sister. The burdens she chose to keep locked inside her chest, only some of which I knew, and only because of what Violet had told me.

“Jersey, just stay with us. It isn’t a big deal,” I said.

“I think you and I both know it is a big deal.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“You’re talking about Violet’s crush on Dawson.”

She nodded.

“He’d never act on it, Jers. She’s sixteen. Dawson may have made some mistakes in his life, but he’s not a cradle robber.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? She’ll just sink further and further into her infatuation with him. It isn’t healthy.”

“I’ll talk to him. He’s hardly home right now. He’s at work at the marina or off hanging out at the bar most of the time.”

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