Page 70 of Rowdy Hearts

Bud bounced off the bench, promising again not to tellanyone and how great it had been to meet me. Then he headed back down the hall, leaving me sitting there, feeling like an awful person.

This sucked. I wanted to go after Bud and tell him to go ahead and tell his parents, tell whoever he wanted. I didn’t have anything to hide. Who would even recognize me anymore? More importantly, who would care?

So, I used to be a child actress. A fairly successful one, yes, but never a household name. Not like Denee. And then it all went away. I hit puberty, and I hadn’t been cute anymore. I hadn’t been small and adorable and chubby. I’d been skinny and had acne and boobs. I didn’t fit the Hollywood teen stereotype.

My mom had tried… God, how she’d tried to make me the next big thing. Dyed my hair. Hired a dietician. A personal trainer. Weekly dermatologist appointments. Daily acting classes.

She’d tried to make me into someone I wasn’t. And I’d gone along with it. Because I loved my mom and sister, and I wanted to provide for them like I always had. Until it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t getting the roles my mom thought I should be. I just had to try a little harder, do this differently, do that differently. Until it’d all become just so much noise. Too much noise for a teenager with an attitude and a chip on her shoulder. A teenager who wanted to go to college.

“Tressy? You okay?”

My head popped up to see Rain walking down the hall with Caity, the Angels’ captain, their expression almost identical. Frowns and concern. Jesus, how bad did I look?

“Yeah,” I smiled. “I’m fine. Is Krista okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave her for so long?—”

“She’s fine. No worries.” Caity waved a hand next to her head like she was stopping traffic. “I think the team wants to hire her as their mascot. She’s certainly cuter than anyone else in the organization.”

“Tressy, did something happen?”

Rain continued to study me like I was bug under a microscope. It made me want to squirm. I wasn’t used to people questioning me. Being concerned about me. It was as uncomfortable as it was unusual.

“No, nothing happened. I just sat down for a second and I guess I lost track of time.”

Caity shrugged it off. “Everybody needs a few minutes to themselves sometimes. Anyway, I’m just gonna…”

She pointed to the bathroom door and disappeared. Leaving me with Rain. And the questions she wasn’t asking.

Rain just stood there for a few seconds, before she sat next to me on the bench.

“You know I don’t care if you sleep with Rowdy. I mean, he’s my brother, and I think he’s an idiot, but he is a good guy.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just nodded, my cheeks flaming red, and all the other shit that I’d been thinking about still rolling around my head.

“But he can really be blind to some shit. And he totally thinks he’s needs to fix everything for everyone. Sometimes, he forgets not everyone needs something from him. So, do you?”

I had no idea where she was going with this. “Do I what?”

“Do youneedsomething from him?”

Do I?

“No, I don’t.”

“Are you in trouble? I know you said you’re not but?—”

“No, I’m not. Honestly. It’s just… my mom and I are having issues. Our relationship is a little more complicated than most.” I didn’t even think about what came out of my mouth next. The conversation with Bud must have loosened my tongue. Or maybe I was just tired of holding it all in. And I didn’t want to tell Rowdy and have him look at me differently. “Many years ago, I was an actress. A pretty successful one, actually. I supported my mom and sister. We lived really well. For a while. And then I grew up.”

I waited for Rain to ask the question, the one I didn’t want to answer. I could see it forming there behind her sharp, dark eyes.

“You know you’re allowed to have a life of your own life, right? At some point, you have to live for yourself.”

I blinked, because that wassonot what I’d expected to hear.

“I mean, yes, I know that. But when you grow up with your entire family depending on you, you develop some weird phobias of your own.”

Rain shrugged, like we weren’t having a pretty heavy conversation outside the bathroom. “Hell, you can develop those anywhere. I feel like my family would fall apart if I weren’t here to keep them all in line. Parents included. And maybe they would. But that’s not on me. You know? And it’s kinda shitty for your mom to put you in that position.”

I knew that, but it still brought up the old defensiveness. My back went stiff, and it took me a few seconds to shove those feelings back down. Because she wasn’t wrong.

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