Page 26 of Revelry
Slowly, I inched up the headboard until I was propped up, one eye still closed as I squinted through the other at Momma Von. She nodded to my cup and I took a sip, humming slightly. “Thank you.”
“There’s ibuprofen and a bottle of water on the table. Those are next.”
I squinted through the other eye and reached over, popping the two white capsules in my mouth and chasing them with another sip of coffee.
“Or now,” Momma Von said with a chuckle. She sat near the foot of the bed, grabbing her own cup of coffee from where she’d sat it on the dresser and crossing her legs as she watched me. “We need to talk about Anderson.”
I groaned, using one hand to push myself up a little straighter. “But do we really?”
She nodded, brushing her bangs away from her eyes. “We do. Do you remember what happened last night?”
My fingers not wrapped around the coffee mug worked against my temple, kneading with a gentle pressure as I tried to sift through the cloudy memories of the night before. “Kind of. I remember everything up until Tucker handed me the joint. After that, it’s a little foggy.”
“Tucker got you high?” I nodded, and she just sighed. “Well, that explains a lot.”
“I remember everyone laughing and telling stories about Anderson, and I think I asked him to tell me one, and then he got all Broody McGrumperson and stormed off.”
“And you called him an asshole.”
“Well!” I answered, waving my free hand before letting it fall with a slap to my bare thigh. “He is! The first time I saw him, I waved, and he didn’t say anything back. Then he comes barreling into my house that night I cut my foot and he carries me all close to his chest and makes a joke about my shoes, but leaves just as fast as he came in, and doesn’t talk to me for a week. Then he checks on my foot, and he offers to help me fix this place up, right? So I say ‘no, it’s okay,’ thinking he’ll surely insist. But he doesn’t. He just leaves. And then he stares at me all night at the bonfire like he wants to eat my face and now here we are.”
I was out of breath and I reached for the water, chugging half of it before setting it back down and cupping my hands around my mug. Momma Von stared at me, blinked, and then barked out a laugh.
“Oh, peaches, you are a mess.”
I sank into the sheets with a whimper. “I know.”
My eyes were on the caramel coffee in my mug, and I kept them there, sipping occasionally, waiting for Momma Von to say what she needed to say. She was watching her own hands, and she seemed to be searching for the right words. When she’d found them, she sat up a bit straighter and lifted her eyes to me.
“Anderson used to be very, very different when he was younger,” she started. “And as fun as those stories were that everyone was sharing last night, his kind of crazy wasn’t always the good kind. He got into trouble. A lot.” Momma Von tapped her thumb against the handle of her mug as she continued, eyes bouncing between it and me. “Went to jail a couple of times, got into hard drugs for a while, had a complete disregard for anyone else but himself. Well, and one other person, which we’ll get to.”
Already I’d perked up, pushing myself up to lean against the headboard again. I didn’t ask questions though, just drank my coffee and waited for her to tell me the way she needed to.
“He worked, various jobs around here and down in Gold Bar, but he’d blow his paycheck on pills or car parts or whatever else he was into at the time. He was always a good guy, a good friend to those whom he felt deserved it, but he lived fast and didn’t care if he died young. That was just who he was.”
She smiled, a half smile, one that didn’t fully reach her eyes.
“But there was one person who always kept him grounded. It wasn’t his Aunt Rose, though the poor woman tried,” she added with a chuckle. “No, it was his cousin, Danielle.”
It was suddenly hot, and I kicked the covers off my legs and pulled my knees up to rest under my chin, setting my mug on top of them.
“She was younger than him, and he was protective of her, but half the time she treated him like she was the older one. She was a good girl—straight A’s in school, college girl with dreams set on getting her doctoral degree abroad. And when Anderson stepped out of line, when he took things too far, she was always the first one to smack him back down to reality.” Momma Von paused, smiling with a shake of her head, thumb still tapping. “She was a light in this town, and in his life, especially. And then, almost seven years ago to the day, she left this Earth,” she said, her eyes filling. The tears didn’t run, just pooled in her eyes as I covered my mouth with one hand. “She was just twenty years old, here one day and gone the next. And the Anderson she left behind is the one you know now.”
Maybe it was the hangover, or maybe my emotions were unstable from my own mourning, but my eyes welled right along with hers. I had a baby brother, and the thought of losing him so young made me feel like my throat was closing in.
“Last night, when you said Rev, he didn’t know it was your cat,” she continued. “I didn’t either, the first time I heard you call it that. You see, that was Dani’s nickname for Anderson, and it caught on pretty quickly. Everyone used to call him Rev, but ever since she died, no one mutters it at all. I think hearing it from you shocked him, freaked him out.” She paused. “Last night was the first time he’d been out in years. It was already so much for him, and I think that just pushed him over the edge he’d been balancing on since he walked into that back yard.”
She sniffed, wiping at her cheeks that were still dry, and I drank the last bit of my coffee, letting it all sink in. I understood now, yet still I never could.
Seven years.
It seemed so long to grieve, which led me to ask the only question I had as carefully as I could.
“What happened to her?”
Momma Von shook her head, reaching forward to pat my knee. “That’s not my story to tell, peaches. I only told you what I felt you needed to know. Anderson is a good man, he just has scars like all beautiful and tragic things in life.”
I chewed my lip, heart aching for the man I didn’t know, the man I was curious about, the man I didn’t need in my thoughts at all. “Well, thank you. But it’s probably for the best.” I swallowed. “I came out here for me, and that’s been hard enough as it is without getting wrapped up in a guy with nice arms.”
