Page 5 of Every Moment with You

“Yes, I am.” I sigh and nod to the kitchen. “Let’s go. I’m hungry now. You can tell me all about this birthday dinner for Dad while you cook.”

“Mom expects you to bring a date,” Jason says, walking into the kitchen and heading straight for the fridge. I follow him and take a seat at the island. “She thinks it’s time you settle down and stop living like a heathen.”

“I’ll live like a heathen if I want to. There’s no need for me to settle down when I’m happy being alone.”

“Tell that to Mom.”

I snort and lean on the island, my eyelids heavy as the sun began to rise outside. My bed is still calling my name, even if it looks like I’m not getting there anytime soon. All I want is to crawl beneath the sheets and sleep until it’s time to wake up and go to work again.

“There’s no talking to her about anything. She still thinks Chloe and I are going to get back together and live happily ever after.”

“Will you?” Jason asks as he cracks eggs into a bowl.

“Only when hell freezes over.”

I don’t care what my mom wants. There’s no way that she’s getting grandchildren out of me. Not anytime soon at least. After a disastrous engagement, I’m not prepared to be serious with anyone again. Not yet.

Chapter Three

Tracey

Three days pass without more than a grunt or a groan from Deja. She’s determined to hold on to her resentment for as long as it will burn. If I weren’t her mother, I might admire her dedication. There was a time when she was younger that she hadn’t spoken to me for nearly a week. I won’t be surprised if her vow of silence lasts even longer now that she’s older. She has a stubborn side that doesn’t bend, even in the face of a hurricane. Pride always swells in my chest when I think of what an independent and ballsy young woman I’m raising.

Deja is my pride and joy, even when we are fighting. Even if she is mad at me, she has always been responsible. She still does her chores and makes sure she lets me know what is going on in her life, even when it would be easier to shut me out.

Jake has no idea what he’s missing by not being in his beautiful daughter’s life.

Still, even as she was giving me the silent treatment when she was younger, she would at least leave a note when she went out. Not tonight.

Tonight, when I check her room after listening to silence for too long, she isn’t there. I walk into her room and pull back her bedsheets, surprised not to find her there. It would be like her to pretend she isn’t in her room and hide somewhere else to get a rise out of me.

As I run my hand down her sheets, I can feel that they are still cold. She hasn’t been in her bed in a while. My heart starts racing as I open her closet and look inside. She isn’t hiding in there either.

“Not funny, Deja,” I say as I bang on her bathroom door. When a few minutes pass without her answering, I can feel my heart hammering in my chest. “Deja?”

I run downstairs and grab a butter knife before racing back upstairs and jamming the knife into her door lock. The lock pops with a click, but the bathroom is empty. A cool breeze flowing through the open window sends the curtains fluttering.

Deja had snuck out of the house one time before when she’d overheard her dad and I fighting, and I had been a mess. Jake talked me out of calling the police as he left to go search for her. When he brought her home, she promised she wouldn’t sneak out again. Until now, she’d kept her word.

Tears blur my vision as I leave the house and get in the car, preparing to spend the night searching for her. I dial her number, but the call goes straight to voicemail. The car rumbles to life, and I back out of the driveway, trying to remember the places she and her friends like to go.

When I was younger, my friends and I had spent most of our time down at a covered bridge at the edge of town. It was where we went for late-night fires and underaged drinking. If I closed my eyes, I can still hear eighties hip hop echoing against the wood and feel the ground shaking beneath my feet.

If I were a teenager today, a bridge far away from parents is exactly where I’d spend my time.

Even though she doesn’t like to admit it, Deja is a lot like me. Thinking that she would be hiding at the bridge with her friends isn’t a far stretch of the imagination, especially when she knows it’s where I used to go.

Rain splashes against the windshield as I drive through town. The droplets fall faster the farther away from downtown I get. Soon, the rain is pouring as I turn the car down an old dirt road and turn on my high beams.

The dirt road is more mud than dirt, but there are other cars lining the side of the road. Relief floods through me as I see a car I recognize, knowing it belongs to one of her friends.

The headlights illuminate the interior of the bridge as I pull up to the entrance and park the car. The old structure was condemned a long time ago, but people still gather inside. As I look around, I can see that over the years old couches and chairs have been dragged to the bridge, creating the perfect spot for teenagers to hide from their parents.

Deja is sitting with a couple of other people, brown bottles being passedamong them. Clouds of smoke swirl upward with the wind, the end of a blunt glowing against the night.

I don’t know what I expected to find, but my daughter drinking beer and smoking weed is not as bad as what I had pictured. She’s still in trouble, but I suppose there are worse things that she could’ve been doing.

I take a deep breath, releasing my death grip on the steering wheel before stepping out of the car and into the rain. Deja’s eyes widen, a bottle halfway to her mouth as I storm through the mud to stop in front of her.

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