Between Hope & the Highway (47 page)

“You gave up everything for him, Lizzie. And he just kept on taking. I doubt he ever would’ve been satisfied until there was nothing left of the girl I love.”

I dug my hands into my scalp. “He wasn’t like that.”

“What about the horses? He said he was allergic and you gave them up.”

“I loved him, Daddy. What would you have done if Mom was allergic to sawdust? Wouldn’t you have picked another profession?”

“So why haven’t you gone to Viktorya’s since you got home? Is it because of him? Are you still trying to please a dead man?”

“No. It has nothing to do with Justin.”

“That’s your passion. Your life. Yet whenever Viktorya calls, you give me some lame excuse to tell her that neither she nor I buys. Are you avoiding the horses because of the other guy—Mr. Montana Cowboy?”

I glared at him. Daddy had never outright attacked me before like this. I felt like I was facing Mommy Dearest. “I’m not hanging out with the horses because it’s one hundred and ten freaking degrees outside. Are you satisfied?” I walked out and slammed the door behind me.

He marched out after me and cornered me at my desk. “Don’t walk out on me, young lady. I’m your boss as well as your father, and I’m not done talking.”

“Well, I’m through listening.” I grabbed my satchel from the bottom drawer and stood. “You can throw away the boss card because I quit.”

“You can’t quit.”

As my gaze flicked to the side, I caught a slack-jawed Mason watching our standoff from the couch. Just jolly great.

“I’m not only quitting, but leaving the country too. I’m going to El Salvador and hope I never see you again.” I pushed past him and headed out the door. “So eat that in your Wheaties.”

As I reached my silver Fiat, I heard Dad call after me. “Wait, Lizzie. Don’t—”

I slammed my door and started my car. As he ran out of the office, I backed out without looking at him. Tears were already forming, making it hard to see, but I couldn’t stay. The little heart I had left was breaking into painful pieces. I had to get out of there before the dam burst.

Chapter 82

Bentley

“Leaving church early to drive to the prison seems wrong on so many levels.” I folded my arms and sulked against the passenger side window.

“At least you got to go for some of it,” Rawson said without taking his eyes off the road.

“Yeah. Thanks,” I muttered.

Since my brother had returned from Portugal, I had a ride to church again. Still, I wished he’d let me stay for Sunday School so I could see Alice instead of driving hours out of the way to visit hell. That’s what the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge felt like. We went there for the first time last week so Rawson could visit his friend, and I’d left with a bad taste in my throat. I hated prison, but I despised Damon even more. With his ugly goatee and tattooed muscles, he looked scarier than ever.

“I saw you talking to that Alice girl at church,” Rawson said. “Are you sweet on her?”

“What if I am?”

“She talks too much for my taste.”

“Well, good, because I don’t want to share.”

He snort-laughed, which made me crack a smile.

“How long do you think it’ll be before the doctor knows anything?” I asked. Our sister had been diagnosed with kidney failure right after Rawson returned. She’d gone onto dialysis last week until she could get a kidney transplant.

“There’s still a bunch more tests to run to see if any of us can be a live-donor. Doc said it could take up to three months before we know anything.”

I folded my arms over the pit in my stomach. “That sucks.”

“Sure does.”

When we reached Deer Lodge, Rawson hopped out of the truck. “Let’s go, bro.”

I shook my head. “I’ll stay here.”

His brows drew together. “We’re the only visitors Damon gets. Come on. I’ll buy you a soda from the vending machine.”

“I’m not going in again. That place gives me the creeps.”

“I can’t leave you out here alone.”

“I’ll be way more comfortable out here than locked in with that jerk who caused the accident.”

His lips tightened.

“When you gonna give up on him, Rawson? He doesn’t want to change.” It irritated me how he wasted hours driving out here just so his friend could bad-mouth him and blame him for being there. “You’re not making a difference.”

“Makes one to me.”

As he walked away, I felt guilty. Rawson had been nothing but kind since his return. He’d taken me to church, and had even driven me back during the week for Scouts and agreed to help out as a volunteer. The other boys in my troop thought he was the bomb…and he was. But I couldn’t go in and face Damon again. Not even for my brother.

I sketched in my notebook while I waited, but must have dozed. The door opened and something poked my leg.

“Wake up, kid.”

I blinked and shook myself awake.

Rawson looked down at me. “You okay?”

“Yep.” I stretched.

He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry I took so long.”

I didn’t reply.

As we put Deer Lodge behind us, I could tell Rawson was upset. No surprise there. Damon upset everyone. My thoughts turned to the accident as I watched trees whiz past.

After our car ran off the road and rolled six years ago, dirt and debris stirred around us. I could still recall the eerie silence that fell over our mangled vehicle after everything settled. I tried to move, but an excruciating burning sensation seized my whole body, making me puke and pass out. When I awoke, Damon grunted from the passenger side as he patted my brother’s shoulder.

“Roz?”

My brother didn’t answer.

I remember feeling frantic because I couldn’t see Detrick. The whole left side of my body was crushed into the door, and thinking of the overwhelming pain that rippled through me the last time I moved, I didn’t dare even twitch to search for him. When Damon started dragging my unconscious brother into the passenger seat, I thought we’d be okay. Damon didn’t seem hurt, besides a cut on his forehead. He pulled the seat belt over Rawson before wedging himself into the crumpled driver’s side and harnessing himself.

When he glanced into the rear view mirror and caught me staring, he snapped, “I was driving. Got it, Upchuck?”

Being only eight years old at the time, I didn’t care who was driving. I just wanted someone to find Detrick and help me escape the jagged metal digging into me.

“You don’t want yer big brother to get in trouble, do ya?”

I shook my head, terrified of my brother’s best friend.

“That’s what I thought. Keep yer mouth shut when the pigs get here or they’ll haul yer bro off to jail.”

Those words struck home. I didn’t want Rawson to go to jail, so I sputtered out that I wouldn’t say a word and I’ve guarded my secret ever since.

Rawson nudged me, snapping me out of the past and landing me in the present once again.

“I need to tell you something, Ben.”

“What?”

He bit his lips and made a face. “I…um…wasn’t in Portugal all summer.”

I studied his profile. “I didn’t think so. You never sent a postcard. Where were you?”

The muscles in his jaw jumped around as he focused on the road. “I…um…had to go to…uh…rehab.” The last word came out a strangled whisper.

I stared forward, my own jaw twitching now. His confession had come out of nowhere, blindsiding me. I bit my lips to keep them from quivering.

“Is that why Lizzie left without saying goodbye?”

He looked pained at the mention of her name. “Yeah. I told her the truth about the accident and…uh…she wasn’t happy.” He swallowed as he merged onto the highway. “Now I need to tell you.”

“I already know.”

I recalled the hours of fear and pain I’d endured before the police arrived and cut me out of the wreckage. Though I was barely lucid, I could remember clear as day watching as they pulled Rawson out and laid him on a stretcher. I thought he was dead. The Sheriff made Damon breathe into a cup. When the paramedics placed me on a stretcher and gave me a shot in my arm, the last thing I saw was Damon being handcuffed…and that had given me great satisfaction.

“It was my fault,” Rawson said firmly. “I drove. Not Damon. He switched places after we crashed.”

“You think I don’t know that already? I watched him move you when you were unconscious.”

He clenched his jaw. “He took the fall for me.”

“As he should have! He pushed your hands off the steering wheel and caused us to roll. Detrick’s dead and I’m bent because of Damon’s stupidity! Not yours.” I covered my face with a hand and shuddered.

“Don’t hate him, kid. Hate me. I should’ve taken you home when Detrick told me to. If I’d listened, he wouldn’t have died. You wouldn’t have been crushed into the door.” His hands clenched and unclenched on the steering wheel. “Instead, I knocked him around like a bowling pin and made his last day on earth miserable.”

I rubbed my eyes as that last fight filtered through my mind. Detrick had taken a cheap shot at the back of Rawson’s head while he drove, so Rawson pulled over to teach him a lesson.

“In your defense, Detrick egged you on. He always had more courage than brains.”

Rawson chuckled. “Detrick had more guts than anyone I’ve ever known. If we’d been the same age, he would’ve beat the tar out of me. I think Damon and I knew it too. That’s why we bullied him so bad.”

Blinking back tears, I stared at the distant mountains. “I miss him.”

“Me too. We’d probably still fight like wildcats if he were alive, but I’d take his surly attitude in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t speak again until we came to the turnoff. “Do you think he was scared?”

Rawson picked right up on my thought thread. “Detrick wasn’t scared of anything.”

Tears threatened again. “But he was all alone after he was thrown from the Explorer. In the dark. I at least had you in the car with me, even if I thought you were dead. Detrick had no one. I’ve always wondered if he was scared, thinking we left him behind.” It was the first time I’d voiced my fears.

Rawson squeezed my shoulder. “He wasn’t alone, kid. You heard the sermon today. How angels watch over us. I’m certain there were angels keeping our brother company until they led him to the other side.”

“Do you think?”

He smiled. “I know.”

I threw my head against the headrest and closed my eyes. “I’m glad I still have you.”

“Even though I’m a major screw-up?”

“Especially because of that. Besides, it’d suck only having a sister.”

He laughed and we drove the rest of the way in silence. I felt peace. For six years, I’d waited for Rawson to open up about the accident, but he’d shut me out and dragged an impossible weight of guilt around with him instead. We could’ve helped each other through the pain and eased one another’s burdens. Instead, we’d each suffered alone, in silence, for years. But now we were talking, and it felt darn good to set the truth free.

Chapter 83

Liz

The clock ticked loudly in the living room as Mom and I had a stare-down. Her baby blue eyes bore into my rock-hard brown ones.

Rock crushes baby
, I chanted in my mind.

“You will go, young lady.”

“I will not. You can’t make me.” I didn’t even live with her anymore, yet she still tried to run my life.

Neither of us blinked. “I’m glad your father’s not around to see what an ungrateful brat you’ve become.”

That did it. My eyelids slammed shut on heavy tears, and I lost the contest…just as I’d lost my father a month ago after spewing out hate. My last words to him still haunted me:
I hope I never see you again.
And I didn’t…not alive. Daddy had driven back to his work site and within an hour, had tipped over in his bobcat and been crushed in a freak construction accident. The next time I saw him, he lay stiff and white in a casket.

My lips quivered as I turned away from Mom to collect myself. I deserved her scorn. I was a terrible person. Daddy had never been anything but good to me, and how had I repaid him? By lashing out in a fit of temper when he tried to talk to me. I was the worst daughter ever, as Mom kept telling me.

Mom’s voice crescendoed. “I went to a lot of trouble to set you two up when I ran into him at the grocery store. You can’t break his heart by calling and saying you’re not going to meet him.”

Despite regretting the catty way I’d treated Dad, my sassy streak won out again. Mom and I had never seen eye to eye, but since Daddy’s funeral, we’d become downright adversarial. “You’re right. I’m not calling him. You set up the date. You break it.”

Mom went into full-out pouty mode. “Oh, Elizabeth, what am I going to do with you? I thought you’d mature by now, but you’re more selfish than ever.”