Cora Carmack - All Lined Up

I grab my phone and text Ryan. I keep texting him all the way down the stairs, past the group of girls, and out the front door. I’m probably blowing up his phone, but I don’t care.

When I get to my truck and don’t trust myself to text and drive, I call him. He answers on the second ring.

“Relax, dude. She’s fine.”

“No, she’s not.”

Ryan sighs.

“She’s going to be fine. She and Stella are back at her dorm, and they’re talking some things out.”

“Why can’t she talk to me?”

“She will. Just give her some time.”

“I can’t.” Or I don’t want to. All I can think about are her damn rules. What did she say? If either of us thinks it’s too much, then we just say the word, and it’s done. We walk away.

What if that’s what this is?

“You can.” Ryan’s voice is surprisingly firm. “She doesn’t want you to see her upset. She’s not going anywhere, man. Just wait and talk to her tomorrow.”

He hangs up on me then. And I barely resist the urge to throw my phone against the windshield.

I drive around for a while, getting closer and closer to her dorm each time before I convince myself to stay away. I’d be there in a heartbeat if I were certain it wouldn’t push her away faster. Finally, I head back to my place and do the only thing I can think of.

I run.

I make a beeline for the shower as soon as Stella and I get inside our dorm. She tries to stop me, but I can’t talk right now. I don’t know how to deal with stuff like this. I’ve spent my entire life actively not dealing, and now I’m ripping at the seams because of it.

It’s a Saturday night after an incredible victory, so the dorm is pretty much a ghost town. I have the shower all to myself, so that even if anyone could hear me crying over the water, it wouldn’t matter.

What scares me more than anything is that I don’t know who the girl at that party was. She sure wasn’t me.

I know my tendencies and my faults. I know that I jump to anger first, and when that doesn’t work, I walk away instead.

That girl? She was throwing herself into the fire instead of trying to escape. And that’s not a version of myself that I’ve ever had to face.

I don’t think Carson had anything to do with that bet, not with the way he reacted, the way he stopped things from going further, but that doesn’t help with the humiliation burrowed so deep beneath my skin that even the scalding-hot water of the shower can’t touch it.

God, what he must think of me.

At least I didn’t mention the bet. At least he doesn’t know just how little I trusted him for a few moments there. Because the only thing that hurts more than my own pain is the idea of causing his.

But when I finally pull myself out of the shower, wrap a towel around my frame, and face my bloodshot eyes in the mirror . . . I have to ask myself—

Regardless of how much I like Carson, do I like the person I am with him?

It would be an easier question to answer if I had any idea who I really was.

Back in the room, I tell Stella everything. Including the fact that I slept with Levi. As I predicted, she’s hurt. I can see her questioning our entire friendship. What else haven’t I been telling her? But I promise her that I have no other outstanding secrets. Not after I tell her everything about Carson and me, too.

When I finish, I’m furious to find myself crying again, but at this point, it’s not something that I can turn off or stuff down anymore. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to do that again. She pulls me into a hug, and together we lie on my tiny twin bed until I’ve gotten it all out of my system.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Stella assures me.

“Is it?”

“Of course it is. That guy is head over heels for you, and this is just a bump in the road.”

“It’s not Carson I’m worried about. It’s me. I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust myself.”

She pushes my hair back out of my face and sighs. “Oh, sweetheart. You’re going to be just fine. You’re nowhere near as screwed up as you think you are.” I know that’s a dig at herself. I recognize the self-loathing because I am a master at it. “This is just what it feels like to get older. It won’t be the last time you look back at your life and realize just how stupid or naive or terrible you’ve been. I’m pretty sure that’s a reoccurring thing until death do us part. The truth is . . . we’re all a little screwed up. If humans were capable of being perfect there would be no such thing as Jerry Springer, and the world would be filled with unicorns and fairies, and families would never be broken, and children would never disappoint their parents, and things wouldn’t hurt as badly, but it also wouldn’t feel so damn good when things go right. And friends wouldn’t have anything to stay up late and talk about because everything in the world would be too boring to matter. The only thing we can do is try to find people whose scars compliment our own. And I’m pretty sure Carson McClain would carry your baggage around the world and back if you asked him.”

“You think?”

“In a heartbeat.”

We fall asleep that way, two grown women in one twin bed, like we’re still freshmen in high school having a sleepover, whispering about boys and gossip so my dad won’t hear. Things were so much less scary then. We were rushing headfirst into the future with no idea just how complicated things would get on the way.

WHEN A KNOCKING at the door wakes us, the sun is bright and bleeding through the blinds. Stella mumbles a “Go away” and burrows deeper under my covers. How the two of us managed to sleep through the night in one twin bed is one of the great mysteries of the universe, but when the knocking gets louder, I snap to attention.

Carson. It has to be Carson. I scramble over Stella trying to get out of my bed, and my knee accidentally sinks into her midsection.

“Easy on the bladder, Dallas, unless you want a mess in your bed.”

“It’s Carson,” I whisper. “Just a second!” I call toward the door.

Stella props up on an elbow and says, “I’m guessing you want me to make myself scarce?”

“Just for a little bit? Please.”

She nods. “I’ll go take a shower.”

While she gathers her things, I take a quick moment to look in the mirror. I pat down my hair, tucking stray strands behind my ears, and resituate my pajamas so everything is covered.

When it’s as good as it’s going to get, I open the door.

My stomach plummets.

“Dad?” I glance at him in confusion, and only after a few moments do I realize he’s dressed for church. “Oh my God. I forgot about church.” I had no idea he cared strongly enough about my attendance to drag himself to my dorm. I’ve never skipped before, but clearly it matters to him. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I had kind of a rough night last night, and I fell asleep without setting an alarm.”

“I know.”

His expression is so neutral that I’m jolted by the barely concealed rage I hear in his voice. He can’t be that mad about church.

“You know what?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just swallows, his thick neck bulging with strained muscles.

Stella pops up by my side with her towel and shower basket. “I’m just gonna go take a shower so you two can talk.”

When she’s gone, I step back to let Dad into the room. He takes a seat on Stella’s fuchsia bedspread because her bed is still made. He’s so big that he makes the dorm bed (hell, the whole dorm room) look miniature. And he’s wearing some expression that I have never seen on his face before. Not normal, not pissed, not football, but something that scares me far worse.

“Dad. What’s going on?”

He wraps the fingers of his left hand around the fist of his right and squeezes until I hear a few pops.

He swallows and his voice is scratchy and uneven when he speaks. “I realize that I have not always been there when you needed me, and I’m sorry. I won’t make excuses because none of them are good enough. But I can do better.”

I keep waiting for his yell to break loose, for this to turn into a fight. We’re in uncharted waters, and I’m in danger of drowning.

“I never wanted you to feel like you couldn’t talk to me. But I let my unwillingness to talk about how I was feeling dictate how our relationship worked, and I’m sorry.”

I feel tears prick my eyes, and I’m shocked that I even have liquid left in my body after last night.

“So I’m telling you now that you can talk to me. Whatever is going on in your life . . . I’ll listen. And I will always, always take your side.”

“Dad,” I start softly. “No offense, but you’re kind of scaring me.”

He chokes on something that might be a laugh, and drops his head down, pushing his thumb and forefinger against his eyes. “At least we’re on the same page there.”

When he finally looks back up at me, I raise my eyebrows and shake my head because I have no idea what’s happening here.

He sighs. “You’re really going to make me be the one to say it?”

“Considering I have no idea what it is . . . yeah. It’s gonna have to be you.”

He unlocks his phone and after a few taps and swipes, he hands it to me.

It takes a moment for my eyes to focus and process what I’m looking at. It’s blurry around the edges, but there in the center is me against a wall, looking up at Carson. The purple dress I wore last night is bunched up around my thighs, and he has his arm around my neck in a way that looks painful because of the expression I’m wearing, but I know for a fact that his touch was as soft as could be. His jaw is a hard line, and if I hadn’t been there myself, I would swear it looks like he’s hurting me. And with my dress all skewed, it looks even worse than that.