Page 69 of Brenna, Brat

He shook his head and cut me off. “My car didn’t get stolen,” he announced. “I loaned it to my mother, my real mother, because the repo men took hers. She owes a lot of people and they’ve been after her, so she’s hiding.”

I held up my hands in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie?”

“I didn’t want to explain,” he told me. “Your family has its shit together so you wouldn’t understand.”

“Myfamily?” I pointed at myself. “Me?”

“You complain your ass off about them and act like you hate them, but they love the fuck out of you,” he said. “So no, you don’t get it.”

I stared at him. “What about the other part? Did you really have to get out of Detroit this weekend because you were getting threats? Or was that also a lie?” I asked.

“I did get them, because of my mom. They were calling me at the gallery before, and now they have my cell. I wanted to get away.” He mumbled something.

“He’s sorry that he misled you,” Carrington translated.

“Yes, you should be, but I don’t think you really are,” I said angrily, and he only shrugged and refused to meet my eyes. “You two deserve each other.” For some reason, they weren’t offended by that. She looked up at him and when I stormed off down the hall, they were smiling.

Campbell wasn’t smiling when I found him outside. “One of those women hit a tree on her way out. She’s blocking half of the driveway and demanding help.”

“Holy Mary! She can go to the front door and ask her host for assistance,” I said. “Let’s leave by going through the woods. How does your car do at off-roading?”

We did manage to get past the accident, where she had really messed up her really nice convertible. The driver and three passengers were all split in different directions, holding up their phones and trying to get a signal where there wasn’t one. Campbell, being angry but still a very nice person on the inside, slowed down and told them that the front door was unlocked. They could use the house phone and try to get a tow truck, he said.

“Knock hard on the bedroom door until Dion comes out to help you,” I suggested. “I’m sure that he’ll want to step in, after you made fun of him this morning. Smart move.” We roared off toward Detroit.

We covered quite a bit of ground but neither of us said a word as we did. I was totally lost in a web of confusing thoughts and memories. Had it been just last night that he’d eaten the pieceof peanut butter fudge from my fingers and then kissed them, saying he was getting the last bit of sweetness? Had it been this morning that I’d woken up with him touching me, which I had permitted and enjoyed although he hadn’t been aware of what he was doing? And what was Dion up to? Had his whole “changed man” routine been total bull? I hoped not. Because I didn’t like to admit that I’d been wrong, but I didn’t think that Carrington was as tough as I’d previously assumed.

“That was an incredible way to start the day.”

Campbell had startled me with those words, because my thoughts had twisted back around to when I’d woken up this morning, and I was secretly reliving those brief moments. Was he also remembering how incredible it had been?

“She knows—how many times have I told her that those women are snakes?” he fumed. No, his mind wasn’t in the bed. “They’re not her friends. You know what I’m going to do when I get home? I’m going to get in touch with all the people who reached out to me, all of my real friends who offered support. I ignored them because I was ashamed and I need to thank them.”

“That’s a good idea.” I thought that maybe I should post a similar message in our sibling group chat, something to let everyone know that I appreciated them. Dion might have been right about how I complained, but he was wrong when he’d said that I hated my family.

“Carrington swore that she didn’t participate in the fraud with our father,” he said next, which I already knew because I had eavesdropped. Sugar, I felt bad about that, too. “She saidthat she noticed something going wrong, but neither of us did anything about it.”

“Well, on much smaller scale, I probably should have turned in Alecta over her drug dealing. I probably also should have called the guy in the building next door to tell him that she and Chic had been stealing his mail for years, hoping that there might be a check they could cash. I just told him to lock his mailbox, and I never said anything to the police about the drugs.”

“It’s better to be honest.”

Ok, yes. “Dion and I heard you and Carrington talking about everything. We listened,” I admitted. “You yelled and I got worried…I don’t know what I thought she would do, but I wanted to be there to help if you needed it. I heard her swear that she didn’t know about your dad.”

“I was pretty sure it was you and Dion standing outside the door. I saw your shadows moving and I heard some scuffling.”

“We fought a little because I wanted to go in when Carrington slapped you. We shouldn’t have listened. I’m sorry,” I apologized again. It was true that once you started doing that, it was hard to stop—except I wanted to say it and I wanted him to know that I felt it.

“My sister and I don’t always get along, but if Dion hurts her…” He let the threat trail off. “She’s probably looking for comfort because she’s scared out of her mind that we’re going to jail.”

“But that’s not in the realm of possibility. Right?”

“You know what my lawyer said last week? She said she believes that my father is going to prison for a serious stretch, and she’s fairly certain that I’ll be indicted. She’s not sure why they haven’t already done it. I’ll be facing time, too.”

“No,” I said, fear constricting the word. “No, because we’ll leave. You know what? I read all about Laos where Alecta went, and it turns out that they don’t extradite to the United States. We could live inexpensively and also, French is big there! We could do great,” I told him. “You won’t go to jail.” If anyone was listening, I had just given away my plan, though.

“Brenna, I won’t run away from any of this. I won’t drag other people into it, either.” He paused. “Maybe that’s what Carrington was doing, grabbing onto him for support.”

“I think it was mutual grabbing,” I said. “Dion was acting really weird, very authoritative, which isn’t like him at all. He usually leaves the women immediately after, but it didn’t seem like he wanted to bolt away from her.” But that stuff was all secondary to a possible prison sentence for Campbell and he was shaking his head, like he didn’t want to hear it anyway. “What is your lawyer suggesting that you do?” I asked.

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