Page 6 of Tell Me You Love Me

“Focus,” Chris rumbles, tapping my shoulder and sling-shotting meback to here. To now. To a tree Alana and I climbed a thousand times before we turned eighteen and a hard life got worse.

The fact I place the chainsaw teeth right above a carvedL&T Foreveris hardly relevant. Because just like the tree is dead and never coming back, the words we dug into it back when we believed love was possible and our circumstances wouldn’t define us, well… that shit is dead, too.

I know exactly the date we fell in love. It’s carved into my skin.

And I know exactly the date she left. That one is carved into my brain.

“Cut your hand off, and I’ll kick your ass.” Chris’ shadow fills my peripherals, warning me of retribution if I don’t calm the temper singing in my veins. “I know when you’re about to do something stupid. It’s a twin thing. You’re pissy about Bitsy’s cancer.”

Am I?

Is that why Alana’s on my mind so cruelly, callously, today, when usually, her ghost is easily tucked away like a box of treasures?

“You’re doing that thing with your jaw,” he continues. “You’re angry. But you kinda need those limbs for your fight in December, so cool the fuck off and get yourself under control.”

Lana & Tommy Forever.

With a gentle, barely there shake of my head, I rev the chainsaw and send steel teeth racing around the track, chewing through the wood until soft chunks spit backward and hit my legs.

Lana & Tommy Forever.

What a joke.

It’s me. I’m the joke.

ROUND THREE

ALANA

“That’s a cow.” Franky’s eyes widen behind his glasses, his jaw dropping open when we do, in fact, pass a cow. “It’s a whole cow, Mom!”

“Yep.” Giddiness and anxiety wreak havoc on my nervous system. Both thrilling adrenaline as nostalgia bustles through my veins, but dread, too, because I’m absolutely not ready to drive the final three miles and arrive at my old driveway.

I want so badly to get out of the car and stretch my limbs, and yet, there’s a very real, dangerously vocal portion of my brain that insists I turn around and hightail it back to New York.

Where it’s safe. Where anonymity is comfort, and my past isn’t likely to jump up and bite me in the ass.

“Mom!” Franky rotates in his seat, staring out the opposite window. “It’s three cows! There arethreecows, and they’re just… they’re…” His lips open and close, guppy fish style. “They’re wandering wherever they want. Is that normal?”

“They’re not actually free.” I point toward a large sign leading toward a much, much larger house. “All of this land belongs to Dave Dingus. He has fences that keep his animals where he needs them, so even though they kinda look free, they’re not.”

“Dingus?” He scrunches his nose, pushing his glasses back up to sit properly. “His name is Dingus?”

“Yeah, and no, you don’t get to say anything if you meet him. It’s an unfortunate name, but teasing isn’t very nice.”

Do I tell my son I rode Dingus’ name when I was a kid, the way a bull rider clings on for their eight seconds and takes the trophy home at the end of the night?

No.

“Dave is an extremely wealthy man. He owns at least half of Plainview and a fair bit of the next town over, too.” Which means hecouldhave gone down to the courthouse and changed his name. But alas… “He was always pretty nice to me,” I admit. “Despite how cranky Grandma Bitsy made him.”

“Horses!” Franky smacks his hand on the side window, hissing from the pain and hurriedly tapping the button to move the glass out of the way. “There are horses, Mom!”

“There are.” I set my elbow on my doorframe and my chin in my hand. “Those are Dave’s, too. And before you panic, you should know he has pigs as well. And bulls.”

His eyes widen. “Bulls?”

“Yeah.”To mount an unwilling cow and make babies.“It’s a farm. That’s what farmers do.”

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