Page 60 of Flame After the Fumble

Liza shakes her head in disbelief and grabs my free hand as I shift my car into drive. “You’re perfectly screwed up in the best way.” I’m not entirely sure what to say to that unhinged statement. My girl plugs her phone in and takes control of the music for the beginning part of our drive. Her playlist is a mix of Tate McCrae, Olivia Rodridgo, Morgan Wallen, and a sprinkle of Taylor Swift’s angrier songs.

After the first few hours, Violet passes out in the back, leaned against the door with a pillow wedged under her neck, while Liza mindlessly scrolls on her phone. I glance in the rearview,to make sure Violet is still sleeping before word vomiting what’s been on my mind for a while. “Why me?”

Liza’s nose scrunches up. She places her phone in the cup holder and tucks her feet beneath her. “What?”

“Why me? What made you choose me?” My grip on the wheel tightens, and I can’t manage to look over until she answers me.

“I was scared at first. . .” She trails off before continuing. “I didn’t want to go through what I did with Layne. That breakup killed me. I started getting trashed every other night to numb the pain. It was toxic coping, and I couldn’t relive that.”

My jaw clenches as I crack my neck, a habit when I’m frustrated. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

“You’re right, but I did and I came out of it knowing I didn’t cope well.” Her hand lands on my thigh and squeezes. “I was scared of myself, but then you came along, and proved that I didn’t have to be scared anymore.”

“Tell me more.”

“I did my best to push you away every chance I had, but you still loved me through it all.” I cave and look over to her before pulling my eyes back on my road. “The little things you did for me showed me you cared even though I was giving you crumbs.”

“I’ve never been good enough,” I blurt out, not sure where that admission came from. I know it’s true, but I’ve never spoken the words out loud. “My mom left before I was old enough to know her. Dad stayed, but was as absent as you could be. The two people who are supposed to love you the most didn’t think twice about abandoning me physically and emotionally.”

“Hart. . .” she mutters. “It was never about you being good enough. It was about me feeling worthy to love someone again.”

“I don’t know why someone like me gets to love someone like you. It seems unfair, like you deserve someone better than me.”

“Don’t.” Her ferocious voice comes to play. “Family isn’t always blood. It’s who we choose to show up for day after day.”She glances at a sleeping Violet, then her eyes land back on my side profile. “It’s who we vow to love no matter how much they mess up or push us away.”

Liza unlocks a realization in me that should have been clear for years. The only family I want or need is sitting in this car. My girlfriend, pushing me out of my emotional comfort zone to take on the hurt of my past alongside me, and my best friend, now snoring, who desperately needed a break from her own mind.Thisis what family is. Not who made me, but who’s shaping my future.

“Promise me,” I let out sternly.

“I promise.”

This girl.“You don’t know what I was going to ask.”

“I don’t need to. I just promise. Whatever you need. I promise.”

My new favorite words roll off her tongue as we pull into the driveway of my childhood home.

40

Liza

Seeing where Hartley grew up has been brewing in my mind for weeks. I have a desperate need to know everything about him, and that can’t happen without letting me into his past. He isn’t shy about his childhood or his disdain for his parents, but seeing and hearing are two different things.

“Here we are,” Hartley scoffs before turning the car off and hopping out. Violet woke up about fifteen minutes ago. Still groggy, she yawns. “Welcome to our old home, Liza.”

“My dad’s not home, Vi. Shocked?” She bites her fingernails and shakes her head in mock disbelief.

“It wouldn’t matter if he was,” she replies.

We step up two white bricked stairs to the worn, wooden entryway. The grass is longer than usual for a neighborhood, and the garden weeds are overgrown in every direction. The wooden planks on the front porch are dry rotted and paint chipped. Hartley bends down and pushes one of the planks down with force. “I used to keep up with this, but per usual, Dad let it go.”

I bend down to rub his back in the crouched position we’re in. “It’s okay.” He tilts his head, allowing my presence to center his focus.

“Let’s go in.”

Hartley sticks the key in the lock and opens the creaky door. Once we’re all in, he reaches around to flip on the lights. The house is as common as any I’ve seen. The living room is put together, no trash out or foul smells emitting from the kitchen. I follow Hartley’s lead into the kitchen space. With the exception of a few dust bunnies, the house isn’t bad. “This is where I learned to cook.”

“I owe it to this space for making you a little chef.” I lean into his chest and kiss him on the cheek.

---