Page 70 of The Tomorrows After You
I sat on the edge of my bed, gazing out into the sunny afternoon, wondering how I could be so hypocritical. Here I was, priding myself on making a name uncovering injustices, holding people accountable, giving a voice to the unheard, and telling their stories. But I wasn’t willing to give myself a voice about the things that happened to me.
A light knock on the sliding glass door pulled me from the vortex of my brain. Rising to my feet, I felt that vortex disappear like a dying windstorm because Riot stood on the other side of the door, a small bouquet of wildflowers in his hand. I’d return to the thought at some point. But for tonight, all I saw was Riot’s boyish grin and endearingly outdated suit jacket.
Embers & Ivy was nestled in the recently developed downtown area of Lycon. It was a large standalone building that was a stone’s throw fromthe lake and I had to admit that it was hard to believe we were only twenty-five minutes from Godot.
Inside, dim lighting illuminated the oak and cherry walls, casting an intimate ambiance throughout the space. The walls were decorated with fake gas lantern sconces. It smelled wonderful.
“Riot Asher, I should smack you for not coming in sooner. Come here, honey.”
A woman in her late fifties came sweeping up to us, beaming from ear to ear. It startled me because, outside she-who-I-refused-to-think-about, not a single person ever greeted Riot with such warmth.
“Hi, Aunt Jen.”He smiled and gave her a heartfelt hug. Her arms wrapped tighter around him, loaded with some ineffable grief.
Aunt? I wracked my brain to try to remember whether he’d ever mentioned her to me.
“This is Nicolette Parker.”He gestured to me and she shook my hand zealously.“Nicolette, this is my dad’s sister, Aunt Jen.”
“Pleasure to meet you,”I said.
Aunt Jen showed us to a table for two in the corner.“When Riot told me he was bringing a date, I had the best table in the house reserved.”She smiled. The walls were deep mahogany and everything looked like it was made from solid oak. The chairs were thick and sturdy as Riot pulled mine out for me.
He was milking this whole“official date”thing. I promised to be a good sport when he insisted on opening my car door for me. I wasn’t much for the overdone displays of chivalry, but it made him smile and I was a goddamn sucker for that smile.
Half an hour later we were almost through with the first bottle of wine and I had told him all about my crazy eco-parents and their hippie parents before them. Riot had never met his father’s parents, which I found sad.
There was a special kind of love grandparents gave their grandchildren, an unadulterated, unburdened kind of love. His mother’s father had been around when he was little but died in a mining accident. He saidGrace used to go visit the mine every year on the anniversary of his death to lay flowers. A sadness washed over him, describing it.
“Tell me about Aunt Jen,”I said.“You’ve never mentioned her before.”
“She’s my dad’s younger sister. She used to live in Charleston but moved this way when my dad passed. She was planning to stay with us, help my mom with me and Brennan but…”he looked around.“They couldn’t get along.”Riot shrugged and spun the fork in front of him.
“I would think your mom would be glad for the help. Two boys couldn’t have been easy.”
He lifted his eyebrows.“We most certainly weren’t. Especially Brennan. He and my dad were close. Dad was one of the few people who didn’t treat him like something was wrong with him.”
Realization passed over his face when he met my gaze.
“Kind of like you…”he said with a soft expression before shaking it off.“When he’d do things like repeat himself, my dad would just give him a pat on the shoulder and say ‘I might be your old man, but I’m not so old you have to repeat yourself. I heard you the first time.’”Riot smiled, lost in the memory.“He was good with him. And when he was gone…”
I watched Riot’s eyes search for some intangible reasoning somewhere on the ceiling.“Brennan was just more difficult. Aunt Jen tried to get him help. There was a therapist she wanted him to see. But my mom refused to let her take him to counseling. She said the church offered plenty for free and she couldn’t afford to be driving him to and from Charleston twice a week.”
Riot pressed his lips into an unfortunate line.
“That must have been hard to watch,”I said.
His head bobbed a few times before meeting my eyes.“When I was younger, I didn’t understand, so I just enjoyed being thegood child, you know?”Remorse painted his features.“Then when football started to gain some momentum, I spent every waking minute I could on the field, in the gym. Anything to be out of the house.”My heart ached for the little boy escaping his own family.“You know I was offered a football scholarship to Stanford too?”
My eyes widened in surprise.“I did not know that. Why on earth didn’t you take it?”I tried to mask the disbelief but I still cringed when I heard it. If Riot was offended, he didn’t show it because he just laughed.
“You know, I think I loved the idea of being the hometown hero.”He shrugged and pushed a few pieces of lettuce around on his salad plate.“The idea of moving to a place where I’m just another face in the crowd scared me. I wanted to be the guy they all looked up to. I wanted to stand out.”He offered a humorless laugh. My heart tightened, reading the thoughts all over his face.
He’d love to be just another face in the crowd now.
“I think about it often. If I’d taken it. Moved to California… How everything might have worked out differently.”
A small shudder ran through him and I found myself holding my breath. He had opened the door to his mother’s death, and I had so many burning questions for him. When he was just a name on a news article, I was cynical enough to believe anyone was capable of anything. I still believed that but now, after meeting him, after a tiny peek into his heart, I had so many doubts. I had studied his hands and fingers and I had tried to picture them wrapped around a bloody knife.
My mouth opened, the words perched on my lips.
