Page 14 of You’re Mine

“You Haley?” the older woman asks, stopping to take a drag on her cigarette. I smile weakly while trying not to cough.

“Yes. I was wondering if you could put me in touch with Jace? We lost contact because I had to take some time off school, and I haven’t been able to get a hold of him since.”

Kelley interrupts.

“Even though she’s his girlfriend,” his sister adds flatly.

I gulp.

“Well yes, your son and I are dating, but again, I’ve been sick. I had to take some time off and my dad is really strict, and I couldn’t have visitors …”

Corinna jolts forward with a hacking cough, her back humped like an old woman.

“You best get out of here,” she says between wheezes and gasps. “If Jace wants to see you, he’ll find you. Otherwise, I know my son. If all you’ve got is nada so far, then you have your answer.”

I stare at the two women, trying not to look horrified.

“I totally hear you, but you see, there’s been a misunderstanding. Jace thought … well, my dad was really mean to him and things didn’t go well, and … I’m not sure what he thought but I have to see him,” I say helplessly. “I have to tell him something.”

Kelley shoots me another skeptical look.

“We Kings don’t take harsh treatment well. Life hasn’t treated us kind and we remember insults forever.”

This time, I can’t help the horrified expression on my face. Is that true? But before I can get a word out, Corinna waves her hand while coughing again, gasping a bit for oxygen.

“My son is a strong man,” Corinna pronounces on a wheezing breath. “Again, if Jace wants you to know something, then he’ll tell you himself, your dad or no dad. There’s no stopping my son,” she says. “I raised him right.”

“Of course, of course,” I stumble on the words. “But you see, I need to tell him something, and not the other way around.”

Corinna’s about to say something else, but then Kelley interrupts.

“Jace is gone,” his sister says while staring at a torn cuticle. “Damn, I did that with my picking, didn’t I? I’m going to have to get this fixed before going on stage tonight.”

Her mother reaches over and grabs her hand, taking assessment of the ragged nail edges. “Go on over to Glitter and Sass,” Corinna admonishes her daughter. “You can’t get up on stage looking like some cheap whore with bad nails. Get yourself some of those nice acrylics with designs on them. You know the customers like it when you wave them around in the air.”

I can barely speak, and there are tears in my eyes now. How can Jace’s mother and sister act like their manicures are so important when I’m trying to locate their son? This is a dire emergency, and yet they just don’t care.

Kelley disappears into the dark interior of the house humming while Corinna takes another drag of her cigarette, weighing my presence on my porch.

“You hear me, girl?” she repeats. “My son is a man. He ain’t going to be scared of no yelling. If he wants you to find him, then he’ll let himself be found. Git,” she says, shooing me away before turning to close the door. “You’re better off without us Kings anyway. You’re too nice for around here.”

With that, the door shuts with a thud and I’m left on my own in the glaring sunlight. What just happened? How could the Jace’s mother and sister have been so dismissive of my efforts to find him?

I turn back to the street, the glare of the sunlight so bright that I can barely see. Like a wooden doll, I walk back to my car and numbly get in behind the wheel. What do I do now? After all, I just found out that I’m pregnant with Jace’s child. But he’s disappeared on me, and all forms of contact have been cut off. He’s changed his phone number. Doesn’t answer his old email. Even his family won’t tell me where he is.

I gulp, the tears rising to my eyes with one solitary drop making its way down my cheek. Is what Corinna said true? Does he not want to be found? Has he left for New York, leaving me on my own in this godforsaken town?

“Jace,” I say in a quivery voice. “Please don’t do this to me. I’m having a baby. Your baby. Our baby. Please don’t leave me like this.”

But no one replies, and as I put the key in the ignition, there’s a sinking feeling in my heart. The man that I love has left me pregnant and alone, stuck here in Lenville with an abusive father and an ice cold mother. I have no options, no choices, and nowhere to go. He was supposed to be my boyfriend and savior rolled into one, but now, he’s gone and I have no one. What do I do?

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