Page 51 of Stand

Chapter 14

Ty drove the SUV south and then west. The kids slumped in the back seat, and Cairo lay down in the wayback once they got on the highway. Sam wanted to sleep, too, but Ty hadn’t rested and she didn’t want to leave him alone to drive. He chose Nickelback and Staind. Sam, who approved, nodded along to the music. They’d planned out the route together, Ty even approving the hotels Sam chose—because she knew he didn’t want her spending too much money on them—so there was nothing to do but watch New England fall away behind them and the hills of Pennsylvania appear.

Sam woke the kids up when they crossed the Delaware, and they got out at the visitors center to walk Cairo and stretch their legs. Alyssa and Matt seemed underwhelmed with Pennsylvania so far, and they didn’t waste any time moving on. Sam took the wheel; she hoped Ty would rest that beautiful blond head against his window and finally get some rest.

But Alyssa’s first words once they were back on the highway woke all of them up. “What did you mean, you were Dad’s nemesis in high school?”

Sam got a frisson all over her body. She shouldn’t have said that. They’d just reached a truce, and now she was going to expose scars that had been forgotten. Well, maybe not forgotten.

And she wasn’t about to share the details of those seven minutes in Heaven.

“Yeah,” Matt added. “And when we first met you, Dad said you weren’t friends.”

“That’s right!” Alyssa exclaimed. “So what’s going on?” She looked between them.

Ty and Sam exchanged a long, pained look. How was she going to get out of this one? Dammit. Did she adhere to the truth or didn’t she? She’d always said the only way out of difficult situations was through. “I wasn’t very nice in high school, Lyss,” she began.

“Were you a bully?” Alyssa said.

At the same time, Ty said, “Not for all of high school. You were okay until your dad died.”

“That’s no excuse,” Sam repeated.

“And in senior year,” he added.

“So youwerea bully?” Alyssa broke in. Sam hated the horror in her voice.

“No,” Ty said.

“Not physically,” Sam said. “I was…” She cast her eyes to the ceiling of the SUV, as though that would bring her salvation from this conversation. “I was the mean girl, I guess.”

“Did you wear pink on Wednesdays?” Alyssa asked.

Sam winced. She hated that movie. “Nope. I wasn’t in a clique like that.”

Ty cleared his throat. “Yeah, you kinda were.”

Sam flushed. She remembered Janine. All the girls who hung on her exploits, who she knew talked about her behind her back but egged her on when she pretended to consider which member of the basketball team would get her attention next.

She blew out her lips. “Well, I didn’t wear pink.”

“Why?” Alyssa asked. The warm voice she’d used with Sam since the beginning was gone. “Why were you a bully?”

“Did you bully Dad?” Matt added.

“No,” Ty said at once.

She rolled her eyes at him, for all she appreciated his defense. “You don’t have to protect me, but thanks.” She twisted in her seat to look back at the girl, whose lips were tight and her eyes narrowed, but the steering wheel moved with her, and she had to face front again before she drove them off the highway.

“Her parents died,” Ty said, as though she hadn’t spoken at all. “She got pretty messed up. She was—”

“Ty,” Sam interrupted. “I can explain for myself.”

She dared to look at him, but the understanding in his eyes made her glance away again.

“You’ll beat yourself up,” he said.

“I deserve to be beaten up and you know it!” she snapped. But she didn’t want to look at him again. Sam sighed and pulled her hair off her neck with one hand, sending it over the shoulder farthest from Ty. “Look, Alyssa,” she said, giving Ty one last glare to make sure he didn’t interrupt. “I didn’t steal kids’ lunch money or beat them up on the way home or anything. But I… I ignored people. It didn’t start that way. I just—”

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