Steadfast (True North, #2)

by Sarina Bowen

The ugly car wouldn’t have bothered me if the Avenger and I didn’t have so fucking much in common. We’d both ended up in the gutter, broken in body and spirit.

I should also add that the last time I drove through Colebury, Vermont, I was high as a kite on opiates. Today I was stone-cold sober. So at least I had that going for me.

I climbed out, watching for some reaction on my father’s face. He blinked twice. That’s all I got.

He’d been my only visitor for the entire three years I’d served. To be fair, one other person had tried to visit me. But I wouldn’t see her.

My eye snagged on a pink bottle of salon shampoo which had waited these three years in my shower. It was hers. Sophie’s.

Standing there, remembering how Sophie smelled, it was like a sock to the gut. Of all the things I’d lost—my good name, the chance to get a decent job, my carefully restored car—none of them mattered as much as Sophie.

Missing her wasn’t a crime, though. Anybody would.

Lying here made me think of her, too. Sophie.

I forced myself to imagine who she might choose as a partner. He’d have to be my opposite, since Sophie wouldn’t want to be reminded of her unfortunate choices.

Before prison, I was a talker. Too much of a talker, probably. But these past three years I hadn’t had a lot of conversation.

I stuck my nose in the pillow and took a deep breath, wondering if any essence of Sophie might remain. But she was long gone.

I counted to sixty, because Jude had always said that an engine needed a minute to warm up. I didn’t appreciate the fact that I thought about Jude three or four times a day when I started my car. Or every night when I lay down alone in bed.

When I was seventeen, I thought Jude was sent to me from heaven. When I was eighteen, I let him take me there. When I was nineteen, he broke both my heart and my family.

Nobody had wanted to hear me say that Jude had never meant to hurt anyone. Nobody cared that he’d obviously been in need of help. They didn’t want to hear that he’d been (mostly) wonderful to me. That he’d been the only one who listened when I spoke.

I was just so angry that he’d reject me on top of all his other crimes. How dare he.

That casual, wordless statement made me feel hot everywhere. Jude always had.

“Thing is, I’m not convinced you’re as good a girl as everyone thinks.” “That’s ridiculous,” I said immediately. Because I was exactly as good as everyone thought. And I was really freaking sick of it.

How do men do that, anyway? It takes a special kind of skill to show up precisely when all the work is finished.

“The car needs a minute to warm up,” he’d said. “How shall we spend the time?” “Thumb wars?” I suggested. I held out a hand to him. (I remember feeling impossibly bold for suggesting this.)

He grabbed my outstretched hand, then leaned across the gearshift and brushed his lips over mine. “You’re so fucking cute,” he whispered. And then he slanted his mouth right down onto mine and kissed me.

Our first kiss lasted half an hour.

he was a devoted boyfriend. And Jude listened to me, the way my parents never did.

But even a glimpse of him had given me palpitations. As if my subconscious had recognized a piece of my soul before my brain got a chance to speak up.

“I’ve screwed up dates before. But it usually takes me a couple of hours.” I was too embarrassed for him to agree.

What’s the use of having the sort of tattooed boyfriend who keeps fathers up at night if he won’t even get rid of her damned virginity for her?

Mine, his actions say as he closes the car door with a click. Mine, his hand says when he palms her lower back.

I used Sophie’s shampoo, and the green-apple scent rose around me in a mist. So now I would smell like a girl, but that was okay with me, because it was as close to a girl as I was likely to get anytime soon.

When I had the Porsche, I didn’t like to have food in it. Sophie used to roll her eyes when I suggested that we eat elsewhere. “We have sex in your car all the time,” she’d point out. “But dear God—don’t eat a granola bar.”

my pulse was elevated, and my nerves were raw. Really raw. Everything was just so wrong. Sophie wasn’t supposed to be in Vermont at all. She was supposed to be living a brand new life in New York.

Maybe it was just the reflex of five recent months spent here, but I found myself turning at the Shipley Farms sign and pulling up their lengthy gravel drive.

Maybe only a crazy man drives twenty miles to sit in someone’s driveway. But at that moment, it made all the sense in the world to me.

“Hi Eeyore.” “Hi, Pooh Bear,”

Of all the Shipleys, she was the one I’d felt closest to during my months here. May and I had worked a lot of farmers’ markets together.

“Get out of the car, Jude. There’s apple-cranberry pie.” She knew it was my favorite. My empty stomach picked that moment to growl, which made her laugh.

A couple of years ago, he’d been booted out of the same cult that the neighbors had escaped. So Zach hitchhiked his way across country to find them. He’d turned up on their doorstep without shoes and without having eaten in days.

my eyes made a covert trip across the candlelit faces around the table. I’d pointed my car in this direction for a reason, even if I hadn’t realized it in my freaked-out haze. Well done, subconscious.

the family made it clear that I was expected for dinner again next week. This made a huge difference to my outlook on life. If I didn’t show up next week, they would wonder why. And if I relapsed, I wouldn’t be able face them. Somehow, their expectations were just enough to get me through the weekend,

the checkout girl kept sneaking looks at me from underneath her too-long bangs. Either she was someone who’d known me in high school, and was therefore sneaking looks at the druggie felon who’d killed his girlfriend’s brother, or else she was admiring my tats. It could really go either way.

I knew I shouldn’t be thinking of her as my Sophie. But at the time it had been true.

Sitting in a meeting always reminded me that the problem was bigger than a few bad decisions or shitty willpower. It wasn’t just me.

“I’m glad to hear you say that. Because if you didn’t like apple pie, I’m not sure we could be friends.” I barked out a laugh. “That’s not a very Christian attitude, father. What would Jesus say?” “He’d say, ‘more for me.’

“This is a very special apple pie, I’ll have you know.” “I can see that.” It had cranberries, and a crumb topping. I broke off a chunk with my fork and took a bite. A very familiar bite.

I was wondering if Ruthie Shipley made this pie.” He looked up in astonishment. “A boy of exceptional talent! He names the piemaker in just one bite!

Not only do I think you should dine with us tonight, my friends in the kitchen could use your help.” “You mean, like, I could volunteer?”

There in the doorway—wearing an apron, her hair in two pigtails—stood Sophie Haines. My ex-girlfriend, and the only person who’d ever loved me.

Sophie’s mouth fell open. She put one hand on the doorjamb to steady herself. I’m sorry was my only thought.

“I should go home,” I said. But Father Peters shook his head. “I don’t think that’s for the best.”

I kept noticing strange details about him. He’d rolled the sleeves of his flannel shirt up, exposing muscular forearms that I did not want to notice.

“Denny, could you set up another serving station?” Because I’m busy having a breakdown.

Sneaking up on Father Peters’s office, I heard no voices inside. And when he waved me in, I found that he was alone this time. The twinge I felt was relief, right? It couldn’t possibly be disappointment.