Chapters (46)
- Cover
- Other Titles
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Friday
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- Saturday
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- Sunday
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Monday
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“Hey,” Nicki says. “What’s up?”
Finn blinks a third time and then walks away.
2012
They don’t talk about Ross. Ross is not a part of this, and the second he becomes a part of this, Nicki tells herself it will be over. “What’s he like?” Dallas asked her once, in the alley behind Desi’s where she had punched him that first time, while they were sharing a post-fuck smoke. Nicki liked watching Dallas smoke; he did this thing where he didn’t even blow the smoke out, he just opened his mouth and let it waft away. She secretly thought it was sexy, even though she would never tell him that.
“Who?” she asked, taking the cigarette from him and trying to copy his exhale. It never seemed to work for her, she always ran out of patience and ended up blowing it out before it was all gone.
“My…Ross,” Dallas answered.
Nicki narrowed her eyes at him. “He is not your Ross,” she said flatly. “You do not have a Ross. As far as you are concerned, there is no Ross.”
Now, driving away from the motel, Nicki wonders if this was a mistake. If this is the kind of thing that could screw up a kid for life. The realization hits her all at once, as she’s waiting at a light on Red River Road, watching three teenaged boys in cargo shorts and hoodies sauntering across the street in front of her: Someday, Ross is going to find out about this. And he is going to be very, very pissed.
She remembers the first time she was with Dallas and how her mom ended up in the hospital. The two events will always seem linked to her, as if one somehow led to the other. That time, Kate had fallen off the roof of their house, where she had climbed up to watch the sunrise. Even now, thinking about the whole thing makes Nicki sick to her stomach. They had all been up on the roof before – it was something they just did as kids, climbed out the dormer window in the master bedroom and then inched up on their butts as far as they could go. But picturing her fifty-five-year-old mother doing it – it just seemed wrong. Since then, everything about Kate has seemed wrong, even to Nicki, who loves wrong, who embraces wrong, who fucking lives for wrong. But this wrong – it was different. Darker. Scarier. And beyond Kate’s control.