Abbi Glines - Hold On Tight

I heard what she was saying, but . . . it wasn’t sinking in. It didn’t make sense.

“Kimmy?” I asked, trying to understand why she thought Kimmy Bart had aborted Dustin’s baby.

My mother’s eyes flared with something I didn’t understand as she looked at Dewayne. “You didn’t tell her,” my mother accused.

Dewayne didn’t speak.

He wasn’t talking, and my mother was angry. She was angry at Dewayne.

About Kimmy Bart. And a baby.

“Kimmy was pregnant too?” I asked, still trying to process this.

My mother’s eyes softened with sympathy and something close to sorrow. “I’m sorry, Sienna. I thought by now you would have heard. I didn’t know they’d kept that from you. You’re old enough and it’s been long enough that you can handle the truth. Dustin Falco wasn’t sleeping with just you. Kimmy Bart was pregnant with his baby too. Except she was further along than you, and Dustin knew about it when he died. Kimmy made sure everyone in town knew he was hiding it from you.”

Something inside me died too at that moment. Something I would never get back.

DEWAYNE

Sienna shut down right in front of my eyes. All emotion left her face, and she just stared straight ahead. The one thing I never wanted her to know, her fucking useless excuse for a mother just tells her without warning or preparation. I’d tried to stop her, but the horror of Sienna knowing robbed me of words. I’d been frozen in this awful reality.

“Baby, look at me,” I said, reaching for her, but she stepped back. She didn’t look at me, and instead she moved away. That was worse than someone slicing me open with a blade.

“You were better than Dustin. He was weak—” her mother started, but I turned and glared at her.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I roared. She’d said enough. I never wanted to hear her speak again.

“Don’t defend him. He used her,” she said.

“I’m not defending him! I am protecting her. Shut up! She didn’t need to hear it this way. She never needed to fucking know. He’s gone. That’s over. She had her memories, and she was happy. Don’t you see that? What is your problem, woman? Do you enjoy seeing her in pain?”

At least she had the decency to flinch.

“Stop,” Sienna said, drawing my attention back to her. “She was right. I should know. That’s something I should have been told a long time ago. I don’t crumble. I’ve proved that. It makes sense, really. He was always near her. She was always around. I trusted him. I did. But it makes sense.”

There was only emptiness in her voice. I fucking hated it. I preferred her tears. Or even her screaming. But not this. It was like she was shutting down and shutting everyone else out. I wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t pushing me away.

“I wanted to keep you from being hurt by the Falcos. So I had your aunt check the mail daily and send me all the letters you sent them. I have them all if you want them. I did keep the photos, though. I want them, if that’s okay. It was how I watched Micah grow. But the letters, you can take those to Tabby. I have them in the car.”

She’d taken the letters because she was punishing us for my brother’s cheating. How fucked up was that? My parents lost their son. Then they found out he had gotten Kimmy pregnant, and she’d had an abortion the day after his funeral. It had spread through town like wildfire. A year later Kimmy moved away with a guy and had never returned to Sea Breeze.

Not having to see her had helped. When I saw her face, all I saw was the girl who’d killed my brother’s kid. I hated her. I couldn’t forgive her. I didn’t even want to. She disgusted me.

“Go. Both of you, go. Leave the letters on the porch. I’m not ready for this. Maybe one day I can find a way to forgive you, Mother, but today is not that day.”

She didn’t look at either of us. Her eyes were still unfocused as she stared off at nothing. “Give me an hour, then please bring Micah home. But I need you to go.”

She was talking to me. She wanted me gone.

Fuck no. She wasn’t pushing me away.

“I’m not leaving you,” I told her.

She sighed, then finally turned to look at me. “Did you know?”

I wanted to lie. I wanted to lie so damn bad.

“Yes.” I admitted the truth because I refused to lie to her.

“Then you need to go. I want you to go.”

“Sienna, I had my reasons. I was protecting you—”

“I don’t care. I want you to go. Leave me. Both of you.”

Then she turned and walked away, locking herself in her bedroom.

I stood there staring at her door, wanting nothing more than to pull it off his damn hinges and make her let me hold her. Explain to her what I was doing. Why I did it.

“She needs time. Don’t do anything stupid. You never were as stupid as your brother. You were the smart one. Don’t let her down, like we did.” Then Nina Roy turned and walked away.

I stood in that living room waiting for sobs, or something to give me an excuse to burst into her room and hold her. There was nothing but silence. She wanted time alone. I would give her that. But this wasn’t over. It was the beginning. She just had to see that.

Six years ago . . .

DEWAYNE

“Slow down, man. You gotta calm the hell down. You can’t kill her. You’ll do life, dude. She’s a kid. A dumbass one, but still, she’s a kid.” Preston’s words were falling on deaf ears. I didn’t give a fuck. If Kimmy Bart had aborted my brother’s baby, I was going to fucking murder her with my own hands.

“Get your ass to the Alpha frat house,” Preston said into the phone. “Dewayne’s going after Kimmy, and word is she’s here. I can’t hold him back.” I knew I had about five minutes before Rock got here. Because if someone was going to stop me, Rock was the only person I knew who had the strength. I had a slut to find.

I’d lost my brother, and Sienna was just fucking gone. Vanished. And now this shit. I had reached my breaking point, and I didn’t give a fuck anymore. Bring on prison. This was all my fault anyway. Fighting with a drunk sixteen-year-old boy had been stupid. He was a kid, and I had threatened him while he was drunk—with the one thing I knew he didn’t want to lose. Sienna.

All of this could have been avoided if I’d just walked out of that house and dealt with him when he was sober. Maybe he had been ready to let Sienna go. If he’d been sober and made that decision, then I’d have let him. If he didn’t know how lucky he was, then he didn’t deserve her. But he didn’t have to die over it. That was all me. Fucking me.

“Kimmy’s slept with most of the basketball team. Hell, I’ve slept with her, I think. That could have been anyone’s kid. We don’t know it was Dustin’s. Just because she was claiming it was his don’t make it his,” Preston said.

I knew this. But I also knew I’d seen my brother fucking her bare. Chances were good that baby had been his. All that was left of my brother, and she’d murdered it. She deserved to die too.

“What if she wasn’t even pregnant? Ever thought of that? She was jealous of Sienna. Dustin wouldn’t break up with her. He loved Sienna. He just wanted to fuck Kimmy. Girls do that shit when they’re desperate. She could have been lying. Don’t do life because of a lying teenage girl.”

I wanted to blame someone, someone other than me, because the pain and regret were too much. If Kimmy had aborted Dustin’s baby, then I could lay all this hate and blame on her. She would deserve it. And I needed to be free of it. I just wanted to take a deep breath again. I wanted to be able to look my parents in the face and not feel like a bastard for being the reason sorrow filled their eyes.