“Then you won’t mind if I call Christian up here to ask him?”
The blood rushed from her face. He wouldn’t. “Oh, come on. That’s not fair. You’ve done that to me so many times. Remember when you sent me to find blinker fluid?”
Her dad held up his hands. “I know. I know. And while I’m glad and slightly terrified that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, just don’t push him away.”
Maizie bit her bottom lip. “No promises.”
“Come on, sweetie, you know I need the help.” Her dad gave her that pleading look that crumbled her anger. Her dad only needed the help because she wasn’t enough. If Mack was still here, they’d be fine. Just another hole she couldn’t fill.
“I won’t do anything he doesn’t deserve,” she said with resignation.
“That’s all I ask.” Her dad pulled her into a side hug then laughed. “A double-udder milker. That was a good one.”
“I learned from the best,” Maizie said with a grin.
Christian had totally fallen for it.
* * *
Maizie awokebefore her alarm the next morning, gasping for air. She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them again. The image was gone, for now. She pulled the covers back up to her chin and took slow, deep breaths.
Just after Mack had died, the school counselor had told Maizie that Mack’s death hadn’t been her fault, but if that was true, why did she still have nightmares about seeing his stone-cold face and blood running down his head as he lay beside the overturned four-wheeler?
She’d never actually seen him at the crash site, but his lifeless body, bruised and broken, in the hospital bed had made the scene easy to imagine. Not a single day had gone by in the last three years that she hadn’t had that image come to mind at least once.
She hit play on her calming music playlist and let the songs run one after another until the dream was gone. Then she pulled herself from her bed and got ready for school.
Twenty minutes later, she was as calm as she would ever be, and ready to go.
The early morning dew-filled air smelled like home. The sprinklers in the field across the street were the only sound this morning, and the sunrise was coloring the world in a pinkish hue. She might not love mornings, but they sure had their perks.
She walked to her truck and rounded the driver’s side.
That’s weird. Why is my window down?
She always rolled her windows up at night to avoid any morning occurrences with unfriendly farm critters.
She stayed back a step and patted the door with her backpack. Nothing came scurrying out the window. And after doing it again with the same lack of response, she deemed her truck safe.
She pulled open the door and swung her leg inside. An unfamiliar black shadow caught her eye, and she turned.
“Ahhh!” She tried to jump back out of the truck, but with one foot in and one foot out, she ended up sliding to the ground instead.
“Don’t spray. Don’t spray.” She said to herself as she lay frozen in the dirt. The truck was silent, and after a full minute she finally looked up.
Nothing.
She stood gingerly, dusting off her scraped legs, studying the area for the skunk. She peeked inside the truck and caught her scream before it could escape this time.
“Dang it.” She grabbed the hairy, fake skunk and threw it into the bushes next to the house. “I’m going to kill whoever did that.”
* * *
Christian whistledthe whole way to Eric and Anne’s house for dinner the next night. According to Maizie’s mother, who had looked out the window when Maizie had screamed, he’d won this round of their game.
“Hey, man, do you want to play basketball?” Mitchell held a ball up, tossing it back and forth.
Christian hadn’t played since his last high school game. It had been his fault they’d lost, and that alone had been enough to tear him up inside. But that had only been the beginning of the worst night of his life. Instead of his sister and parents waiting for him outside the locker room, there had been a police officer. He’d taken Christian to the hospital, but he’d never even gotten a chance to say goodbye to his father. He hadn’t so much as touched a ball in the last year and a half, convinced that if he did, something bad would happen.
