Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) (38 page)

I’d slung my wet things on the porch to dry after pulling away from Boone with some lame mumbling
.
Spun out, I really didn’t remember what I’d said ten seconds earlier. “Thanks a lot for the heads-up,” I hissed at Mom as I started up the steps.

“Sweetie,” Mom
said. She followed me. Obviously, deep down inside, I wanted her pursuit. If I’d wanted to be left alone, I would have kept my mouth shut. I needed a target, someone to lash out at, someone to blame.

She closed my bedroom
door behind her.

“How could you?” I said
with flat disgust. “You could have called me or texted me. While I’m off canning chicken parts, he’s planning to leave, and then I come home to be blindsided by it?” My voice broke.

Her sad face
bombarded me with pity. “It wasn’t my place to tell you. It was his. This is between the two of you.”

There she went again with the grownup crap. I slumped on the edge of my bed, tears finally spilling
in chokes that wrenched my whole body.

“Oh, sweetie,” Mom soothed
. She sat beside me to pull me into a much-needed hug. Her hand brushed at my hair. “He doesn’t want to leave you. I know he doesn’t. And believe me, we tried to persuade him to stay. But I understand his choice. I worry about Nana alone in Florida every single day and feel guilty we didn’t bring her up here the minute this thing started. His parents are older than your dad and me. They probably
do
need his help.”

I nodd
ed as I shoved the wad of tissues she handed me against my disgusting nose.

“If you could have seen him when he looked out the garage door and saw that…that pervert with you. He asked if we knew him
, but by the time we got to the door, the guy had his hand on you…. The way Boone went across the driveway, I thought I’d witness a murder. He cares about you, but you’re going to have to let him go, at least for a while.”

“
‘If you love something, set it free’ and all that crap?” I said, sniffling, the worst of the storm over but plenty more waiting on a bleak horizon. I pulled away to sit up straight

“It sucks,” Mom admitted
. She reached out to stroke my hair one more time. “There’s ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’”

I stared at my
chapped hands. “I sure hope not, at least not on my side.” I flopped sideways so my head landed on my pillow. Tears continued to leak out of the corners of my eyes. “I know there are people with a lot worse problems than me, but why did the world have to decide to end
this
year?”

Mom rubbed my leg. “It isn’t fair, Violet. I can picture you and Boone together at college. It was going to be perfect, wasn’t it?”

At the quaver in her voice, I shoved my face into the pillow. Mom’s crying over Boone meant she probably thought he was the right guy for me, and she also thought I’d never see him again. I agreed on both counts and our imminent separation shredded me like coleslaw. 

She rub
bed my calf for a few minutes before speaking. “I don’t know what to wish for anymore when I think about your future, and Sara’s, except to hope the eruption stops. It seems like every day we move farther and farther from any chance for the life you thought you’d have.”

She patted me
for a long time as we communed in silent helpless misery.
 

 

After Mom left, I stayed on my bed. I looked up at nothing, covers pulled to my chin, and considered options as I took brutal stock of my future. Hard as it was, I let go of Western Case College and the dream of a first job or a first apartment, and, to some extent even the idea of marriage or babies. I abandoned the concepts of normalcy or expectations and replaced them with a decision to live within each day making the best choices I could to use those hours.

T
he echoing pop of a single gunshot after dusk clicked my resolve into place. I knew what I was going to do and what I was going to say.

Excited chatter erupted downstairs.
I rolled to my feet, fairly certain SuperBoone had shot Bambi. The air in the house chilled me after the warmth of my bed. The new Violet shoved the minor discomfort away.

Dad and Grampa were headed out the back door, each armed with a flashlight. The windows were steamed up on the inside, blocking any view of what might be happening. I sat at the kitchen table with my feet on the seat in front of me, all folded up as I ate a bowl of ramen noodles, the salty brew balanced between my knees. I knew Mom must be stressed if
she’d produced instant soup for dinner, especially with Grandma in the house.

Danny and Sara were still in the living room. “Did she do anything all day?” I asked Mom resentfully.

“I know, but she hasn’t seen Danny in over a week.” She bit her lip.

I slurped up broth
, unimpressed by Sara’s plight.

Beams of light flared against the
windowpanes about a half hour later. Dad jogged to the garage then circled back around with a rope in one hand and our tallest stepladder balanced in the other.

Grandma
opened the back door. “What do you have there?” I followed her to the patio. Grampa shined his light forward so Boone, obviously pulling a load, could see.

“He made a heckuva shot, Bittie,
’bout a hundred yards away from the house,” Grampa said. “Clean kill. Nice doe. I think it’s cold enough to let her hang overnight, don’t you?”

“Yup,” she said. “You almost got yourself a cussing board mark there, too, Herb. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“I owe you three,” Boone said.

She clucked her tongue. “Looks like you gutted out
your deer, and I’m guessing you’ll be skinning it in the morning, so consider your chores done.”

As if on cue, the electricity came on. Random lamps and heaters clicked on all over the house
. We cheered. “Sara, turn on the news,” Mom yelled as she ran to the laundry room. A load had festered in the washer for days. I’d heard talk of needing a clothesline and wondered with a sinking heart who would dig the holes for those posts.

I
flicked on the patio light. The doe lay on her side. She didn’t look like she was sleeping. Her eyes stared, wide open, sleek fur dotted with leaf litter, back feet hog-tied together, and a slit up her stomach like the zipper on a fur coat. Steam rose out of the body cavity. I pointedly did not look for the killing wound, not wanting to see brains or ripped flesh.

T
he circle of life song throbbed to a crescendo in my head. Life and death. Hello and goodbye.

Dad and Boone
used the ladder to sling rope over a tree branch. They hung the unlucky doe head up, opposite from the poor upside-down chickens.

“Why are they
doing that?” I asked Grandma.

“Mainly to cool it. Some people let them hang for days, but Grampa and I never did. Get it done and put away, we always said.”

“Will we have to can it tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow or the next day,” she said. “We’ll see if the power stays on.”
 

 

Once the water heater got up to temperature, we all indulged in fast showers. I went last because it served my dastardly plot to get some time alone with Boone. We sat on the couch to watch the bad news. Dad finally gave up and went to bed, but only after giving me a sharp look to suggest he’d try to lie awake until he heard me climb the steps.

Whatever.

I waited a while before turning to Boone. His hair had been freshly spiked though it had grown longer than I’d ever seen, giving him a rebellious look rather than his usual clipped discipline.

“I understand you have to go,” I said, gesturing toward the TV where a satellite image showed
the pale haze muting the entire continent to faded greens and browns. Tonight’s news featured pictures of everything he’d described earlier, and more. Bodies sprawled beside a fuel truck. Babies crying and coughing in refugee camps. People begging, holding out empty Dasani water bottles like tin cups.

He took my hand. The rough skin of our fingers a
braded. “That means a lot to me,” he said.

I
rubbed his thumb with mine and took a deep breath. “I want to go with you.” I smiled as I remembered the first text I’d ever sent to him.
Hi Boone this is Violet. Id like to go. Where and when

My statement confused him. H
is eyebrows crashed together as he concentrated like he was a first-semester student in a foreign language I was speaking.

“I want to go with you,” I repeated,
stronger this time.

“No,” he said. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Excuse me? What am I, your kid? You don’t get to say ‘absolutely not’ to me.”

He sighed. “This isn’t about me being bossy, Violet. You can’t come because I have no idea what I’m driving into.”

“I know. That’s why I should come. I can help. We make a good team.” I realized I probably sounded lame to a guy who used to be a quarterback.

“We do make a good team, but I’m not going to endanger you like
that. I’m pretty sure I can feed myself and protect myself if I have to.” He shook his head against something he pictured. “I’m not going to risk you out there.”

“You seemed pretty good at protecting me today,” I said.

“That’s kind of the point,” he said harshly. “Multiply today’s weirdo by a hundred. You won’t be safe out there.”

“It should be my choice.”

“Well, it isn’t. I can’t take responsibility for you. It’s my truck, going to my ranch, to find my parents. You’re not invited.”

“I don’t want you to feel responsible. I can take care
—”

“Violet, this isn’t a negotiation. I said no.”

I pulled my hand away. “It’s just like the freakin’ formal. You decide how it’s going to be, and I have to suck it up.”

“Are you seriously going to beat me over the head about the
Valentine’s formal for the rest of my life?”

“No. I’m apparently only going to beat you over the head with it for
thirty-six more hours.”

He leaned his head back on the couch cushion and closed his eyes. “Can we please not do this?”

The new Violet was not above pleading. “Boone, I’ll be smart. I’ll stay in the truck when you tell me. I’ll practice with the shotgun and be your lookout and—”

“No, Violet. That won’t work for me.” The words were delivered with calm conviction
. No regret. No longing. No wiggle room. After a minute, he opened his eyes to watch the TV again.

Well, hell. This was not the conversation I’d heard in my
head at dusk. This was not my brave new future. Even worse, his decision sounded more like rejection than protection.

We sat for a long time,
him shut off and me staring at his straight arrow profile. I finally gave in. I snuggled against his side, starved to be close to him. Panicked, really. He tucked my feet between his thighs and wrapped both arms around me. My hands were trapped between us. I uncurled one so I could feel his heartbeat and his breathing. We sat, a cocoon of two, no kissing and no more words, more like survivors than lovers.