Motocross Me Read online

  MOTOCROSS

  ME

  By Cheyanne Young

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Cheyanne Young

  Published by 336Love

  First edition June 26th, 2013

  DEDICATION

  For my daughter Hallee,

  I love you, Boo

  And for my Katie,

  Happy Birthday

  Chapter 1

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. It’s not like me to run away. To scream obscenities at my mother, though she totally deserved it. To haphazardly shove the contents of my closet into a duffle bag and storm out of the house, slamming the door like a scorned ex-girlfriend from Jersey.

  But I did it, and I can’t go back now.

  Although I will probably have to go back one day. Sooner, not later. Because I left my phone charger plugged in the kitchen outlet.

  And even though my act of running away is really just me driving four hours down the interstate, sporadically bursting into tears while trying to remember the directions to Dad’s house, I still feel like a rebel who’s so far gone I’m not even worth saving.

  It’s the first day of summer before starting college at seventeen, and I’ve already been kicked out of my own house for the petty crime of Calling Mom’s Fiancé a Worthless Douche.

  Seems to me, it shouldn’t be a crime if it’s the truth.

  I pass the gas station with a giant statue of a gorilla perched on the roof, pointing like the North Star to their low, low gas and cigarette prices, but also to the exit for Mixon, Texas. Population: something in the three digits that I can’t make out because I drive by too fast.

  I haven’t seen my dad in two years. Not since the Fourth of July disaster of ninth grade, when I thought it would be a good idea to bring Mom to Dad’s annual Independence Day barbeque bash with his new wife, Molly. It turned out to be one of my worst ideas. Probably second to running away.

  Dad and Molly had a new house built next to the motocross track they own, and although I don’t know exactly where it is, I figure it won’t be too hard to find. Mixon Motocross Park is right off the main road, illuminated twenty-four hours a day with a light pointed on a faded old piece of painted plywood. Empty grass fields surround both sides of the track, so I won’t need to use my Sherlock detective skills to figure out that a new house next door is probably Dad and Molly’s.

  It’s dark when I finally make it through the potholed county road on the outskirts of Mixon. The new two-story behemoth of a house next door to the track makes my jaw drop. It’s as if my dad showed the contractor a photo of his old crap hole of a house and told him to build a new house that was the exact opposite in every way.

  I park in the u-shaped part of the driveway – the place for visitors – and shut off the engine. The radio goes quiet, but the beating of my heart quickly fills the silence. My fingers grip the steering wheel and I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. Oh, my god. Why am I here? This is so stupid. And my cell phone is dead so I can’t call them and the weight of what I’m doing here in this foreign driveway really starts to sink in. Suddenly I know exactly how those actors are pretending to feel in anxiety commercials.

  But I don’t have any money for a hotel, and I’m not going to drive four hours back to Dallas with my tail between my legs, mainly because I’m exhausted, but also because I don’t want to give Mom the satisfaction. I suck it up and approach the front door like a big girl.

  The doorbell is warm beneath my finger. A shadow flickers through the curtains as someone comes to answer the door and my heart does flip-flops under my ribcage. Come on, Hana. This is my dad. He loves me. It’s not a big deal that I’m showing up unannounced around nine P.M. on a weekday.

  Totally not a big deal. The door opens and I’m face-to-face not with my dad, but with some pre-teen kid.

  “Hana?” The door opens wider and this short little shirtless kid whose abs look like a body builder’s throws his arms around me.

  “Teig?” I pat him lightly on the back and pull away so I can get a closer look at him. He does look a lot like my half-brother, only a foot taller, super tan and weirdly muscular.

  “Dude,” I say, grabbing a handful of his shaggy hair. “You look way too old to be thirteen. I want my scrawny little brother back.”

  “This girl at the track the other day said I was hot, and she thought I was fifteen or sixteen,” he says, completely too proud of himself. He squeezes his fists in front of his chest and flexes his muscles. I’ve only seen him in person maybe two dozen times in his life, but suddenly I have this weird maternal desire to protect him from all teenage girls.

  Dad’s voice calls from the other room, asking who’s at the door. Teig lets me inside and calls out, “Come see for yourself.”

  I stand on the white marble tile in the foyer, hands clasped behind my back so I can’t bite my fingernails as I wait for Dad’s reaction when he sees me. Teig rambles on about something in the same hyper-speed voice I remember from the last time I saw him on his eleventh birthday. Dad’s heavy footsteps bound down the stairs with Molly’s petite ones trailing behind him.

  “Surprise!” Teig says, sweeping his arms toward me as if I am the grand prize on a TV game show.

  Dad’s expression goes from surprise to confusion to concern in about two seconds. “Hana?” He rushes toward me and puts a hand on my shoulder. He glances out the front window, perhaps looking for a police car or ambulance or something. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say casually, trying to diffuse his unnecessary stress. “I’m fine.”

  Molly appears next to me, phone in hand. “Did something happen? Do you need our help?” I shake my head and wring my hands, trying to remember the speech I had rehearsed in my truck. Dad’s wearing a shirt with Mixon’s football team logo on the front and dollar sign pajama pants. Molly is wrapped in a silky robe, her curly hair piled on top of her head with a big plastic clip.

  No rehearsed speech can make up for my intrusion into their perfect family life. Here they are, in this huge beautiful house, dressed in their pajamas as they prepare for a peaceful night’s sleep. Mom, Dad, Son. A functioning family unit who doesn’t need nor care about that sixteen-year-old daughter who lives in Dallas. I had no right to come here tonight.

  But now it’s the only place I want to be. Tears fill my eyes so quickly, I know there’s no point in trying to hold them back. “I’m sorry,” I say, bringing my hands over my face, wishing I would disappear.

  Molly grabs me in a hug and runs her fingers through the tips of my hair. She smells like body wash, not just a bar of soap like Mom and I use, but like coconut and vanilla. I can’t stop crying even though I know my tears are going to soak right through her nice robe.

  Ten minutes later, I’m in the kitchen with a cup of hot tea. I tell them about my fight with Mom, about how she decided it would be financially better for us to move in with her fiancé even though that would mean I’d have to share a room with his five-year-old twins. I leave out the parts where I screamed until my throat hurt and punched a hole in the wall.

  Dad listens the entire time with his fingers pressed over his lips and his forehead creased so deeply I don’t think the wrinkles will ever go away.

  “I’m sorry I showed up unannounced,” I say, fumbling with the string on my
teabag. “I just started driving and didn’t know where else to go.”

  “Our home is your home too,” Molly says. She is always too nice for her own good, and knowing her, she’d tell a homeless murderer the same thing. I look at Dad for some sort of confirmation.

  “You can stay as long as you want,” Dad says.

  Teig’s eyes go wide. “You should move in with us!”

  “It would be nice to have a girl around the house,” Molly says, going over to the refrigerator. She takes out a foil-covered dish. “Let me heat up some lasagna for you.”

  My chest tightens, like something isn’t right. Like the other shoe is about to drop. Are they really being this nice and understanding? Is it really no big deal that I’m here? Does Molly really want another girl in the house?

  Dad claps his hands together in front of his chest. “Looks like you guys have everything under control. I need to get my beauty rest for work tomorrow.” He kisses Molly on the lips, me on the forehead, and punches Teig on the arm before heading back upstairs.

  Molly sets a plate of food in front of me and the smell makes my stomach growl. She says something about a guest bedroom upstairs that needs sheets on the bed. Teig has the same brand of cell phone as I do and loans me his charger.

  What feels like the weirdest night of my life floats naturally through this house, as if random guests are an everyday thing and leftover lasagna is the cure for every ailment. An hour ago I didn’t belong anywhere in the world, and now I’ve been recharged with several hugs and one forehead kiss, and there’s a bed upstairs with clean sheets on it just for me. Sometimes the dumbest thing you’ve ever done is actually a work of genius in disguise.

  Chapter 2

  My phone rings. Sunlight filters in through the window. When I open my eyes, panic engulfs me as I stare at the blotchy plaster ceiling and realize this isn’t my ceiling. It’s Dad and Molly’s ceiling. I’m in Mixon. Holy crap.

  My phone vibrates itself from the nightstand to the floor next to this tall bed with its fancy pillow-top mattress. I throw the new comforter off me and fling my arm off the bed to grab my phone. That’ll be Mom. And she’ll be worried sick about my well-being. The thought makes me smile.

  “Hello?” I answer, not looking at the caller ID because the screen is so bright it hurts my morning eyes.

  “I need details,” Felicia says. “Every single filthy, whorish detail.”

  I roll over, squishing the phone between my ear and my pillow. I am so not a morning person. “What are you talking about?” It’s too early for her to know about my fight with mom. Felicia lives three houses down from me, and although I consider her a friend, sometimes I think she sees me her little homeschooled pet. I mean, she does introduce me to everyone as her “sheltered homeschooled friend, Hana.”

  “Well for starters, I got home at two-thirty this morning.”

  I throw an arm over my eyes to block the sunlight. “As opposed to..?”

  She laughs. “I know right. We went to this kick-ass party on the island. It was in a beach house that had a Jacuzzi in the middle of the living room. But anyhow, that’s not why I’m calling.”

  My mouth opens in what starts as a baby yawn, but morphs into a full grown yawn that makes a roaring sound as I slowly start to wake up. “It better be important since you’re calling so early.”

  “Yeah okay. So when I got home last night I drove past your house and that bright red Chevy truck of yours was not in the driveway. At two-thirty in the morning.”

  “And that’s why you’re calling me? To make sure I’m not dead?”

  “Yes. Now dish. I want the details. Were you with a guy?”

  When am I ever with a guy? “Sorry to break it to you, but I have no juicy gossip. I came to visit my Dad for a few days.”

  “What? That’s boring.” Her disappointment seeps through the phone, and I picture her sitting on her bed pouting as she checks herself out in her full length mirror, eyeliner all smudged from last night’s partying. Not wanting to leave her grasping for gossip and drama, I tell her about my fight with Mom.

  When we hang up, I double check for any sign that my mother tried contacting me last night, but my phone is as empty as the day I first got it. I try to fall back asleep but the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee drifts under my door and fills my lungs. It’s like the Folgers commercial where the smell of coffee wakes up people and they happily drift into the kitchen and kiss their spouse good morning. Only I friggen hate coffee. And the smell of it in my lungs now mixed with my empty stomach makes me nauseous.

  My shorts from last night are on the floor. I put them on and go downstairs, taking my cell phone for when Mom calls me after she wakes up. Because she’s totally going to call.

  In the kitchen, Molly leans over the counter reading the newspaper and singing a song to herself. She picks at a cinnamon roll, eating only the bits with the most icing. She’s wearing sweat pant capris and a black tank top and I wonder why my dad chose to marry her after being with my mom. Molly smiles a lot and doesn’t care about the few extra pounds around her midsection. My mom doesn’t eat breakfast ever, and spends an hour a day at the gym to keep up her skeletal figure. My mom has never, ever, worn sweat pants and she absolutely does not smile a lot. I clear my throat from a distance so I won’t startle my step-mom.

  “Good morning,” Molly says to the tune of her song.

  “Where’s Dad and Teig?” I ask, sitting on the barstool next to her.

  “They’re at the track. You can walk over there and see them if you want. I think Teig is out there riding.”

  Blegh. Dad’s dirt bike track is nothing but a barren, ridiculously hot wasteland of dry dirt jumps and loud annoying motorcycles. I hated spending time there as a kid. “I’d rather just stay here,” I say. She offers me some of her cinnamon roll and I do her a favor by taking a piece with no icing.

  “Have you talked to your mom?” she asks.

  “Nope,” I say quickly, drumming my fingers on the granite countertops to fill the silence that follows. I beg her with my eyes to not bring this up now. Why ruin a perfectly good morning?

  Molly nods as if agreeing with my unasked question. “Want some coffee?”

  I shake my head and suppress a curl from forming in my lip so I won’t hurt her feelings. Coffee is so gross – all the men my mother dates loves coffee. I had the impression that only hideous mid-life-crisis-men liked it, but maybe I’m wrong because Molly is drinking it now. And there isn’t anything the least bit gross about her.

  My phone doesn’t ring for the rest of the day. And it rings even less the day after that. I spend all my time at Dad’s house sitting on the couch in the living room watching Netflix on their huge TV and checking my cell phone twenty-thousand times an hour. I don’t even bother driving around town because there’s nothing but boring country roads and the occasional gas station or farmer’s market. Sometimes I just wander around the house, sliding my hand over the long wooden banister that separates the second floor balcony from the living room below.

  Molly is a stay at home mom, and unlike my mom, she is very organized. Everything is in its place in decorative baskets, floating shelves or clear bins that are marked with a blue and white label. Except for the occasional pair of shoes kicked off by the door, or open magazine on the coffee table, everything in this house looks like it was arranged for an HGTV photo shoot. Dream Homes in Texas, the article would say.

  I can’t stop thinking about Dad’s old house, the one he used to live in with Mom and me. It was small and needed remodeling in just about every room, and Dad always had plans for fixing it up but Mom never wanted to. She longed for the bright lights of a big city, New York or Miami, and a big house to live in. But Dad wanted to stay here in Mixon and work at his motocross track. When they divorced, Mom pursued her dream and Dad pursued his. We moved to the biggest city Mom could afford: Dallas, Texas. Dad stayed here. It’s easy to see who was more successful.

  I know nothing about real estate, bu
t this house couldn’t have come cheap. I smile as I think about my truck – a present from Dad on my sixteenth birthday last year – and remember how I figured he was making monthly payments on it. I worried that he might ask me to take over the payments when I got older. But looking around at this beautiful house with its nice furniture, I somehow don’t think that’s the case. He probably handed the guy at the truck dealership a wad of cash, tipped his hat and said, “Keep the change my good sir.”

  On my third morning of waking up to the unfamiliar plaster blobs on the ceiling, I start to think that maybe my mother is dead. There is no other reason for her to ignore her daughter (who is still a minor, by the way) for three whole days.

  After another slightly awkward morning conversation with Molly, homemade kolaches and the newspaper, I sneak into Dad’s office between Teig’s room and mine and log into his computer. I check Mom’s Facebook page and discover that she isn’t dead. Guilt consumes me when I get annoyed that she isn’t dead. I mean, come on. She’s ignoring me!

  All of her recent status updates have nothing to do with her missing daughter and everything to do with her upcoming Vegas wedding. It takes a lot of effort to resist throwing Dad’s laptop out the window.

  I’m helping Molly make dinner by overseeing the immensely important task of peeling and chopping potatoes when Dad comes home from work. Though working at the track all day makes him come home dirty and worn out, he looks a million times worse tonight.

  “Jason went off to boot camp today,” he says, reaching over my shoulder and grabbing a piece of raw potato to eat. “I never realized how much work that boy did around the track until he wasn’t there anymore.”

  “Maybe you should hire a replacement,” Molly says. He kisses her cheek and she crinkles up her nose and tells him he stinks. I should be used to their incessant displays of affection by now, but it still makes my stomach tense up every time they share an intimate moment around me. They are so cute together and for some reason, that makes it even more awkward to witness.