At Whit's End (Wells Ranch, #4)(2)

“C’mon.” I motion to Jonas, letting my hand fall on his shoulder so I can usher him out of the building.

Neither of us say a word.

Not for the five-minute drive home. Not as we trudge inside and kick off our shoes on the entryway tile. Not as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the kitchen island, each having a glass of water.

But when he abandons his glass and starts toward the stairs, I clear my throat. My own half-full drink clunks down on the speckled white countertop. “Dirty dishes in the sink.”

He throws his head back with a groan, as if I’ve handed him a thousand hours of community service. I thought preteen girls were the only ones with attitude, but the slow shuffle of his socked feet and the utterly tortured look on his face says otherwise.

“You’re not suspended. But you have to spend lunch with Principal Maher every day until summer break.”

“What?” He blinks at me, revulsion contorting his face. “No. I’m not doing that.”

“Jonas—”

He slams the glass into the sink with so much force it’s a wonder it doesn’t shatter. “Having lunch with the principal is so cringe.”

“Getting kicked out of school is what’s cringe. Drawing penises on school property is cringe.” I don’t miss the way his lip quirks up at the word penis. Seems all those sex education classes I had to sign a form for back in September aren’t enough to stop preteen boys from giggling about body parts. “And it’s going to be super freaking cringe when you’re forty years old with a fifth-grade education.”

“I’m not doing it,” he states, rolling his eyes and walking away like a miniature version of his damn father.

“You don’t have a choice.”

Taking the stairs two at a time, he disappears out of sight. Blatantly fucking ignoring me.

“Jonas!” I yell after him. It scorches my throat.

Within seconds, I’m grasping his doorknob and throwing it open. Typically, we have a mutual understanding about privacy when doors are shut—but right now? Fuck his privacy. “We aren’t done talking about this.”

He glances up at me, sitting cross-legged on his bed and sliding headphones over his ears.

“Absolutely not.” I snatch the handheld gaming device away while narrowing my gaze. “You’re grounded.”

Jonas tosses his hands in the air with a nasty snarl. “But Maher didn’t suspend me.”

“Are you serious? That doesn’t mean there aren’t still consequences.” I hold the device close to my chest, gripping it like the valuable ransom it is. “You’re grounded until…until…” This is always where I flounder. “Until summer break.”

“Summer break?” His voice flies up an octave and breaks at the end. “That’s still two weeks away. I won’t get—”

“To go to your friend’s end-of-school pool party next weekend? Nope. You won’t. Maybe if you stopped and used your brain for, like, half a second before you did stupid shit, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Everyone is going to Logan’s party.”

“Correction: everyone but you.” I spin on my heel. “You’ll be sitting right here.”

The moment the door slams behind me, his raspy, crying voice screams, “You’re a bitch!”

And I could turn around. Go back in there and ground his ass straight through to September. That’s what my parents would’ve done. Though that clearly didn’t work out so well for them, considering I actively avoid having much of a relationship with them now that I’m an adult. They aren’t bad parents, per se. They were there when Jonas was a baby and I needed help. But they also came down hard on all my mistakes. Judged me for expressing emotions. Belittled me for having opinions.

I refuse to do the same.

So despite that innate desire to unload my pent-up anger on Jonas, I release a shaky exhale and head down the hall, studying the grooves in the floor to keep myself from crying.

Oh look, there’s the mate to that sock from earlier.

In one swift motion, I scoop it up and toss it into the open washing machine in our small laundry room. I slide the pocket door shut behind me for a moment of peace and switch on the empty dryer before slumping to the floor.

My dad owns a hardware store, yet I haven’t mentioned the clanging and thudding sounds my dryer makes because they’re loud enough to drown out any noise, and I prefer for my ten-year-old to not hear me sobbing. He’s never one to pop into the laundry room without being forced—as evidenced by the stray socks—and sometimes I need a minute.

Today, I need twenty.

Knees pulled to my chest, I let tears ricochet off my legs. Steady streams flow down my cheeks, stinging my dry skin, and I lean my head back against the rumbling, obnoxious machine.

I failed him.

I’m failing him.

It’s all true. All the nasty things people have said since the moment I announced I was pregnant at eighteen. Even at twenty-nine, I’m the wild child turned teenage mom with a deadbeat baby daddy.

I send my kid to class with a lunch that’s the perfect representation of the school-provided Healthy Eating Guide so his teacher has one less thing to side-eye me for. I made sure Jonas started seeing a therapist after his first “incident” last year. I don’t do anything reckless because this small town talks.