Motocross Me (Motocross Me 1)

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.”