Prologue
Past 8 years ago
“I’m going to marry you one day, Blakey.”
I turned my face toward Tayia in disgust as she sat next to me on the couch, clinging to my arm and batting her eyelashes.
“Quit calling me Blakey and get off me. Ugh,” I grumbled as I shook my arm to loosen her grip, though she only tightened her hold.
“Well, I am.” She cheesed proudly, flashing her silver braces.
“I told you, Tayia, I’m never getting married, and if one day I do have to get a wife, it ain’t gonna be you." She looked sad immediately and I felt a pain in my gut.”
W-why not?” she stuttered, her voice sounding small.
“Because”—I shoved her in the forehead with the palm of my free hand. When her neck tipped back, she let go of my arm—“you’re annoying,” I said, quickly moving away.
Annoying, that was an understatement.
Tayia and her dad had moved across the street a year ago, and I would see her outside by herself almost every day and sometimes wandering the neighborhood. Her dad’s car was always gone, which meant she was often left home alone. My mom went over to speak to Tayia’s dad and found out that he drove the ferry between the island and Key City, which meant he worked a lot. Since his daughter was twelve, he thought she could stay home alone. Mom did not agree and insisted Mr. Jones let Tayia come to our house when he worked. But, then again, Mom was a hard person to disagree with—a real ball buster, as my Uncle Ronnie would say.
It had always just been Mom and me. I didn’t see my dad much, maybe a couple of times a year. He was a nice guy who brought me presents, but he never stayed around for long. One night when they thought I was sleeping, I overheard Grandma and Mom talking about him. It was then I found out my dad had a different wife who didn’t know about me. This had been shocking news because I thought he was married to my mother. I also didn’t understand why I had to be a secret. Grandma said he needed to do a better job helping to buy the things I needed, and the next day, Mom had been on the phone crying and telling Dad to send more money or she would talk to his wife.
Not long after that, we moved into this house, which I liked much better than the apartment, although, the space started to feel cramped with Tayia always hanging around. She latched on to me right away. We walked to and from the bus stop, and if her dad wasn’t home after school, she had to come to our house, which ended up being pretty much every day. Even when Mr. Jones wasn’t working, they still ate dinner at our house because Tayia’s dad wasn’t a very good cook.
If I was doing my homework at the kitchen table, she was sitting across from me. If I moved into the living room to watch TV, she followed. I often caught her in my room messing with my stuff, and I would have to push her into the hallway and lock the door so she didn’t come back in. The only place I was safe was the bathroom, until she started screaming and hollering about needing to go, too.
I knew she had a crush on me, but Tayia was twelve and I was fourteen. She was just a kid, and I’d be going to high school soon.
“When will my mom and your dad be home?” I asked, feeling irritated as I glared out of the window to check the driveway. Our parents had gone to dinner together, which felt kind of weird. It was fine that they were friends, but I wasn’t sure I liked that they’d been spending so much time together. “Shouldn’t they be back already?” When Tayia didn’t say anything, I turned around to find her sitting on the couch, staring down at her hands. “Tayia?”
She lifted her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. Instantly, my feet were scrambling in her direction.
“Tay?” I dropped down on my knees in front of her. “What’s the matter?” When she turned her face up to look at me, my heartbeat quickened. Man, her eyes were pretty.
“You called me annoying.” She pouted and used the backs of her hands to wipe away the tears. I felt bad hearing her repeat what I had said.
"I’m sorry.” The words flew out of my mouth before I even knew I would say them.
The sadness instantly left those green eyes I couldn’t look away from, and suddenly, I could breathe again. “It’s okay. I can’t stay mad at you.” She sniffled and sat up straight. “Can I have a hug?” She grinned hopefully, and I knew I’d been duped.
“Sure.” Slowly, I wrapped my arms around her as she crushed her tiny body against me, pressing her wet and snotty face to my neck. Yep, like I said, annoying.
I waited a few more seconds before gently pushing her away.
“Will you make me a promise?” Tayia asked as she rested back against the couch.
“What kind of promise?”
“Never say never.”
“What?”
“Promise me you will never say that you will never marry me.”
“Tayia, I—”
“Promise me, Blakey.”
I blinked at her for a few seconds because I didn’t know what to say. Like I told her, I had no plans to ever get married. My Uncle Ronnie was not married. He raced cars and had tons of girlfriends. I wanted to be like him when I grew up, but the look on Tayia’s face made it hard to tell her no. I really did care about her, even if she was irritating.
“Fine, and you have to promise if you ever get a husband, you’ll make sure he’s nice to you.” I tugged lightly on the long braid resting over her shoulder.
“Well, that’s a silly thing to promise since I’m going to marry you.” She giggled and I rolled my eyes before standing up. “Oh, it will be so easy! We already have the same last name. Blake Jones and Tayia Jones. It’s a sign, I tell you.”
“Signs? Do you even know what you’re talking about?” I grumbled while walking into the kitchen, knowing full well that she would follow. I fixed us both a sandwich and we ate at the table while she chattered away about a new book she’d been reading, Wuthering Heights. Even though I’d already read it for my advanced literature class, I pretended to not know where the story was headed because I liked hearing her retell it. Mom thought it might be above her reading level, but Tayia didn’t have a problem getting through the book.
We heard the key slip into the front door lock and turned our heads to see our parents walking into the kitchen, hand in hand and smiling.
“We have news! Wonderful news!” Mom announced excitedly but my eyes never left their joined hands. “Chris and I are getting married.” She lifted her left arm and wiggled her fingers to show us her diamond ring while bouncing on her toes in excitement. Dumbfounded, Tayia and I exchanged glances.
“Getting married? How?” I asked after finally finding my voice.
“Blake, I know this
all seems like a big surprise, but Chris and I have been seeing each other for a while. We just didn’t want to get you kids involved until we knew where things were going between us long term.” My mother wound her fingers together nervously and walked over to stand next to me. “I know this is the right thing for us, sweetheart.” She smiled down at me and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Kids, Maggie and I love each other very much,” Tayia’s dad said. “This is happy news, guys! Why the long faces?” He threw a confused glance at his daughter. “Tayia?”
“Congratulations, Daddy,” she stammered then hugged him. “You, too, Miss Maggie.” She reached an arm around my mom.
“Tayia, I know I can never replace your mother, and I’m so sorry she passed away when you were so young.” She touched Tayia’s cheek. “I want you to know I love you, and I hope one day you can call me Mom.” Tayia nodded stiffly then shifted her eyes to me.
“Blake?” Mom squeezed my shoulder. “How are you doing with all this?”
“I’m okay,” I managed to say, though my mind felt frozen in confusion.
“This will all work out just fine.” Mr. Jones smiled down at us. “Would you look at that, Tayia doll? You have a brother now.”
Why did something inside me want to reject the idea of Tayia being my sister? I didn’t understand it then, but the uneasiness I felt that night would turn into a full rebellion inside over the next eight years.