Free Jaded (WTF? Series Book 1) by Andrea Smith

and heads back to our room as he opens the door to our trailer, lunch box in hand, and ball cap perched on his head.
    At twenty-five years of age, Jesse is more handsome than when Mama first brought him home. I’ve noticed the bulge in his muscled arms, broad shoulders and thick mass of dark hair. I like the way it peeks out from underneath his ball cap that he always wears to work. I dream of finding a guy like him some day. I know I shouldn’t think those thoughts, but I do. I guess Mama thinks money is more important.
    He slams his metal lunch pail on the counter, and grabs the beer I set out for him, taking a long swig.
    He wipes his mouth, looking around.
    “Where’s Libby?” he asks, taking off his ball cap and running a hand through that thick mass of dark hair. Makes me wish I had hair like his.
    “September?” he says, “Where’s your ma?”
    “Dinner’s ready,” I reply with a meek smile. “Uh, she’s gonna be a little late.”
    “Why? Where she’d go?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
    “She left,” I finally reply, wanting it off my chest. “She says she’s not coming back.”
    “What the fuck?”
    I’m frozen in fear; he’s never laid a mean hand on me, like I said before, but then I’ve never had to give him this kind of news before.
    “What the hell are you talking about, girl?”
    I burst into tears, sinking to the linoleum floor, covering my face with my hands. “That’s all I know, I swear! All she said was that she was going away and not to look for her! She’s said that she would have Granny and Pappy come to get me. I’m so sorry.”
    I’m sobbing uncontrollably now—not just for me, but for Jesse and Scout too. We’ve all lost her and I need to feel some comfort. I want him to comfort me and to tell me that everything is gonna be just fine in his deep, rich voice. Maybe put his strong, muscular arms around me and assure me that the three of us will just have to make do until he can figure out how to bring Mama home.
    He does none of these things.
    I look up from where my face has been buried into my knees. I wipe the salty wetness from my cheeks with the back of my hand, just in time to see Jesse fly out of our trailer like a bat out of hell, cursing loudly. In seconds, I hear him fire up his truck and take off, leaving a patch of rubber on the concrete roadway that winds up to the main road.
    I didn’t see him again for two days.
    The weeks go by with all of us living in a fog; the fog that Mama had created when she took off.  Jesse got the lady down the road, Miss Maybelle, to keep Scout while I’m at school. He calls my grandparents each evening to see if they’ve heard anything from Mama.
    They have not.
    Finally, school is out for the summer.
    Granny and Pappy drive to Fort Smith to pick up me and Scout for the summer. They tell Jesse how ashamed they are of Mama, and promise him they will help out in any way they can.
    When fall rolls around it’s only Scout that returns to Fort Smith. She’s going home to Jesse, and I’m starting ninth grade in Meridian, living with Granny and Pappy.
    Jesse comes to Meridian for Scout. He gives me a hug, and tells me that he’ll keep in touch. He instructs me to behave for my grandparents and I almost tell him that I don’t want to be here, that I belong in Fort Smith with him and Scout. But I’m afraid to say those words to him.
    No one has heard a thing from Mama.

Chapter 1 (Sins of September)
     
     
    May 15, 2010
     
    “Had a call from Jesse today, September,” Gram says as I toss my schoolbooks on the kitchen table and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. Now that I’m seventeen, I don’t call her ‘Granny’ any longer, ‘Gram’ sounds more refined.
    “How’s Scout?” I ask immediately, glancing over at my grandmother who is mending a pair of Grandpa’s work pants.
    “Oh she’s fine, but he’s wondering if maybe you’d like to spend some time with her this