Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
“My mom didn’t want us hanging out,” I tell him and I’m surprised how easily I said it. Like it doesn’t feel like my heart is shattered by the memory. “We were just girls, fourteen and fifteen at the time.”
“Why’s that?”
“People said some things. Blamed some things that happened on Sam, and my mom said it was her fault.” My voice cracks and I feel myself breaking down, so I reach for the volume on the stereo again. I turn it up, feeling guilty about so much and not wanting to deal with it.
Guilty about what happened back then.
Guilty about what’s going to happen.
“Hey,” Dean says softly, and I just barely hear him over the constant bass of whatever song this is. I don’t recognize it. I glance at him, wishing I could hide, but he does that thing again, taking my hand and kissing the tips of my fingers. “You did good, Allie Cat.”
If guilt could kill someone, I’d be dead.
DEAN
This is a bad idea.
The shrink was wrong. Driving all the way to 24 Easton Avenue in Brunswick wasn’t anything I needed. As I watch my mother, who’s sitting on the steps of the porch taking another puff of her cigarette, I already know I’m not going to get anything from her. And that this was a bad idea.
Closure, mending fences—whatever the hell Dr. Robinson thought I’d get from this isn’t here.
My mother looks the same in a lot of ways but also beaten down, as if the years haven’t been kind to her, or maybe I just remember her differently. She’s in loose-fitting clothes that make her seem even smaller than when I saw her last. She looks frail beneath them.
Dr. Robinson is just like everyone else, thinking I’m exaggerating or that my perception is skewed. But showing up out of nowhere to tell my mother I’m working on my anger and making progress was a fucking mistake.
Allie stretches in her seat, slowly waking up from the nap she took for the last thirty minutes of the drive.
She’s so damn beautiful when she sleeps.
I wish she’d stayed asleep, so I could keep driving.
“We’re here?” she asks sleepily and tries to hide her yawn. I watch her look up at the house we’re parked in front of. The seat protests as she leans forward and takes in the porch, a red and blue wreath adorning the front door and two matching pots with baby’s breath on either side of it. “It’s cute,” she says sweetly.
I gesture across the street to my mother’s place with my hand as it rests on the steering wheel and then turn off the ignition. “That one.”
She’s quick to turn her head and say it’s cute too. And maybe it’s all right on the outside. No homey details and it looks just like it did six years ago when my mother bought it with that asshole. Only more weathered … just like my mother.
“You can stay here if you want,” I say. My anxiety is getting the best of me. I told Dr. Robinson I’d do it, so I will. I’m not a little bitch. But no one likes being pushed aside and dismissed. Especially by their own mother. And definitely not in front of the woman they’re seeing.
“I’ll come,” she says as she unbuckles her seat belt. As she reaches for her purse on the floorboard, my mother’s gaze finally finds its way over here.
A puff of smoke slowly billows from her mouth. Other than that, there’s no reaction. I know she recognizes me though, because she doesn’t look away. My chest tightens, making each breath more difficult. I focus on forcing air in and out. Just in and out.
The neighborhood is quiet when I step out, listening to the sound of Allie’s door and then mine clunk close before I turn to look back at my mother. She’s still seated, blowing out another puff before stubbing out her cigarette on the concrete step.
Allie waits for me before making her way across the street.
This was fucking stupid. It’s all I can think as I make my way back to a house I hate, back to a woman I loathe. The anger is subdued, though. It’s so messed up that even after all these years, I want something to change between the two of us.
That’s the first mistake. Having hope.
“Dean?” my mother says and slowly stands up on the stoop. Her sweatpants hang loose on her body, as does the shirt she’s wearing. I keep my shoulders square and look my mother in the eye.
“What are you here for?” she asks, setting her hands on her hips and narrowing her gaze.
I was right in my assumption from the car, she’s lost weight. Could be the cigarettes or it could be the stress of losing Rick. Maybe she’s been like this for years. I don’t know.