I don’t move, my arms ache with the need to embrace him, but I keep them at my side. I don’t speak. I don’t react. I’m frozen in a battle between agony and hope. I do nothing because I have no idea of what to do. And I don’t trust myself to make the right choice.
“Becca?” he calls my name again. But I’m empty of words.
He disengages with just enough space between us so he can see my face. I can feel his gaze burning into my skin. I open my eyes, and I’m instantly lost in his. This is a mistake. This can’t be real.
His thumbs caress my cheeks. “Say something! Tell me that what I think is happening between us is true.”
I shake my head and step away from him, his hands linger, touching the air where I once stood, and then ever so slowly, they drop to his sides.
The weight of unspoken words hangs between us, like a darting butterfly. Flitting here and there and never landing to rest its wings. That weight settles in my chest and drops to my stomach, bringing me down with it as I fall back into my parked car behind me and lock my knees so as not to slide down to the ground. Not for a moment does his gaze leave my face, reading, learning, assimilating but never judging.
Something that looks a lot like resignation and understanding washes over him. It fills his lungs as he drags a deep breath in, expanding his chest. Then, without a word, he turns and walks away.
He doesn’t see the first tear that runs down my face or the ones that follow.
Chapter Fifty
I’ve buried myself under blankets and shut the world out since everything happened. Has it really been a week? It almost feels like years have passed. God, I never imagined this could hurt so much.
I have dozens of texts and calls from Tommy. I shut him out too. And a voice message from Dylan that I can’t bring myself to listen to. I’m glad no one knows where I am. Lucas’ apartment is my sanctuary right now. I’m sure Tommy has gone looking for me in the dorm.
But spring break is almost over, and I’ll have to leave soon. Lucas will be back, and I don’t belong here.
The only person I communicate with is River, and even then I haven’t told her everything. But she’s coming over today to talk. I drag myself from the bed and get into the shower. Make myself look human again.
A knock on the door makes me jump even though I’m expecting it. I open the door and step back, River comes in, and my tears start before I even close the door. What’s wrong with me? How can I possibly have any more tears to cry?
River pushes the door closed and hugs me. No words are said. She holds me until I run dry again. I step back and walk to the sofa, wrap myself in a blanket.
River stands looking at me. “You look like a wiener in a blanket with just your head popping out.”
Only River could make me laugh in a time like this. “You mean a pig in a blanket?”
“Nah, wiener in a blanket is so much more fun to say than pig in a blanket.”
“Sit.” I wave at a spot next to me.
She kicks her shoes off and sits, her legs crossed on the couch so she can face me. “Okay, friend. What happened?”
I heave in a breath. “Dylan and I are no more.”
She nods. “I figured as much. But what exactly happened? You guys were so happy. Last time we talked you were spending Dylan’s birthday with him, and everything was great.”
“And I did. We were together on his birthday. And it was amazing until it wasn’t.” Even now it’s hard to speak about it.
River listens, and I tell her everything. Leave nothing out. How happy I was. How I loved being with him. How I ran away that night and again the next morning.
She holds my hand through it all, and when I’m done, she grabs a tissue box from the coffee table and gives it to me.
“Do you love him?”
I didn’t expect the question and stutter without answering.
“It’s not a difficult question. Do you love him?”
“Yes. I do.” My heart squeezes under the weight of how much love I feel for Dylan.
“Do you think he loves you?”
“I don’t know.” I’m afraid to hope he does.
“Think, Becca. How did he act? How did he talk to you? How did he behave?”
Dozens of images of us together play in my mind like the scenes of a romantic comedy. Moments filled with laughter and … loving gestures. “I know he likes me. I don’t know if he loves me.”
River drops one leg to the floor. “Fair enough. The question is, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know what I want. I want to go back in time and erase everything so I don’t feel like this.”
“Do you? Do you really want to erase all the times you spent with Dylan?” River challenges me.
I sigh. “No, I don’t. I loved every minute. Even in the beginning when he annoyed me, I still enjoyed being close to him.”
“Then what are you going to do about it?” Where is she going with this?
“What can I do? It’s over!”
“Is it? Is it really over? Because it seems to me that as long as you two have feelings for each other, it’s not over. Not by a long shot.”
I grab my hair with both hands and tug with a growl. “I don’t know what to do.”
“If you were telling all of this to the therapist, what do you think he would tell you to do?”
“What?” I blink at her. “What do you mean?”
“You talked to him dozens of time, correct?”
I’m getting hot. I push the blanket off of my shoulders. “Yes.”
“You know what he would tell you. What do you have to fix first? Which steps should you take next?”
“He would tell me to figure out why him finding out who I am upset me so much.”
“And?” Her one-word question comes with the arching of an eyebrow.
“I have to work on myself first. I have a shit-ton of crap to dig up.”
“We all do. It won’t be easy, but you don’t have to dig alone. I’m here. I can help.”
“Not in this, River. I’ve been thinking a lot. Heck, that’s all I did for a week. Think and cry. Cry and think.”
“So, what’s next?”
“I have to go back to where it all started. I have to go see my mother first. I won’t be able to deal with myself and Dylan until I face her. This has been a long time coming.”
“If you want me to come with you—”
“No.” I cut her off. “I need to do this alone. But fist I have a few text messages to respond to.”
I start with Tommy.
Becca: Hey. Sorry for ghosting you for a week. I’m OK.
Five seconds is all it took for my phone to ring. “Hi.”
“What the hell, Becca. I’ve been worried sick. I didn’t even know if you were alive or dead. Dylan won’t tell me what happened. He spends the entire day locked in his office staring at his computer. He shut down and won’t say a freaking word.” Tommy’s voice is both angry and sad.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry for worrying you. I wasn’t in a good place and needed some time away.”
“What the hell happened?”
My eyes sting. “It’s not something I want to talk about, but I’m okay, you don’t have to worry.”
“Did he do something? Did Dylan hurt you somehow?” His voice rises.
Hearing Dylan’s name again makes my heart ache. “No. This has nothing to do with Dylan. It’s on me. I had a panic attack. And I need time to figure some things out.”
“Where are you? I’ve been to your dorm a dozen times. I even made them open your room. I thought … God. I thought you hurt yourself.”
Jesus. I never imagined Tommy would be that worried about me. “I’m at a friend’s house. I’m okay, Tommy. I swear. And I’ll be back in a couple of days.”
There’s a long silence where all I can hear is him breathing.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I am. I promise …” I hesitate. “How is he?”
/>
“Miserable, grouchy, running morning, noon, and night.”
Running. That’s what Dylan does when he can’t sleep, or when he’s stressed out. “Listen, I have to go. But I’ll be back on campus next week. I have a few things I have to do first. But then I’ll see you and … and maybe fix this mess I made.”
“I want you and him to be happy. He’s happiest when he’s with you.”
“I’m happiest when I’m with him too.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Becca: Give me time, please.
Chapter Fifty-Two
I pause on the sidewalk, my feet hesitating to take that next step.
Everything is the same and yet so different. It’s been nearly four years since I last stepped foot in the house. It has never been a home. Not in all the years I lived here. Time worked its unforgiving will over the building. It looks smaller than I remember. The walls, once white, are now the kind of muted gray only time and age can paint on.
My shoes step through mud and leaves where grass had once been. A sudden bang sounds from the house, making me jump. My gaze darts across the yard for the source. All the shutters are missing except for one that hangs by a single hinge, refusing to give in to the ravages of time and let go.
The air smells dry and dusty with a tinge of decay. The type of smell one finds in abandoned buildings.
I take reluctant steps toward the front door, raising my hand to knock when I’m close enough. So many layers of peeling paint, different colors fighting each other like a chaotic and uneven kaleidoscope.
I waver. Do I really want to do this? No. I don’t. But I need to. I need to see her again. Speak my mind. Be heard. Maybe give my mother one last chance. See if there is anything that can be salvaged between us even if I don’t believe there is.
The palms of my hands dampen, my heart flutters with an uneven tempo. What am I waiting for? I knock on the door. Wait. Knock again.
Thumping sounds come from inside, something crashes to the floor. The door yanks open, and she stands inside. My mother.
A multitude of images flash through my mind. A reverse timeline of my life—from the day I left without saying goodbye to my earliest memories. She’s even thinner now, yellowed skin hangs on her bones. Bloodshot eyes look at me, unseeing at first. Then a glimmer of recognition. A smile filled with rotting teeth.
“Becca …” Bony hands reach to me, and she pulls me to her chest. She’s frail to the touch. I both crave and am repulsed by the embrace. She steps to the side, making space for me to enter. I freeze at the door. Look around the room, strain to hear the sounds of someone else there with her.
Nothing has changed. The same dirty beige walls greet me. The same stained couch. Three empty soda cans and dirty dishes litter the old wooden table in the middle of the room. The old box TV is on with the sound turned off. A blanket hangs half on and half off the couch as if someone, she, was just lying on it, taking a nap, perhaps.
“Come in. It’s only me here.” She steps back. “All alone,” she adds. A tinge of guilt threatens to surface. I shut it down. She was always good at that. At making me feel guilty with a single word.
I step in, close the door. It’s stuffy and too hot inside. The air smells stale. It’s a miracle she remembers to pay the utility bills. Maybe someone else does. She never stayed alone too long. But she’s no longer the beautiful woman I grew up with. It’s hard to imagine anyone being attracted to her sickly figure.
“How are you, Mom?”
“I’m better, much better.” She sits on the couch and pats the spot next to her. The same couch Theodore attacked me on. Revulsion sends a shiver down my spine. She doesn’t look better.
I move the cans into the trash bin, put the dirty dishes in the sink, and sit on the table instead.
She pulls the blanked over her legs. Tucks it around herself. “How are you? You look good. What have you been doing all this time?”
I swallow. She doesn’t even know? “I’m doing well. I’m a senior in college, two more months until graduation.”
“I guess all that hard work and studying paid off. God knows I wasn’t any help.”
Her confession stuns me. This is the first time I have ever heard my mother say or do anything that remotely looks like accountability.
She pulls at a thread in the blanket. “After you left, I was so mad. First Theodore died …” Her eyes narrow, confused, and her gaze drifts, lost for a moment. She shakes it off. “Then you left. I didn’t know you left until the bills piled up, and they cut the power.”
Months. I was gone for months before she realized it?
“I thought you were in school still, or working, or hiding. I was in a terrible place. But I’m better now.” She lifts a sleeve to scratch at her arm.
Track marks line the inside of her elbow. I can’t stop staring at it. Venom bubbles up inside of me and spill out. “You don’t look better.”
“I knew then you weren’t coming back.” She continues as if I had said nothing. “I tried to get clean and failed. I failed more times than I can count. But I’m mostly clean now.”
“The track marks on your arm say different.”
“Ah, those? They’re old. I haven’t shot in almost a year. They itch like a mother though … but that might be a reaction to the meds too.”
What meds? I look around at the mess, an ashtray holds a blunt. Legal as it may be. “And that?” I point at the ashtray.
“That’s medicinal.”
I snort.
She nods. “It helps me breathe better.”
“Breathe better?”
“Ah, yeah. You don’t know, do you? How could you know?”
“Know what?” What is she talking about?
“I’m sick. Lung cancer.” She laughs. “After all the crap I did, all the drugs and alcohol, cancer is what will take me out. I always thought it would be an overdose.”
I’m dizzy, all the blood has left my brain. Cancer? She’s lying. She has to be. “Cancer?”
“You’re white as a ghost, girl.” She pulls the neck of her sweater down, shows me a chemoport before letting go of the shirt. Taps the port under the fabric. “All the shit I took for God knows how many years, and if the cancer don’t take me, this poison will.”
I’m trembling. I didn’t prepare for this. I expected her to either behave as before, with hate and accusations or for her to be high and have another man living here. Or maybe for the house to be empty. But not this. Not her on the verge of death and not even forty yet.
I dig my nails into my thighs. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Eh, nothing to say. It is what it is. I made some very shitty choices in my life. I said and did some terrible things to you. I let horrible things happen to you. But you were never a mistake. No matter how many times I said it.”
My throat closes, and I have to put a hand on it to push down the forming knot. Is this a confession? Is she finally admitting to what happened? A fire burns under me. Of this too I’m robbed. How can I rage? How can I be angry? How can I confront her when she just told me she’s dying?
“All the mistakes were mine. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I was such a horrible mother. I didn’t know how to love you. I didn’t know how to love myself.”
My eyes burn. My chest is a ticking bomb ready to explode, and the pressure in my throat is so big I can’t breathe. I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t. A croak and a sob are the only things I’m capable of right now.
She goes on. “I got a lot of help at the hospital. Some social worker lady helped me get a small disability check. Not much, but enough to keep the lights on and the water and heat running. The church brings food every week, and the hospital is helping me too. I said that already, right? Sometimes I get confused. I forget things too.”
She settles back into the couch. “I’m tired. I think I’ll take a nap now.” She lies down, closes her eyes and is asleep seconds later.
I’m frozen in place. I don’t know what to do.
Should I leave? Wait for her to wake up? I check my phone, and it’s morning still. I look around again. The house is a mess. Stuff everywhere. I can clean up a little. I can’t let her live like this. Not in her condition. I go to her room. The door is closed, and when I open it, I know why. It smells like vomit. She got sick in here. I open the windows, let the brisk March air in. Take all the bedding down. Bring it to the garage where the washer and dryer are. Put a load in.
I will need supplies if I’m to clean this house. I drive to the store, buy gloves, cleaning products, paper towels. And also get some packaged foods she can easily prepare.
Back at the house, she’s still sleeping. A low rattling and wheezing sound, the only sign she’s alive. I go to her room and clean it the best I can, throw away the trash, paper plates, piles of old magazines. None of this can be good for her, trying to breathe in this dirty and dusty room. It’s frigid because of the open windows, but at least it no longer smells. I find clean sheets in an armoire and make the bed, but I’ll have to wait for the blanket that’s now in the dryer. I move to the bathroom and clean that next. Then the kitchen. I throw away old food I find in the fridge, and clean that too. Then put the fresh fruit I bought inside, along with bottles of Gatorade.
I do a few more loads of laundry, while she continues to sleep. I clean around her in the living room as quietly as I can. I’ve swept the floors and mopped. I don’t think this house has been properly cleaned since I left. But being so small, it takes a little over two hours. My bedroom door stands closed. I haven’t stepped in yet. I check on my mother again. Then open the door. It screeches with disuse. It’s like stepping back in time. My bed is still made and set against a wall the same way I left it. There’s a thin covering of undisturbed dust everywhere. The urge to close the door and run is overwhelming, but I fight it and stand my ground. I stay still, taking in everything again. This room is even smaller than my dorm room. Just big enough for the twin-sized bed. A small closet is to the left, and a desk and a kitchen chair are placed next to the door. I step in. Sun-faded curtains hang open. The magazine cutouts I taped to the walls are dulled gray by dust. I open the closet. Thin metal hangers dangle from the single rod across the top. I only left behind the clothes that no longer fit me or were too ratty to wear. Some magazines lie on the bottom. I’d grab them from people’s garbage on recycling days. And sometimes I got lucky and found books too. I close the closet door and retrace my steps backward until I’m standing outside the room. Then close that door, too. No need to clean this room or revisit ghosts from the past.
Because of Dylan: A forbidden student teacher slow burn romance (Riggins U Book 3) Page 26