Facade

Then we cry together. Cry for the broken man we both care about. For the demons he lets haunt him. And for the little boy we’ll never meet, who would have grown up to be just as special as Adrian.

* * *

I sit outside my mom’s apartment complex. It’s been a week since Adrian left. Since I’ve seen my brother, who’s texted me a couple times to let me know he’s okay.

I didn’t tell him I was coming here because I know he would come for me. And as much as I want him by my side before I step into that apartment, I have to do it on my own. It’s not Maddox’s job to protect me. It’s not his job to follow me, regardless of whether he believes in what I’m doing or not.

It’s time I do something by myself.

It’s time I really face her, and talk to her, because just like it’s not Maddox’s job to protect me, it’s not my job to take care of her. To be her punching bag. I accept her anger and hate of my father and let her make it about me.

If I could look Adrian in the eyes and tell him about my father, I can do this. If I can survive the pain in his eyes, I can do anything, which is why I don’t even let my legs shake as I walk up the stairs. I don’t stress enough to let my heart go rapid.

And I hope she’s okay. God, I hope she is, but I can’t make it my responsibility to make her that way. We all deal with our pain in a different way, I realize. Maddox is broken because he takes the blame for Dad. Thinks he should have done something. I want to fix everything. I take responsibility for Mom’s anger at me. I tried to make it better for all for us when no one, no one can fix anything for anyone else.

And Adrian. My heart jumps at the thought of him. He puts more blame on himself than all of us combined. For Ashton. For leaving his sister and not stopping his father. He’s lived with this misplaced responsibility since he was a kid. It’s been eating him alive ever since.

I grab the railing and close my eyes, willing the tears to stay back. I miss him. I miss him so much that I had to force myself to leave the bed, but I have to do this.

After taking a couple deep breaths, I finish the walk to Mom’s apartment. I raise my hand and knock on the door.

“Who is it?” she calls, but I don’t answer. Instead I try the handle, which is unlocked, so I open the door.

“It’s Laney,” I say as I close it behind me.

“I wondered how long it would take before you came to check on me.” She’s sitting on the small love seat. The TV’s off and she’s crocheting. It’s so normal that you’d never know she tried to kill herself a month ago. That she’s fine and then suddenly she’s not. You’d never know she hates me.

“I’m here now.” Walking over to the chair across from her, I sit down.

“I’m all medicated up.” Mom picks up a pill bottle and shakes it. “A dose of happiness once a day. Everything’s better now. You don’t have to try and fix me.”

Her words sting.

“Where’s your brother?” she asks.

I look at the hooks in her lap, a memory floating to the surface. “Remember when I was little and you tried to teach me to crochet? I was horrible. I never could get it, but I still have the afghan we worked on together.”

She sighs and smiles a little. “I remember. That was when everything was good. Before your father started chasing women and you started chasing him.”

And there’s the slap I’ve been waiting for. “I didn’t chase him. He’s my dad and I was a child. What kind of person do you think I am?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but I keep going. “You know what? I don’t want to know what kind of person you think I am. Instead, I’m going to tell you who I am. I’m the little girl who felt special because her father, who’d always been closer to her brother, started showing her attention. The girl who was scared and confused when her mother suddenly wanted nothing to do with her. Who didn’t get why her brother stopped playing ball or why her dad started to be gone all the time. Who thought if she got good enough grades and did all her homework and didn’t date and just tried to be good that everything would be okay.”

“Delaney—”

“No. I’m not done yet. I was a scared little kid who suddenly found out her father killed a boy. Whose dad went to jail and her brother, her best friend, drifted farther away from her. And you? That whole time you never held me or told me it would be okay or never cried with me. You let me find you bleeding to death. I held you and thought you were going to die and then you blamed me for saving you!”

I find myself standing over Mom, shouting while she stares at me, gaping. “And still! Still I thought if I was good enough or nice enough or tried to fix things, they would be okay. But they weren’t. You hated me more and Maddy lost more of himself and I tried, tried so badly to hold it together for us all. I went to see the woman I thought was the little boy’s mom! I bet you didn’t know that. And I apologized for what Daddy did, and she, this woman I didn’t know, cried with me when you never did!”

“Delaney!” she screams, standing up and letting everything fall from her lap.

“No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to stop me from saying this. All I wanted was for us to be okay. To try and be some kind of family after everything that happened. To deserve to be okay again and then I hurt—no, I fucking broke—the only person to ever really make me feel normal. To make me smile and to see that I had secrets and imperfections inside me but to like me regardless of them. I loved him. And I think he could have loved me. Me.” My closed fist comes down against my chest, over my heart. “Me. And I ruined it. I betrayed him and what he meant to me and I’ll never, ever forgive myself for that.”

She slaps me, whipping my head to the side. My hand shoots to my stinging face, holding my cheek as we stand there staring at each other.

“How dare you talk to me like that! He was my husband. Mine. My life was ruined because of him. I lost my home and we had debts to pay, debts he told me he’d been taking care of. You didn’t have to deal with any of that, so don’t make this out like you lost more than me.”

Finally, finally my tears have dried. I can’t shed any more. Not for her or my father. “It’s not about who lost the most. It’s about trying to make it through it together.”

“Get out,” she tells me.

I close my eyes. Take a deep breath. Consider saying more, but I can’t. It’s not in me any longer.

“Get out,” she says again.

“I love you, Mom. Take care of yourself. I can’t help you do it anymore.”

For the second time in a week, I leave when someone tells me to, only this time, everything inside me doesn’t wish I could go back.

Chapter Twenty-Three

~Adrian~

I drove until I was almost out of gas, pulled over to fill up, and started driving again before I stopped at some nothing town in South Carolina. I haven’t left the tiny, dark hotel room since I got here.

Money’s tight and soon I won’t have any more, but I don’t care. Don’t fucking care about anything.

I haven’t smoked weed since before I left. Not like I couldn’t find it if I wanted to, but it was never about a need for me. It wasn’t about addiction. It was about forgetting and now I can’t let myself forget. It’s there in my head all the time, raining down on me. Flooding me and I’m drowning in it.

I’m ready to let myself sink.

My eyes sting because I don’t close them for long. Every time I do, I see Ash. See him smiling at me. See him fucking loving me as the car is coming at him. His little body on the ground and knowing that I failed him.

Except now it’s not a guy behind the wheel. It’s Laney and it makes the loss multiply until I feel nothing but the pain.