No, there’s no fucking way I can ever stay under her roof again. And if she does cut me off…
Well, there’s Carter and Susa. They’ve promised to take care of me, to help me out.
I turn to Dad and hug him. “I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to you often or do this sooner. I just…I wasscaredof her.”
“I know, son. It’s okay. I’m so sorry I left you with her. I thought I was doing the best thing for you.”
“I know.”
“I miss going fishing with you. I don’t know if you saw it, but I still have that one picture of us, it’s hanging there in the living room, along with a couple of others. They’re the only ones I was able to take. I mean, I have some smaller pictures, but not a lot.”
It’s that soft comment that finishes me. The three of us end up sitting right there on the ground, Carter behind me and me in the middle as I sob in my dad’s arms.
When I moved out before the start of this school year, one of the things I made sure I took were pictures of me and Dad that were hidden away in storage totes in closets or tucked into photo albums. I suspected if I didn’t that I might never again be able to get them.
Right now, I’m glad I did.
There’s only one picture of me hanging on my mother’s walls, and it’s my high school graduation picture, and she and Austin are in it.
If it wasn’t for that picture, the casual observer in her home would assume I never existed.
* * * *
We finally leave their place about ten o’clock local time. The hotel room is a suite with a king-sized bed and a sleeper sofa, but Carter tells me we’re all sleeping in the bed.
I’m too wrung out to argue. I don’t even think about it when he takes me into the shower and bathes me, then hands me sleeping shorts to wear and curls up with me in the middle. Susa grabs a quick shower and joins us, wearing a T-shirt and panties, I’m assuming, but I’m too busy crying to feel the slightest bit sexy or nervous or anything else.
I feel…gutted.
Raw.
Wounded in even deeper ways than I ever realized before. Like an abscess I thought was cleaned out is far deeper than previously known, exposing a much greater vein of infection just getting started.
“Let it out, Owen,” Susa gently says where she’s pressed along my back with her arm around me. “You can’t hold on to this.”
“And don’t do anything rash,” Carter cautions. “Let’s get you through the weekend, get home to Tampa, and decompress from this. We have finals coming up soon. You’re not going back to her house, so it doesn’t matter right now.”
I know he’s right, but it’s so tempting to grab my phone and upload every damned last one of the pictures I took—or Susa or Carter took for me—from dinner onto Facebook and tag my mother in every last one of them.
In the short span of time I’ve known her, Katie is already a far better mom to me than my own mother. There’s nothing fake or pretentious about her. Her house isn’t perfect.
Her kids have slightly messy rooms that show evidence of life and love.
Their refrigerator is covered with photos and schoolwork and things they’ve drawn. She works part-time and volunteers at their school. Danny’s just started pre-K.
They have a beloved pet cat.
As I fall asleep securely nestled between the two people who know me best in the entire world, I wonder to myself if Katie would be okay with me calling her Mom.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I feel worse than the morning of the hangover when I awaken Saturday. In sleep, I’ve rolled toward Susa and find Carter is spooned along my back, while Susa has cuddled tightly against me.
My brain takes a few moments to process this.
That Carter’s arm is around me, and Susa’s body is pressed against me.
My eyes snap open when this finally hits me, along with the fact that despite how much my brain and heart hurt right now, I’m sporting epic morning wood. Normally, Carter and I go run, and that kills my boner, until we hit the shower.
