“No! That’s not what I meant…” she shakes her head, eyes flaring desperately. A beat passes, and then Mom focuses on the electronics store next to us. “Do you think we should look in here? I’m sure there will be something he likes, hm? You know how he gets with his gadgets.” Her voice is too high, as if she’s injecting as much enthusiasm as possible into her voice.
“Sure,” I murmur, letting her off. I look over at the store, glancing over the advertisements plastered to the glass. We both know it doesn’t matter what she gets him. Dad won’t have anything nice to say about it—even if he likes it. “He was talking about some drone he saw on TV the other day.”
Mom sags in relief that I’m letting the topic go. “A drone,” she echoes, shooting me a puzzled smile. “I don’t know…”
There’s a headache blooming behind my left eyeball—an ache that started up about three shops ago. Still, I give Mom a small, encouraging smile. “How ’bout you go in and look around while I go grab some coffees? There was a cafe we passed about a block back that looked good.”
Her mouth pulls down, motherly disapproval shining inher eyes. “Coffee? It’s a bit late in the day for that, don’t you think?”
A quick glance at my watch tells me it’s only one in the afternoon, and my eyelid starts twitching. I rub a finger against it, telling her, “Not coffee, then. I’ll get you tea or something.”
Mom brightens, giving me a sunny smile. “Ohhh, one of those green teas would be lovely!” She pauses, blinking. “Notgreentea, like herbal. Green the color. You know the ones I mean?”
“Matcha?”
“That’s it! A matcha tea, please.” She faces the store, her expression creasing with determination. “I’ll find something here, or else Gavin will just be getting socks and underwear again.”
Without saying anything else, Mom marches inside. I shake my head, turning to backtrack, tucking my hands into my hoodie pockets to ward off the cold of the day.
It doesn’t take me long to reach the cafe, The Sunny Roast, but just as I reach for the door handle, a familiar voice calls out my name. I step back, swinging around and coming face to face with Charlie’s mother.
I pause for a second, taken aback by the resemblance. There is no denying that they’re related—Agatha’s face is leaner, with permanent frown lines marring her brow and creasing the corners of her mouth. Her hair is a shade darker than her daughter’s, although Charlie told me once that Agatha dyes her hair to hide the grays.
The rest of the resemblance is all in the eyes—bright green with a fan of dark lashes. Yet, while Charlie’s are usually filled with light and humor, Agatha’s are enough to send ice running down your spine. The woman reminds meof a soulless statue, or one of those freaky stone gargoyles you find on some old Gothic castle.
Her attitude and treatment of Charlie has never made sense to me, especially when they look so much alike. Sure, her daughter might be heavier, but she’slush. I still dream about her curves and how she felt against me, whereas Agatha looks more like a narrow slab of concrete.
I have my suspicions that it is Charlie’s personality that made her such a target, especially for someone as cold and miserable as Agatha seems to be. Charlie brightens a room just by walking into it, drawing every single eye. I’ve never met a person who makes me feel like she does, even when she’s doing nothing but standing next to me. It’s all part of her charm, the utter lack of comprehension of just how amazing she is.
Agatha has to know she’ll never have the kind of good that Charlie radiates without even trying, and maybe that’s why she’s so critical of her daughter.
“Dillon. How lovely to see you.” Agatha steps forward, her head angling to the side like she’s expecting me to kiss her cheek, and I take a hasty step away.
“Agatha,” I say simply.
Her thin brows dip, but she smooths her expression out in the next breath. “It’s been a long time. Why, I don’t think I’ve seen you since?—”
“Charlie broke up with me.”
Her words seem to dry up, her teeth snapping together. There’s an awkward pause before her lips pull up into a conciliatory smile. “Well, it’s nice of you to take the fall for her, however, I’m very much aware of my daughter’s shortcomings.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw when I grind my teeth. “She doesn’t have shortcomings, and I’m not taking any sort of afall for her.” I lock eyes with Agatha, letting the intensity of my feelings pour through. “I fucked up.”
She flinches at my language, a splash of color filling the sharp planes of her cheekbones, but I’m not done yet.
“I lost the best thing that ever happened to me because I treated Charlie like shit. I let my ego get in the way. I gave people who were my friends the power to hurt her.” My voice is threaded with pain and guilt, forcing each word out past the knot in my throat. “I didn’t put Charlie first. She deserved better.”
Agatha opens her mouth, but I don’t let her even suck in a breath before I’m talking again. “Charlie left me because she has more respect for herself than to stay with someone who’s going to demean her like that, especially when she’s put up with that kind of shit her entire life.” I shake my head, echoing, “She deserves better, and I know she’ll get it.”
Agatha’s eyes narrow, her nostrils flaring wide. “I’m not sure I like what you’re implying.”
The smile that tugs at my mouth is humorless. “I wasn’t implying anything. You know,” I say thoughtfully, “my mother is flawed. She’s got a lot of issues, and more than some of them stem from her marriage to a cold, heartless bastard. The one thing she never did, not even once, was talk down to me. She has always been there when I needed her, always in my corner. She pushes me up when I doubt myself, filling me with confidence until it feels like I can take on the entire world. And yet…isn’t it interesting that Charlie is still stronger than me, considering she has a mother likeyou?”
The color in Agatha’s face deepens into a splotchy red. “Are you saying I wasn’t…That I’mnota good mother to my child?”
My brows furrow. “Are you kidding? You’re a bitch to her. Some of the things you say to Charlie, I wouldn’t say to my worst enemy. You’re constantly tearing her down, making her think she’s less. Except she’s an amazing person, and none of that is because of you.” I give her one last dismissive look. “You’ll regret it one day, when she finally cuts you out of her life.”
Agatha’s mouth opens, but I’m already gone, turning and striding away from the coffee shop, unwilling to take the chance that she’ll follow me in and corner me.
