“Can she hear you right now?” Unmistakable anger underlined her words.
I yanked my pants up and took a step back before curiosity rooted me to the spot. Eavesdropping wasn’t my intention, but I could hear her from the bed.
A few beats later, Brenna said, “She’s not a bag of groceries you can drop whenever.”
Her next response came quicker. “No, I am… of course I want to spend the holiday with her.”
She let out a deep sigh.
I waited a minute to be sure her phone call was finished, then rapped my knuckles on the door. “Bren?”
“Yeah?”
I eased the door open. She sat on the lip of the bathtub, chin in her hands. “Are you okay?”
Only one person in Brenna’s life reduced her to this sullen shell of herself. The same person who had ruined my family. The first domino in a long string of events forcing Brenna and me apart, living separate lives across the country from each other.
My pulse accelerated, the sound filling my ears. My teenage temper was also to blame for our distance, but I’d worked on controlling my emotions in situations like this. I took a deepbreath in through my nose, and quietly let it out through my mouth over several seconds. The ball of anger in my chest unfurled, easing enough for me to speak calmly.
“You can talk to me.” I leaned on the sink across from her, unsure if she wanted me closer or not.
Her lips parted but no sound came out. She kept staring at the floor.
“That was your mom?”
Brenna’s eyes found mine. I nodded at the phone in her lap.
“Were you eavesdropping?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not on purpose.”
“But you were,” she accused, her voice as sharp as it had been minutes earlier on the phone.
“Bren, I’m not the one you’re mad at.” Her shoulder drooped an inch—a good sign. I pressed on, my tone gentle. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You want to know what’s going on?” She thrust a hand through her hair, pushing some to the other side of her head. “My mom was invited by hermarriedex-boyfriend to take a trip over Christmas. Without Molly. She’s excited that he might want her back. But thisalwayshappens. He’s probably in a fight with his wife and will use my mom to make himself feel better. And she’ll choose those crumbs over her daughter.”
I thought about how many times Brenna stayed at my house when we were kids because her mom needed to travel for “work.” It wasn’t until we were in high school that I realized it wasn’t work. Brenna once told me she loved staying at my house, being around a real family, but I suspected she’d also been upset about being left behind. It hurt her when her mother chose someone else over her, again and again, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
I wanted to hug her, make sure she knew I loved her, that I would choose her over everything else.
But this wasn’t about me.
“She plans to dump Molly here while she jets off to the Bahamas with this douchebag. Molly’s old enough to understand what’s happening, and I hate it for her.Thisis why I want custody. I’d never fall apart and neglect to take care of her. I’d never leave her on Christmas for someguy.”
The room descended into silence, a stark contrast to the loud pitch of her voice. Brenna’s breaths labored under the weight of her emotions. I wondered how long she’d kept these feelings inside. Did she have anyone to talk to about her relationship with her mom?
“You deserved better.”
Brenna’s head snapped up. “This isn’t about me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it? History is repeating. You know how Molly feels becauseyoufelt it every time your mom left you at my house.”
Brenna swiped at a tear on her cheek, quickly, as if she wanted to pretend it never fell. “It doesn’t matter, Nathan. My concern now is for Molly.”
I pushed away from the sink, then took a seat beside her. “Bren, it’s fine.” I ran my fingers through the silken strands of her hair, still soft and perfect, even after our workout downstairs. “We’ll have to reconfigure some plans. No more fucking in the kitchen for one.”
She punched me in my nonpitching arm, shockingly hard.
