I'd dealt with my mother's addiction for long enough now to know that "in a bad place" was her euphemism for using again.
"But you just got out of rehab last month!"
"Sunny. Oh, Sunny Bunny." My mother's voice cracked. "I love that you believed in me. That you always believed me. But I never went to rehab. I've been using for years."
"Years?" I repeated. "But you live in L.A. You have a job."
"Jobs," she corrected. "I've been a functioning addict for years. And I haven't been honest with you. But I guess your Benton heir figured it out because he showed up out of the blue at my apartment and offered me an open-ended stay at Malibu Haven. If I got clean."
My mind reeled with all this new information. "I don't understand. Why would he do that?"
"I'm guessing because he's as rich as Midas, and he loves you."
"But we're not—that's not..." Every explanation I could come up with was too complicated. I had to settle for, "We're not together anymore."
And then, I started crying. Again. Just like Cherenity warned me not to do.
"Oh, Sunny Bunny." For once, my mother sounded like the nurturing parent I’d always wanted. "What happened?"
And that's how I ended up plopping down on a Vegas curb, sobbing my heart out as I told my mother everything while she gasped and uttered increasingly emphatic, "No, he didn't!"s.
However, her sympathetic murmurs stopped when I told her about the contract. "Wait, he asked you to marry him?"
"He offered me a contract. He doesn't love me."
"Oh, that man loves you. Trust. I would not be finally making breakthroughs and healing in a three-month 360-rehab program that costs twice as much as I stole if he wasn't head over heels in love with you."
"No, Mom, you don't understand." Tears brimmed in my eyes. "If that was true, he would have said that."
"Girl, do you know how many times your father claimed he loved me? More than his wife. Once, more than the kids, he actually acknowledged. They've got a saying here at Malibu Haven: It's not about thewords; it's about thedo. What did he do before he offered you that contract?"
Memories suddenly exploded in my head. Cole removing me from that horrible apartment...Cole taking off work whenever I wanted to play with him...Cole listening—really listening—to me and insisting it wasn't my fault when I finally confessed what happened with my mother...Early that last morning, when Cole cut the fun and games and moved inside of me with a look so tender, I couldn't help but burst out with what was truly on my heart.
"Sunny? Sunny?" my mother asked on the other side of the phone. "Are you still there?"
"Sunny,mi amor? What are you doing sitting on the dirty-ass curb?" Another voice asked.
I turned to see Tony and Cherenity standing over me with arms slung around each other's waists. Apparently, they’d made up.
"See, I told you!” Cherenity extended both arms toward me while flaring her eyes at Tony. “She was going to start crying again whether or not I took your place!"
CHAPTER36
Sunny
Whether or not mymother was right, I had a recital to oversee.
After promising Mom a video call with her counselor, Tony drove me to the community center. Then dropped the other two boxes at my feet and took off back toward his car.
"Tony!" I shrieked after him.
"Sorry,mi amor," he called back, blowing me kisses over his shoulder as he yanked open the driver's side door. "But youbeen knownI am a punk-ass bee-otch outside the ring! Love you! Love you! Break a leg! Without me!Byyyeee!!!"
With that, Tony cut out of the parking lot like a NASCAR driver, tires screeching as he cut right into traffic and disappeared down the road.
“It's not the words; it's the do.”
My mother's advice rang ominously in my head as I carry three unwieldy boxes into the small dance studio, which we were using as a dressing room that night—since the community center’s auditorium didn’t have a real one.
