Your mom is here. She keeps banging on the door.
You said you handled her.
I told you this would happen. Why couldn’t you just give her money?
This is embarrassing. What will the neighbors think?
She’s in front of the garage. I can’t even leave.
Where are you?
This is bullshit, Hailey.
I skipped down past the ones I’d read when anew one popped up.
Neil:
Fine. I’m calling the cops.
My fingers shook on my phone.
Me:
Don’t call the cops. I’m heading over.
Three dots appeared, then:
Neil:
About time. No promises. I shouldn’t have to deal with this.
Me:
Sorry.
I rushed to put on my shoes.
My mom sounded like she wasn’t going to be as reasonable as last time, not that she had been reasonable then. She hadn’t been high or drunk, though, or not as much as usual. I wondered what I’d find this time. When she was strung out, she could be even more volatile. Would she scream at me? Worse? Neil was there, but I knew better than to expect him to come out while my mom was around. He’d never even spoken to her in all the years we’d been together.
Nausea twisted inside me. It would be fine. I’d handle it. Sometimes it was rough, but I always managed to deal with it.
My hand paused on the doorknob as a memory of Jack’s voice rose, the one asking me to promise to call him. He’d offered to come with me, and that was before he’d said he loved me. Well, almost loved me.
I pulled out my phone, ignoring Neil’s texted time limit threat about calling the cops. He wasn’t likely to do that when I was coming to handle it. I pulled up Jack’s number, hitting the call button before I could talk myself out of it.
“Hailey, hey.” Jack’s voice in my ear let me take a deeper breath.
“Hi. Sorry to call.”
“Don’t be sorry. I was thinking about you, too.”
I closed my eyes, absorbing the words. He sounded so happy I’d called. I should have called earlier, just to say I missed him, not for this. “Sorry. I was—no. Never mind. I shouldn’t have called.”
“Hailey, wait,” Jack’s voice rushed out. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s—” I tried another breath.
“Talk to me, Hailey. You need me to come over?”
