He wouldn’t, either. Morgan would’ve let me cry all night and just… been there for me. He was a good friend to have.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, figuring it couldn’thurtto spend a few hours with my best friend. “It’s a date.”
I’d get over it.
27
Carter
The last thingI wanted to see as I walked out of Kieran’s little townhouse was my mother standing on the sidewalk, leaning against her car with her arms folded.
“I don’t wanna hear it,” I said, barely glancing at her as I headed for my own car.
“Honey, wait,” Mom called after me.
Honey.
I knew I was being manipulated, Iknewit, but that didn’t stop me pausing. Affection from my mom was rare, and I’d learned to treat it like gold dust.
Even knowing that it actually wasn’t worth anything now wasn’t enough to override the part of me that was still just a kid who didn’t understand why he spent most of his life feeling unloved.
“Hallie told me everything,” she said. “About you and Aiden. About you bringing Aiden along so I’d stop bothering you about Mandi. I’ve been thinking about it.”
Even knowing it was a mistake, I turned back to her. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to hear, or what I planned to say, but I was rooted to the spot.
This was mymom. She’d raised me, even if it hadn’t been the best parenting job ever. Ignoring her was hard.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
If we’d been in a cartoon, my jaw would’ve hit the pavement.
“For making you feel like your only option was to pretend to be gay to get me off your back. I see now that Mandi wasn’t everything I thought she was. You must’ve been so miserable.”
Now Ireallydidn’t know what to say.
“I should’ve known it was Kieran’s idea. That boy always was trouble.”
I blinked. MomlovedKieran.
Didn’t she?
She’d loved that he was an honor student and captain of the football team, at least.
But then, I’d heard what she said about Aiden’s mom. She didn’t think much of the entire family. She’d just been willing to set that aside for…
Shit. For someone she thought wasuseful. Someone who’d help her fulfill her ambitions for me. Kieran was popular and well-liked and I was lucky he’d so much as given me the time of day, let alone the years of friendship and support I had to thank him for.
Mom saw him as a rung on the social ladder.
Like everything else. She sawpeopleasthings. Either useful or useless.
“It must’ve been so awful for you, having to put up with that boy all week. Which made me realize that Mandi was never right for you. You’re too soft and sensitive for a girl like her. She never cared about your hopes and dreams at all, did she?”
The thing was, I would’ve said the same at the beginning of the week.
But I knew better now. I knew that while Mandi and I weren’t exactly meant to be together, the reason she didn’t care about my hopes and dreams was that I didn’thaveany. Not of my own.
Last week had been the first week of my life when I’d really,trulyfelt free. The moment I introduced Aiden as my date, I’d felt like I was shedding a set of chains I’d been weighed down under my whole life.
