Page 30 of Into Pitch

My boss Donny had shoved me out of the bar this morning with a grin and a pointed finger. ‘You sang your ass off last night. Go home. Sleep. I don’t want to hear a word of protest.’

So here I am.

Certainly not asleep, but doing my homework.

The bracelet on my wrist clinks softly when I move my hand, the silver chain cool against my skin. I still haven’t taken it off, and I don’t really know why. It’s not like it goes with everything, and it definitely doesn’t scream well-adjusted woman with her shit together. It screams something else, and I’m so not going to look into that at the moment.

I’ve got mommy issues to sort through.

I rest my pen against the paper and stare at the first line I wrote half an hour ago.

Write a letter to your mother, it will be easy they said.

I could stab him with my pen for coming up with the idea, because I can’t think of anything halfway decent to write that won’t have me come across as a raging bitch.

I chew on the pen cap and glance around the bus, grounding myself in the familiar clutter. Paintings are staged against the far wall with jars of brushes, and a chipped mug still rests on the counter from the last time Imogen had drank whiskey out of it. The little string of warm lights I hung along the ceiling blink at me, I’d done it because bare bulbs make me feel like I’m in an interrogation room. The warmth of them was far better.

I chose everything around me—remodeled bus included—because it was quiet. Because I could lock the door and no one could come in unless I let them.

That should tell me something.

Groaning, I drop my gaze back to the page and force myself to start again.

Mom,

The word alone tightens my throat. I let out a breath and keep going before I can think too hard about it.

I don’t know if you’d recognize me if you saw me now. I don’t know if you’d even care.

The pen presses harder than it needs to, ink darkening the page, but I don’t stop.

I used to think you didn’t notice what was happening. That you didn’t see how scared I was or how much I needed you. But the older I get, the harder it is to pretend you didn’t know.

My chest aches with the familiar, dull pressure of something I’ve never fully named.

You knew. You just didn’t choose me.

There it is.

I swallow and keep writing, hand moving faster now, like if I stop I’ll lose the nerve.

You chose the drugs. You chose the men. You chose whatever made things easier for you in the moment, and you left me to figure out how to survive in the space you should have filled. I learned early that if I was quiet enough, useful enough, invisible enough, I might not make things worse. I learned that wanting anything was dangerous, and that needing you was pointless.

I pause, breath hitching, and stare at the words until they begin to blur. That’s the part that hurts the most. Not what she did, but what she wouldn’t.

I needed a mother and protection. I needed someone to choose me, and you didn’t.

My pen stops moving and silence settles heavy in the bus, broken only by the heater’s hum and the distant sound of Chicago’s traffic. I sit there for a long time, staring at the page with eyes that burn but are dry. Crying has never come easily to me, not when it feels like it belongs to people who believe someone will come running when they do.

Eventually, I set the pen down.

“That’s enough for today,” I murmur to no one.

I close the notebook and shove it under the bench, like it might bite me if I leave it out. My thoughts don’t quiet, though. They skitter and loop, tugged in directions I don’t like. Back to the mirror room. Back to the way Plague’s voice had pressed questions into me like bruises. Back to the wolf-guy saying you survived him like it meant something more than luck.

I rub at my wrist, fingers brushing the plague doctor charm. It swings once, then settles.

I don’t know why my brain keeps circling it and him—that night even. The fact that it could have gone so wrong and somehow didn’t.