Page 69

I shoved it away.

He’d be alright. He was in good hands, he had the best care New York could offer, and he’d be okay.

Cade leaned back in his chair and it groaned beneath his weight. “Ah, you know. Same shit different day.”

“It’s Mom’s birthday,” he said quietly. His hand shook as he reached for something on his table. “I made her this. Could you…” Tears shimmered in his eyes. “Bring it to her? Please? And tell her I love her always and miss her the most?”

I clenched my jaw as a prickling sensation tickled in my nose. I gently took the card he made her, holding it delicately. “Of course we will. We got her some flowers for you, too.”

“Thank you.” He smiled at me, swallowed hard, then started telling us all about his day, the schoolwork he’d gotten done, a movie he’d watched.

We talked for another hour before we had to go, and when I looked back at Jesse one last time, he was staring out the window, clutching his blankets so hard his knuckles were white. A tear spilled down his cheek, and it took every ounce of my willpower to turn back around and leave the room.

I knew this was a moment—a breakdown—he didn’t want to share.

Sometimes the pain we carried was all our own, not for anyone else to see.

“I found someone, Mama. You’d love her. I know you would.”

I plucked at the petals of one of the roses, my calluses catching on their velvety softness.

“She’s gotta be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. Fierce like you wouldn’t believe. And god is she beautiful. She’s got this…” I struggled to find the words, to voice just what I saw when I looked at Whitney. I brushed away bits of dead grass from the headstone. “She’s got so much spirit. She’s messy as hell, and I have to clean up after her wherever she goes. But I like doing that.”

Whitney’s disorderly nature should have scraped against my need for tidiness, but instead, it gave my brain something else to focus on. Her unwashed dishes or clothes lying on the floor were just tasks for me to complete and gave me a sense of fulfillment.

I’d gotten used to it.

I’d gotten used to so many things about her. How she’d stay on the floor until I fell asleep and I’d wake up with her in my arms. How she’d grumble about every little thing I told her to do and yet still do it to the best of her ability, how she’d glare at me with those beautiful blue eyes. How beneath that first layer of hostility was a deep well of uncertainty. I wanted to burn away all that vitriol and expose her most vulnerable parts. But only to me.

I wanted her to use me as a way to relieve herself of all the pain that caused her to seek out self-destructive methods of release. I wanted to help her through those moments where things got so stuck in that bottleneck of rage they just exploded out of her.

I wanted her violence and her anger and her loathing. I wanted to absorb all of it until she didn’t have to carry those burdens. Until she felt comfortable enough to give them to me, to let me handle them.

Most of all, I wanted her to want to be mine. I wanted to be her sword and her shield to pick up whenever she needed me. I wanted to protect her from the darkness of the world, even though she already carried a piece of that darkness inside herself. There were invisible chains around her, and I wanted to break those chains and let her be free.

“You done?”

I looked over at Cade, who’d been sitting quietly through my monologue, deeply unimpressed.

“I could go on, if you want me to.”

“I sure as shit don’t.”

“Then yeah, I’m done.”

“Court.”

“Mm.” Cade’s gaze was firmly fixed on Mama’s headstone.

He rubbed his forehead, sighing heavily. “I know you like her, and I don’t understand it, and you’re allowed to like someone—god knows we all need to let ourselves live a little—but you’ve never shown interest in a single fucking person ever. Are you having some kind of…guilt attack because you couldn’t save Sherry? Or something else? You need to save her, to keep her, or else… I don’t fucking know, something bad will happen? Or do you just genuinely like her?”

Fucking asshole. “I can’t just like someone? It has to be because I’m fucked in the head?”

Cade made a frustrated sound, and my lips twitched. He was too easy. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. But seriously, have you seen yourself? The way you’re acting? It’s…a lot. I have never, ever seen you be this way. With anyone. I know what happened with Sherry was⁠—”

“Don’t,” I started, a headache suddenly pounding behind my eyes. I wished he’d stop bringing up Sherry. “I don’t need you to psychoanalyze me, okay? This isn’t about Sherry or Mom or anyone else.”

“Alright. Then…” He threw his hands out. “Do whatever the fuck you want. Who the hell am I to judge.”