Page 44 of Until

“I used to wish she’d show up for my birthday. I know I thought she was dead, but I thought maybe she’d magically show up and want to stay.”

“I offered her to stay after she was released from prison, but I told her she needed to change. She couldn’t. Or she wouldn’t. She only cares about herself. You’re nothing like her. You sometimes care a little too much.”

I nod. “I know, and I know doing this for Alex isn’t like me. I needed help, though.” I look around the room and then back at her. “All of this is because of him. You’re better because of him.”

She places her hand over mine. “I’m better because of you, Carina. Yes, he helped, but only because he needs you. Remember that. Now, about Ryan, you said he took his mask off, and you exchanged names. Did you give him your number?”

“Ye—,” I interrupt myself as I think back to that night. Did I? Was I waiting for a call or text from someone who had no way of reaching me? “Shit.”

“Well, he has your name. If he really wants to, he’ll find you somehow. Back in my day, we had the phone book, the White Pages. There has to be something like that now.” She points to the newspaper behind me. “Can you hand me that?”

I pick it up and laugh at seeing the local gossip rag that wishes it were a real newspaper. “I can’t believe you read this crap.”

“It’s entertaining, and it’s still the news.”

She opens the newspaper and begins flipping through the pages, looking at the pictures and headlines. Something catches her eye, and she stops. Then, she quickly crumbles the paper up and tosses it into the trash can.

“No good gossip?” I ask.

“What? Yes, I mean no,” she says, sounding a bit flustered. “That was last week’s paper. I read it already.” She stares toward the garbage, then finally looks back at me. “Carina, whatever happens, promise me you’ll protect yourself. Sometimes people aren’t always what they seem. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I take the subway back to the apartment, enjoying the warmth of the steam as I climb the steps to reach the above-ground world. I blink back at the sunlight, then pull the zipper of my jacket up even though it’s already as high as it goes. I shove my hands deep into my pockets and breathe out of my mouth to watch the steam escape my lips.

As I approach the apartment building where Grandma and I live, I see two unfamiliar people, a man and a woman, standing on the front stoop and talking to each other. The man is facing the direction I’m coming from, and the woman has her back to me. He’s tall, with dark hair, and wearing a long wool coat. He suddenly smiles, and I realize it’s Ryan.

My heart somersaults in my chest, and I stop dead in my tracks. What am I wearing? What does my hair look like? I pull out my phone, turn on the selfie camera, and smile, remembering the everything bagel I ate at the hospital. I’ll die if I smile at him, and my teeth are full of poppy seeds.

I look down at my leggings and try to smooth out my wild curls. Everything is so different than when I’ve seen Ryan before. I’ve gone from princess to pauper.

“There she is.” I hear my prince say in the distance before coming down the stairs.

The woman turns towards me, and even though she’s a stranger, I know exactly who she is. She looks just like Grandma did when I was a kid. She looks like me, but her blonde hair is shorter, cut just below her chin. It’s my mother.

I’m still about a hundred feet away. I still haven’t moved from where I stopped walking. Ryan reaches me while my mother watches us from the stoop. He stands in front of me with a big smile that lights up his face.

“This is the first time I’m seeing you in normal clothes,” he says. “You’re even more beautiful than the other night.”

All the tension and stress I was feeling vanishes as I stare into his green eyes. In my head, I thank him, but my mouth has decided it’s not going to listen to my brain. I think about why, and it registers that I’m smiling, and I don’t even realize it.

“You must be freezing,” he says. “Let’s get you inside.”

He wraps his arm around my shoulders, and his warmth radiates to me. I want to melt with happiness at seeing that he found me, but I keep my grandmother’s words in mind.

Sometimes people aren’t always what they seem.

As we reach the front of the apartment building, my mother walks over, kisses my cheek, and wraps her arms around me tightly, pinning them down.

It puts me on the defensive. It feels fake. Why is she acting like this? Why is she here?

“There’s my beautiful daughter,” she says as she looks at me up and down. “I’ve been waiting out here for you with this handsome man. I didn’t know you have a boyfriend.”

I step back from her and pull my keys out of my pocket. I still haven’t said anything, and I have no intention to just yet. She’s acting too familiar, too much like a typical mom would act, not one who gave up her daughter when she was only a few years old. Something is going on with her. I can feel it. Something isn’t right.

They follow me into the apartment, and my mother immediately takes her coat off and throws it over the back of the couch as if it’s something she does all the time.

“This place hasn’t changed one bit,” she says.

As she walks down the hall and towards the bedrooms, I can feel my rage stirring in my stomach. Who does she think she is coming in here like that? Like she lives here. This isn’t her home.

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