Page 43 of Bitter Rival

I watch until Pete’s truck disappears down the long driveway before turning to Beckett who’s squinting into the setting sun, lost in his own thoughts.

His dark hair is messy and disheveled. His skin is bronzed from the sun. And there’s scruff on his jaw like he hasn’t shaved in a couple of days.

He’s beautiful, I think.

And his mother is dead.

I’m trying to find the right words, but I don’t know if there are any.

“Beck?” I touch his arm, and he looks down at me as if just realizing I’m standing right next to him. “I didn’t know about your mom. I’m sorry.”

His brow furrows. “You didn’t know?” He sounds skeptical.

“I had no idea. I just thought…” I release a breath. “What happened?” I shake my head. “You don’t have to tell me. I just…I’m sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“Yeah.” I almost say it again but stop myself. “Was it recent or…?”

“No,” he says tersely.

My stomach sinks. I’m not sure why it would have been better if it had been recent. Either way, she’s still gone. He still lost his mother.

“Where did you go after you left here?” I ask.

He gives me an annoyed look. “Why does it matter?”

“I don’t know.” It just does. It feels like the key to everything. “One day you were here and the next day you were gone. All I was told is that you moved to a new house with your mother. And I found my drawings in your trash can…” I let my voice drift off.

Why did I even mention those stupid drawings?

“Your drawings,” he says like he has no idea what I’m talking about.

“Yeah.” I lower my eyes. “The ones I used to slip under your door.”

My cheeks burn with embarrassment. I don’t even know why I brought it up.

But I remember plucking one of them out of the trash and ripping it to shreds. A picture of myself with hearts for eyes and flowers blooming from my chest. At the top I wrote I LOVE YOU.

I remember it specifically because I’d worked so hard on getting the letters right.

When I saw it so carelessly tossed aside, my eight-year-old heart was crushed.

“Didn’t have much use for a little kid’s drawings at boarding school.”

My brows shoot up. “You went to boarding school?”

“It was your mother’s idea. She thought I needed discipline.” He laughs harshly. “The truth was that she didn’t appreciate me meddling in her affairs. I had the audacity to tell her to stay the hell away from my family. In the end, she won. My mother was forced to move in with my grandmother because my father left her with nothing. Once again, your mother’s fault.”

His jaw tenses. “She moved all the money into an account in her name. Creative accounting at its finest. Gold star for Astrid. But hey, my father went along with it so I guess she can’t take all the credit.”

My heart squeezes. I had no idea that any of this had been going on.

How could Robert have done that to his wife and son? How could he allow my mother to get away with all that?

“What happened to your mom?” I ask quietly. Now that I’ve gone down this road, I need to know the whole story. “Was it an accident?”

His eyes darken briefly and I can see the turmoil in the blue depths. “No. She spiraled into a deep depression she never emerged from. She couldn’t hold down a job. Gave up on basic hygiene. The antidepressants didn’t help. Nothing did.”

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