Page 37 of Reclaim Me

The other night, for the briefest of moments, Rae and Aaron looked like the perfect couple. Maybe it was their proximity to Mallory and Chris or Dominic and Sloane—couples who are in possession of the communication skills Aaron is trying to attribute to him and Rae—that fooled me, or maybe I’d just given them too much credit, but now I see the reality of them, and I can’t look away.

“So she knows you’re here?”

“We discussed it, but I didn’t tell her I’d decided to stop by today and tell you to stay away from her.”

“And Riley,” I add, because I really can’t believe he doesn’t know that she’s the priority here. Rae is a grown woman, and she’s more than capable of setting boundaries with me if she needs to. She knows I will respect them. Riley is the vulnerable party. She’s the one who needs to be protected in all this.

“Right,” he says, annoyance bulging his eyes for a moment before he squares his shoulders and commits to acting like he cares about my daughter. “You need to stay away from them both. They’ve been just fine without you all this time, and I’ll make sure that never changes.”

When Rae came here to tell me our lives had to stay separate, she spoke with conviction that came from a place of selfless concern for her kid and left me with no choice but to yield to her demands. Today, Aaron stands in front of me speaking with that same conviction, except his comes from a well of self-serving entitlement. He hasn’t spent a single second talking this over with Rae or thinking about what this conversation might mean for her or Riley. All he’s thinking about is himself and how to protect what he has with Rae.

And all that makes me want to do is tell him to fuck off.

For the first time since I stood in front of him, I move, taking three steps forward to close the space between us. I loom over him, large and imposing and proud to be a big, scary motherfucker who can hold his own in the ring and out of it when necessary. Aaron tries to meet my gaze without adjusting his stance at all, but he’s too short to make it happen, and I take great satisfaction in watching him tip his head back to fully witness the murder in my eyes.

“I’m gonna say this once, and then I want you to feel free to get the fuck out of my gym.” I peer down at him, laughing internally at the false bravado he’s projecting. “Whatever Rae and I decide to do about our daughter will be our decision. Not yours. And if I have it my way, I will be a very active part of Riley’s life, which means I’ll be a part of Rae’s life, too. You might feel like you’ve got a leg up on me because you’ve been around, and I haven’t, or because you’ve never struggled with addiction, and I have, but I want you to remember something.” I lean down, placing my mouth near his ear. “You can recover from drug addiction. They have a whole twelve-step program for it and everything. But last I checked, there’s no cure for being an insecure little bitch.”

With a single finger to his chest, I send him stumbling back toward the exit, and he glares at me as he leaves, but he doesn’t say another word. I watch him go, wondering how the fuck Rae ended up with an asshole like that.

14

RAE

Now

When I was a kid, I used to hate getting my hair done.

It took too long, and it hurt too much. The kitchen counter was always too cold, and my mom always managed to get water in my ears or shampoo in my eyes—sometimes both—before it was all said and done. She’d also get mad at me when I cried as she brushed out my curls. I remember because that was really the only time she ever raised her voice.

If you’d just hold still, we could get done quicker, Rae, she’d say, impatient hands raking through tangled curls with a rat-tail comb and not a lick of product because she didn’t know a damn thing about detangling sprays, wide tooth combs or patience.

By the time I had Riley, I’d decided that our wash days weren’t going to be anything like that. Now, don’t get me wrong, she still cries sometimes when my fingers get caught on a particularly dreadful knot during the finger detangling portion or when the water isn’t as cold as she likes it, but for the most part, it’s not a traumatic time for her. I play her music and make sure she has plenty of snacks, and after I wash her hair twice—once with a clarifying shampoo and again with a moisturizing one—I do a deep condition and sit her under the hooded dryer on low for thirty minutes.

Usually, I use that time to clean up the mess I’ve made of the kitchen and to prepare myself for the styling portion of the day. That’s what I’m in the middle of doing when Aaron walks through the door in a God-awful mood. He makes a beeline for me, which is odd because he knows we’re not currently on speaking terms. I haven’t said a word to him or his hag of a mother after I found out she got him to agree to pay for a full kitchen renovation in the house she no longer lives in so she can finally put it on the market. The sixty-thousand dollar invoice that came in Saturday’s mail had Aaron’s name on it and was backdated to the week we moved to New Haven, which means Aaron knew on Friday—when he was standing in the middle of the place I wanted to build my dream in—that he’d already promised the money he could have used to cover my portion of our expenses to Marcy. And now, if I want to keep Riley at her school and a roof over our heads, I’ll have to press pause on everything I wanted to do for myself.

Hell, I might need to go get a job at the school I was planning on putting out of business.

“We need to talk,” Aaron says, standing close to me even though it’s completely unnecessary.

I shake my head and pull down a few sheets of paper towel, using them to soak up the little bit of water on the counter I missed the first time. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Aaron.”

“Listen, Rae.” He places a hand over mine, forcing me to stop what I’m doing. “I know you’re mad at me, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the renovation, but can we just set it aside for right now? I have something to tell you.”

A heavy, impatient sigh passes through my lips as I turn to him. “What is it, Aaron?”

He glances over at the breakfast nook where I have Riley set up under the dryer.

“Can we speak in private?”

“She can’t hear us.”

“Rae, please.”

I cross my arms, letting him know I’m not budging. Whatever he has to say to me can be said right here, right now.

“I went to see Hunter.”

Okay, anything except for that.

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