Page 73 of Riot

I wish I could shoulder all her pain, but instead, I hold her through it, giving her every drop of my strength when she feels weak.

THIRTY-SIX

It’s been a week since the accident, and I’ve been on bed rest. It’s driving me crazy, but Kage won’t let me ignore the doctors’ orders. The reporters out front have only tripled, and the news stories run every hour. My interview is highlighted despite other things happening in the world.

Good, let them be reminded every day.

Speculation has already started about the truth, and secrets are beginning to be dug up, everyone wanting to know what I meant. The police are still searching for who did this, and Kage hates that, so the guards in the house have doubled. I can barely pee without a man in a suit busting in to check I’m alive.

It’s constricting and annoying but also strangely sweet.

I haven’t cried since the day I came back from the hospital. Tears are useless anyway. They won’t change anything, but Kage watches me like he’s waiting for me to crack again. I don’t blame him, I was a mess that day, but I pulled myself together—or so I thought.

I answer the phone without looking, a rookie mistake, and a voice I never wanted to hear flows into my ears. “Hello, Fallon.”

My heart stills, and when I speak, I’d like to say my voice is strong and confident, but it’s small. I’m still a little girl wishing for her mother to love and protect her.

“Mother.” I pause, swallowing my pain. It’s all on the surface, since I’m never able to escape it, especially recently. “You never call.”

I haven’t seen or spoken to my mother since my father’s funeral. She got drunk and caused a scene after the reading of the will and disappeared into thin air once more, barely sparing her teenage daughter a look. Maybe she was scared of what she would see.

She took off when I was young, leaving me alone with him. She said she was done with his lifestyle—the drugs, the alcohol, and the women. She never wanted a child, but she had me and despised me for it since the moment I was born. She hated the way my father doted on me and loved me when he didn’t love her. If only she knew the truth, that his love crossed lines. I would have done anything for him to love me less and her more.

I would have run away with her if she asked, even if she hated me for the rest of my life, but she didn’t care about me enough to even say goodbye back then. To her, I was a reminder of what she endured in the name of love and fame. She wanted a fresh start—one that didn’t include me.

“Yes, well, I saw about your accident.” She waits, but I don’t speak. My heart flies for a moment until she talks again. “You shouldn’t have reacted to it like that.” Whatever was left of my childish heart hoping my mother would suddenly care plummets and crashes.

I go ice cold all over, refusing to let her hurt me once more.

I can’t keep giving her that power. She never loved me, so why am I always hoping she will?

“Well?” she prompts when I don’t speak. “I have seen you speaking about your father. Let it be, Fallon. Don’t bring up the past?—”

“They brought it up first,” I snap, refusing to be cowed. I won’t let her chastise me like I’m a naughty child. She gave up the right to have a say in my life a long time ago.

She’s just a stranger with a familiar face.

“Fallon—”

“No, you do not get to call and tell me what to do. We both know you are scared—scared of what I’ll say, scared it will ruin whatever perfect life you have built without me. I’m betting a mother abandoning her child wouldn’t read well, would it? If you don’t like the truth, Mother, then you shouldn’t have abandoned your child to that monster,” I snarl, refusing to sugarcoat it like I normally would. All those years of pain lace my tone, making me bitter and angry.

“Enough!” she yells. There she is, the true version of my mother. She could never disguise her hatred for me. “Apologize to me right now.”

My laugh is bitter and slightly manic. “You want me to apologize? To you?” I laugh even harder, until tears fill my eyes, before I swallow it back, gasping through it. “You want me to say sorry? To you? If I was ever going to apologize to someone, it wouldn’t be you. It would be me. I’m crueler to myself more than anyone else. I rip myself apart to fit into little boxes. I starve myself. I medicate myself. I drink and numb myself. I don’t even meet my own eyes in the mirror out of fear of what I’ll see and feel. I have never said anything nice about myself. I hear your voice and I foolishly hope for the love you should have freely given. I hurt myself over and over trying to earn it. If there was ever an apology owed, it’s to me, not you—never you. You abandoned me. You didn’t care then, so don’t start now. This is my life, and you have nothing to do with it. You made that perfectly clear.” Breathing heavily, I tilt my chin up as if she can see me. “I will never apologize for what I’ll do next. If you don’t like the truth, Mother, then you shouldn’t have been such a terrible person.”

She didn’t say goodbye back then, so she doesn’t get one now. I hang up without another word.

I’m panting, but my shoulders are loose and my heart is less heavy, less burdened. I’ve carried that pain, that fury, in my heart for so long, hating her while she didn’t even care, and I kept telling myself I’m not good enough to be loved.

I was wrong.

Kage taught me that. As if my thoughts summon him, arms slip around my waist and a chin rests on my shoulder.

“How much did you hear?” I ask.

“Everything,” he admits, kissing on my shoulder. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” I answer without shame. Kage would never judge me.

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