Page 69 of Kiss Me Forever

Friday afternoon, Alex walked past Fisherman's Wharf on his way to Pier 39. It was a sunny day and there were plenty of tourists enjoying the unusually warm weather. But he wasn't here to have fun. He was going to meet his mother. After reading her letter, he'd texted her back saying same place, same time. He hadn't wanted to invite her to his house or to his office. They would meet on neutral ground, and then maybe he could figure out how he wanted to proceed.

Sometimes the life he'd had with her seemed like a dream. At other times, he could vividly remember the one-bedroom apartment they'd shared and the years he'd spent sleeping on a beat-up couch with springs poking out of the cushions. Thinking back, he shouldn't have been that sad when she left him at the church, because life hadn't been that great with her. But she'd been his mother, the only family he had.

It shouldn’t still hurt, he told himself. He was a grown man. He'd lived a lot of life since he'd been with her.

Still, as he walked down the pier toward the carousel, his steps began to slow.

The fact that she'd chosen this place to meet wasn't lost on him. One of their favorite things to do in Los Angeles when he was a kid was to ride the merry-go-round at Griffith Park. She'd tell him to pick two of the fastest horses, and they'd ride around and around until they ran out of tickets. It was one of the only good memories he had of her.

He wished he didn't have that one. He wanted to hang on to the hate, to the anger. Those were far easier emotions to deal with.

He saw her before she saw him. Then she turned, and their eyes met.

An unexpected pain shot through his heart. No matter how much he hated her, she was still his mother, she was still the woman he'd prayed would come back to rescue him.

She had come back. Not to rescue him, but to make amends, to ask for forgiveness.

Why should he forgive her? Wasn't that just one more example of her putting herself before him?

What the hell was he doing here?

He stopped walking.

She must have sensed that he was about to flee, because she quickly came towards him, her gaze fixed on his face.

She stopped two feet away. "Alex," she murmured.

There were tears in her green eyes—eyes that were so like his own.

"Thank you for coming," she added.

"I don't really know why I did," he said, unable to look away from her. Her face looked good, far better than when he used to see her with pale, hollowed-out cheeks, pasty skin, and rotting teeth. Somewhere along the line, she'd fixed her teeth, colored her hair brown, put on some weight and invested in some good skin care products, because there was very little sign of the addict she'd once been. He'd bet a lot of money that the people who knew her now would be shocked to know how she'd once lived her life.

"Did you get my letter?" she asked. "I wasn't sure that woman I met would give it to you."

"She did."

"Did you read it?"

"Yes." Her letter had been filled with apologies. She was trying to take responsibility for all her bad choices. She wanted to be a better mother. She wanted to bring her family back together—her whole family.

"What did you think?"

"I honestly don't know what to think about you."

She shook a little under his hard gaze. "I know that you're still very angry, but I want you to meet your sisters, Alex. I want them to know you."

"Isn't that going to bring up a lot of questions for you? Does your husband know about your past?"

She let out a sigh. "Scott knows some of it. I've told him about my addiction problems."

"But he doesn't know the whole story?"

"He knows that I couldn't take care of you, but he doesn't know about the day I left you at the church."

"Why not?"

"I guess I was afraid that while he could accept my addictions, he wouldn't be able to accept the cruelty I showed you that day." She paused, giving him a pleading look. "I don't want to lose him, Alex. Not just because it would hurt me, but also because it would devastate the girls. And I've changed my life. I'm not the person who did those horrible things."

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