Page 7 of Twisted Collide

“Enough.” She tips her chin up, using that no-nonsense voice she ordered me around with for decades. “All you need to know right now is that I spoke to him, and after a long talk, he agreed to help you.”

My head shakes back and forth, and now I’m sure I will pass out if I don’t sit. I cross the room and plop onto the ottoman across from the couch.

“Help me? I don’t need the help of a man who abandoned me.” I laugh, but it’s humorless. I can’t believe she had access to him this whole time and waited until now to contact him. “In fact, I thought you were on the same page. What happened to the woman who insisted she raise me herself?”

“Ididraise you.” She shrugs. “We didn’t need him.”

But I did.

I needed him, and he didn’t want me.

Without even knowing my father, I already hate him.

I scoff. “And now I do?”

“I will not sit still as you waste your life away as a…as a…”

“As awhat, Mom?” I shake my head, raising a hand up. “You know what? I don’t want to know. All my life, you’ve made decisions for me without ever considering what I want. What’s best for me.”

She crosses her arms at her chest. “There’s a lot you don’t know—”

“And whose fault is that?” I raise a brow. “None of this was your call to make.”

“As your mother, everything regarding you is my call, including this.” She stands, plucks an envelope off the coffee table, and tosses it in my lap. “I expect you out of the home by the time I return from work.”

“Excuse me?”

The envelope tumbles to the carpet, along with every jagged piece of my heart.

“You’re lost, sweetheart. You need change.” She shakes her head, sighing. “He agreed to let you live with him.”

“You-you’re sending me away?”

It’s one thing to know my father doesn’t want me—he’s never met me. Who is he to judge me?

But my mother?

She’s known me my whole life. She held me when I lost my first tooth, when my best friend moved to Canada, when I discovered boys are assholes who break hearts like candy. We’ve never had the best relationship, but still…she’s my mom.

Mom ignores my question. “You’ll finally get the work experience you’ve been going on about.”

“You want me to work with the man who abandoned me for twenty-two years?” I shoot up to my feet, crushing the envelope beneath my heel and twisting it for good measure. “I refuse.”

“That’s up to you, Josephine. You’re an adult, after all…” She pats the crown of my head. It takes every ounce of self-control not to close my eyes and lean into her touch. “…but you’re no longer welcome in my home.”

And just like that, she leaves without even glancing back.

It’s true what they say…

Parents teach kids the most important lessons.

Mine taught me that I don’t need anyone.

3

DANE

With one stepinto the room, I already know this is the last place I want to be.

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