Page 88 of A Scoring Chance

The voice in my head continues chastising me as everything clicks into place. All the signs were right there in front of me, but I was too dumb to notice any of them. I pinch the skin of my wrist tighter, feeling a small amount of relief as blood trickles from the crescent moon-shaped wounds from my fingers. But instead of stopping, I wipe my wrist clean before starting in on the other one, pinching the flesh between my fingers and twisting.

I feel the brush of something against my hand and stop, my eyes flicking up from the ground. “Does that change anything?”

My eyebrows pull down as I try to make sense of what he’s asking me. “What do you mean?”

“Does anything change between you and Mona now that you know I’m not her son?”

“Of course not!” I exclaim, my head swiveling around to see if anyone is listening.

Thea and Trina have disappeared into the crowd, no doubt congratulating themselves for a job well done, and everyone else is too busy eating to notice what happened a few moments ago.

I reach my hand toward him, noticing the thin line of blood trickling down my wrist, and pull my arm back. “Ramona is the best thing to ever happen to me. Neither of you are getting rid of me until you send me away.”

“Are they right? Are you only trying to get closer to her through me?” Darius asks. Quinton maneuvers his body between me and Darius. I admire his desire to protect his cousin, but he doesn’t need to worry about me doing anything to harm him. Not now or ever.

“No. I was more hesitant to start anything with Ramona because she had you. Being a single mom is hard enough without complicating it with a relatively high-profile relationship. But in the end, I couldn’t stay away from her.”

I’ve never felt the need to explain myself to a teenage boy, but he deserves to have an answer to his question. I never want him to doubt my intentions with his aunt.

“Don’t hurt her,” he whispers, reaching toward me and giving my hand a squeeze.

“I won’t.” I would die if anything happened to Ramona King, especially if I was the person to cause it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ramona

Tears stream down my face as I hold my finger to my lips, not wanting Cooper to know I’m standing here. I could’ve done a better job making sure that he knew Darius was technically my nephew and not my son, but it honestly doesn’t matter. I needed Cooper to know that Darius and I were a package deal. He couldn’t have one without the other, regardless of how we were related to each other.

“Does this change anything for you?” I jump at the sound of Alise’s voice right next to me.

“Jesus fucking Christ! I swear we need to tie a bell around your neck or something.” I spin around, smacking her hard on the shoulder.

“Or you need to pay attention to something other than Cooper Hendrix.” Alise giggles, motioning her head toward Cooper and the boys.

All four of them huddle together, whispering something to each other before Cooper throws his head back and laughs loudly. His entire face is lit up in happiness as he ruffles Darius’s hair and begins shuffling the cards.

“So does it?”

“Does what?” I question, keeping my eyes focused on Cooper and the boys.

“Does his knowing about Darius change anything for you?” Alise asks, implying something else entirely.

The short answer is no, but there’s a part of me that’s still terrified of telling him the whole story about what happened to Dad and Imani. Will he still think the same of me once he knows what I said to them, or will he run in the other direction? I can’t say that I’d blame him if he did, but I’d be heartbroken.

I spend every day fighting to keep my demons at bay. Struggling to silence the voice in the back of my head telling me I should never have been born and that Imani and Dad would still be here if I never existed. On days like today, the voice is stronger, louder than usual, but having Cooper here with me has kept the darkness at bay. Now that he knows, I’m sure he has questions. Questions that deserve to be answered by me.

I’ve talked to my therapist at length about this. How I was going to tell him, what I was going to say, but now that the moment is here, my mind is blank. I want to run in the other direction and hide away. Let the pain from Aunt Thea’s words wash over me, consuming the few shreds of happiness that I’ve carved out for myself with Cooper.

“Stop that, Mona. Stop it right this instant.” Alise pinches me hard on the arm, bringing my mind back to the present. “I can see you spiraling. Remember, karma's coming for those two. I just hope we are both around to see it.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you are not fine, Ramona. I know you. I can practically hear you making excuses for why you don’t deserve to be with Cooper. That you will only bring him down with all your demons and issues dealing with your past. But I’m never going to stop telling you that you’re wrong. Trust me, there are no two people that deserve each other more than you and Cooper Hendrix.”

I’ve gone through years of therapy to get a grip on my emotions about what happened that night, and while there are still some days I believe it was all my fault they were even on the road that late at night, I know logically there was nothing I could do. I didn’t force the drunk driver behind the wheel and ask him to plow into their car. I have no control over anything that happened that night.

Logically, I know all this, but emotionally, it’s a different story. A small part of my family loves to remind me I had a hand in their deaths. I may not have been the person who actually killed them, but I played a part in it. I had hoped to spare Cooper from hearing their hateful words, especially from Thea and Trina.

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