Page 30 of Break Your Fall

“I smoked weed,” I blurt. All eyes slide to me, but I keep a hold on my mother’s unamused squint. “I had a one-night stand, too. My mom’s had a lot of those,” I add for Aspen. “And I’m thinking of doing it all again.”

Banks leans over to me, finger raised, his mouth opening on a beam, but I cover it with my hand. This is about me and Mom.

But then he licks my palm and I jerk back. “Ew.” I wipe my hand on my dress as he leans back, still beaming.

Mom’s chair scrapes the floor as she stands. “Reyna, the bar.”

“What about it?” I quip as she rounds the table to me. She grabs my arm and makes it look like she’s simply guiding me from my chair, but her grip is a vise, and I have no choice but to follow her unless I want to make a show of clawing her hand off me.

“We haveguests,” she scolds me once we’re at the bar, releasing my arm.

“Yeah, keep sucking up to the guests, Mom.”

She points a finger in my face. “You are going tostopthis right now.”

I point back. “Youneverstop when I ask you to.”

Her hand finds and squeezes her hip. “What do you want from me, huh? You’re eighteen years old. Want me to forbid you? Then you’ll scream about how you’re not a kid anymore and accuse me of being too controlling.”

“Don’t twist this around,” I throw back in her face. I shake my head, feeling the fresh sting of tears. “I just want you to care.”

“I care,” she spits, then softens her voice once she hears there’s none of that feeling in her tone. “I’m here, aren’t I?” I scoff as she adds, “And that’s more than your father can say, don’t forget it.”

“Why couldn’t you have given me a good father?” I say to her back now, my voice cracking around the swell of my throat. “Or a goodanyonebesides you?”

My mother stops her trek back to the table and faces me, closes the distance. “I’m doing the best I can. You had what you needed.”

I stare in disbelief. “What Ineeded—”

“You were never out on the streets—”

“You brought the streets inside,” I yell and all noise from the table ceases. “Youarethe streets.” I only whisper as Mom glances over her shoulder toward her now listening guests, then back at me, humiliation in her stare and venom in her voice.

“I’m your mother. I’ve done the best I can. But you think you can do better out there than in here? Go ahead. Go see how street you are.”

Tears stream down my cheeks and I try to hold myself together, say what I have to. “You gave birth to me. You’re not a mother.”

“That’s right,” she says, leaning into me. “I gave you life. You werethis closeto being aborted, young lady. And maybe if I had gone through with it, we’d all be better off, huh?”

My heart stops, then thuds with a sharp beat against my sternum. My breathing is stunted, more tears pooling at my lashes. The regret flashes in my mother’s eyes and she hesitates, just to sigh and leave me to go back to the table.

Later she’ll tell me I know she didn’t mean it.

Through the blur, I see Banks has joined us, overhearing every hushed word my mother had meant for my ears only, wearing the most serious expression I’ve ever seen on his face. As she’s passing him, he says to her, “You’re a bitch.”

Her only reaction is a small pause in her steps, then she returns to her seat by Aspen as I blink the tears down my cheeks.

“I wouldn’t be better off,” Banks says to me now. His genuine, yet smug delivery causes a laugh to erupt out of me, and he grins, reaching for my hands. “Let’s blow this place.”

He spins around and walks me to the door. I let him keep a hold of my hands, and no one tries to stop us. “You missedmyshow,” he tells me. “I had to break it to Raymond over there that Ihavea dick, I don’tlikedick.”

“He asked you out on hisdad’sdate?” I say with a gape, extracting one of my hands from his to wipe away the last of my tears.

“Duh,” he says over his shoulder, and I laugh as we blow this place.

Thomas

Reyna didn’t come for me, and I’m trying not to dwell on why as I look over my unanswered texts for what I tell myself is the last time. I’ve stared so long my eyes have gone blurry.

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