Page 64 of Don't Fall

Chapter Seventeen

Tessa

It feels weird sneaking out this morning, but it’s early and just because I happen to have a staff meeting on a Saturday at this ungodly hour, doesn’t mean Lane should have to suffer the consequences.

I’m moving surprisingly fast considering the time of day, and even I can’t deny it’s because I’m eager to get this done and over with so I can come back here. To carry on with whatever craziness we started last night. Another reason it feels wrong to take off without saying anything. But, I left a note and I stuck it right there on my pillow, so he’ll see it as soon as he wakes up. He’ll know I didn’t bolt or change my mind or take off for any other reason than Burt’s a maniac who doesn’t value early Saturday mornings the way he ought to.

Nevertheless, I’m practically skipping from the stairs to my car when a voice I haven’t heard in ten years, stops me dead in my tracks.

“My, my. Aren’t we looking fancy?”

Frozen in place, I blink several times, instantly struggling to thwart the onslaught of emotions attempting to run me over and take me out. Time seems to stand still all around me as I begin the treacherous task of turning around to face my past.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Don’t recognize your own mother?” she hisses. She always did thrive in parenting whenever she used guilt to sway and manipulate us.

“What are you doing here?” As soon as I hear my own broken voice, I push both heels into the ground as hard as I can. My words may be shaky, but my stance will not be. She can’t get to me. Not now. Not anymore.

“Does a mother need a reason to want to check in on her oldest daughter?” If there wasn’t such a cold, empty stare in her eyes, I’d probably laugh at that question. As it is, I’m frightened. I know why she’s here. Her haggard grey skin, the hollowed sockets around her eyes, the chapped lips and the way her clothes are practically falling off her emaciated body leave little to the imagination. She hasn’t just fallen off the wagon, she took a nosedive out of it and then got dragged along behind it. Provided of course, there was ever a time she was actually on it.

Might as well cut to the chase. “I don’t have any money.”

She smiles at me, but it’s wicked and greed flashes in her eyes as they travel up behind me, seeking out my condo. “But you can get it.” When her gaze drops down again, it comes right for me, boring into me, taking me hostage just like it did when I was little and all she had to do was capture me in that cold, black stare to scare me into doing her bidding. “I know Edith left you that condo. And I also know, it’s worth a hell of a lot more than you deserve to hang on to all for yourself. She wasn’t even your aunt. She was mine. And now look at you. Living here in these fancy apartments, driving a nice car and pretending to be something you’re not. Think getting that college degree will make you more like them and less like me? It won’t.”

“I don’t need a college degree to be less like you,” I snap, grateful she decided to push the one button I smashed a decade ago. “Not being a selfish fucking addict who treats everyone like shit does that for me.”

Standing up to her does little to make her cower or back away. If anything, she just ramps up harder, comes back stronger. What spurs her on is nothing I can counter. Addiction takes away all sense of reason. Makes nothing impossible. She’s got a one-track mind on a one-track mission and I’m the last obstacle between her and what she wants. It’s just a matter of time before she takes me out. We both know that. The question is, how hard do I fight before I go down. And the answer to that is simple. I give it all I’ve got. I go down swinging. She may never have to face herself or the things she’s done because the drugs erase all sense of guilt and responsibility for her, but I don’t have that luxury. And I’ll be damned if she takes from me the one thing I have going for me. My innate ability to do the right thing. Always. No matter the cost.

“I see. You think you’re the victim here?” she snarls, coming in closer, circling like a vulture. I haven’t been at the center of her dance in over a decade, but I still recognize the steps. “What about me? Huh? Think it was easy being saddled with six children? All on my own. No one to help me. No one to take the burden from me. You’re the selfish little shits who took it all. My freedom. My money. My youth!” She creeps in a little more until we’re inches from each other. “Look at me. You did this to me. You. Your brothers. All of you. And then...you just left me. With nothing.”

I swallow down the bile rising repeatedly in my throat. “We all got left, Mom. Every single one of us. Some were just better at staying the course despite the wreckage, than others.” My lips press together in a firm line and my nose twitches in disgust as I fully take in this moment. “Number one rule of being a Harrison, Mom. Don’t fall, cause no one’s gonna catch you and they sure as hell aren’t coming back to pick your ass up. You taught us that. Maybe it’s time you remember that.”

I shove my shoulder into hers, pushing past her. For one glorious moment, today’s the day I swing and win. Then ~

“Maybe it’s time you remember your place in this world. You can bet your skinny little ass it ain’t sleeping next to that professor of yours.”

Inch by inch, the blood drains down, leaving me cold and numb from head to toe. She knew all along she had me. All she was doing was tiring me out, letting me swing at the air, exhausting my efforts so the final blow wouldn’t just take me down, it would destroy me.

“What are you going to do?” I croak, the conflict of breathing and speaking coming to a head inside my throat where a lump of feelings is making it impossible to do either.

“That, my love, depends on you,” she sneers, her bony hand reaching up to touch my cheek in a gesture that chills me to my core. “But, I am thinking about checking out this college you’ve been going to. I think it’s high time I became more invested in your education. And, as your mother, I can’t deny that it concerns me to know a teacher is taking advantage of you. I wonder...who would I talk to about that?”

“How much?” I just need to know the number. It’ll change of course, over time. In the end, what she wants is always the same. Everything.

“You tell me. What’s a fair amount when you compare your high society life to the way your sister and I have been barely scraping by, living in squalor?”

My mind races, stumbling over the screaming inside my head, desperate for a way to quiet the terror and numb the fear running rampant within. My eyes darting all around, searching for something to grasp onto, they finally catch on my car.

“I can get you five grand this week.” I take a breath in to squelch the sob breaking in my chest. “I’ll need longer to get you more.”

Her expression turns to stone. The game is over. She won. “Seven. And I want it by Friday.” She turns and starts to walk away, pausing a few steps in to turn back. “Don’t think that will be the end of it. I’m gonna get what’s mine, Tessa. One way or another.”

Dead to it all, I shift into autopilot and somehow, make it to my staff meeting. Two hours later, I’m standing outside the Basement, wondering how long I’ve been standing there and what in the hell was talked about at the meeting. It’s all a blur. A surreal out of body experience of faces flashing past me, a slur of words that don’t make sense, because nothing does anymore.

“Tessa?” A hand on my shoulder forces me to come back and touchdown in my physical body.

It’s Cara.

“What’s up?”

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