Page 108 of Fierce-Hyde

Lecturing did no good anymore.

“Why are you being so mean?” her mother asked.

“I’m being realistic. Can you sign it now?”

“No,” her mother said. “They took that as I wasn’t going to stay and they gave it to someone else.”

“Do they have anything else available there? Did you ask?”

“No,” her mother said. “I didn’t. It’s probably only a one bedroom and that is smaller than I’ve got.”

“It’s better than sleeping in your car, isn’t it?” There were still twenty days left in the month, so she was sure her mother could find something by then, but without a job, that might not be so easy.

“I can come live with you,” her mother said. “Now could be a good time.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Mom, I have a one-bedroom apartment and I’m not having you sleeping on my couch.”

“You’d let me be on the street?” her mother asked, whining.

“No,” she said. “But it’s not only that, I’ve got a boyfriend and I can’t deal with this right now. I might change jobs too.”

“You haven’t told me any of those things,” her mother said. “Why?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Because every time we talk you spend the whole time talking about yourself and you never ask about me. I was going to tell you about Hyde on Thanksgiving, but the entire ten minutes we talked was all about you being back with Dan and then he got there and you hung up on me.”

“I’m sorry,” her mother said, sobbing into the phone. “You’re always there for me and I take it for granted.”

“You do,” she said.

“You don’t have to agree with me now when I’m at rock bottom. What am I going to do?”

Tori balled her hand into a fist, her nails biting into her palm. “I’m going to call and see if there is anything available there you can move into. Since you’re a tenant already and they have your deposit, with any luck they will allow you to switch over and not worry about checking any job references.”

“I guess I can do that,” her mother said.

“You can, but you’re liable to give them a sob story about what is going on in your life and then they might not let you sign another lease. Do you want to take that chance?”

There was silence on the other line. “No.”

“Give me the number to the place there, please?”

“I don’t know it,” her mother said.

“You can’t look it up? Never mind, I’ll do it on my computer right now.” Thankfully she remembered the name of the place her mother lived at, found the number, and then said, “I’ve got it. I’m going to call for you now.”

“Thank you, Tori. I owe you so much.”

She didn’t answer and just hung up.

“Hi,” she said when the apartment complex answered. “My name is Tori Miller and my mother Emily Miller currently resides in one of the two-bedroom apartments.”

“Yes,” the woman said. “She didn’t renew her lease.”

“She didn’t,” Tori said. “But her plans fell through and I was wondering if there are any one-bedroom apartments open? It’d be so much easier if she could just stay there since she likes the area and the location. She doesn’t need a two bedroom.”

“Hang on and let me check,” the woman said. She sat there watching the clock on her computer and had to send off an email to the staff she was going to be meeting to push it forward an hour. She wanted this taken care of as quickly as possible. “We have one apartment opening the first of the year for a one-bedroom.”

“Perfect,” she said. “Can she just sign a lease on that? Would her deposit on the other apartment slide over to that lease?”

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