Page 84 of Before Now

I haven’t truly seen him, and he hasn’t truly seen me.

Foster just told me he plans to remedy the truly part. Maybe we don’t wait until then for the rest.

* * *

I playwith the idea of showing Foster my face over and over again for the next week. But I always change my mind at the last second.

The hesitation has nothing to do with Foster being real—he’s so real it hurts. He always has been, even when I pretended otherwise, but the missing him part remains. It will only amplify if I see all of him. All I’ll want to do isseeall of him. A problem considering he won’t return to the states for another fifteen days, so as much as I want to, I decide to wait until then.

Although I won’t be surprised if I fold at any point over the next two weeks.

The guy’s still a fever, primed to take over without warning.

Part of me hopes he will.

With only three weeks left in the semester, I feel lighter. I’m in far too decent of a mood to walk in the front door of the step-house after classes. So I follow the stone path around the side of the house. I secure my bag’s strap on my shoulder and start up the trellis. Only movement through the window freezes me. I duck to avoid being caught and take a quick sweep of the scene inside.

And what I see sends me scaling down—fucking furious.

I leap to the ground and tear around the house through the front door. It slams behind me, and I thunder up the stairs. The one to my room sits wide open when I reach it. My dresser’s yanked from the wall, drawers dismantled and on the floor, the trash from my bathroom scattered, the contents of my closet strewn.

And in the center of it all is my mom.

“Get the fuck out!” I shout.

She doesn’t hesitate, let alone acknowledge me storming in. All my anger and resentment toward this goddamn woman hits at once, and I shriek it this time.

“Get out!”

I rush to my stripped bed, dragged to the middle of my bedroom, where she’s trying to search under my mattress. My hand latches onto her arm, and I jerk her around before she rips away from me. Her momentum flings her against the bed, but she recovers fast.

“How fucking dare you,” she hisses, charging at me.

A side-step dodges her. She nearly stumbles into the hall before whipping around, which puts me between her and the destruction. Hot tears cloud my vision, every muscle tense and ready to fight if she tries to come closer. She has a fresh bruise on her cheek, a hand clamping over her side near her kidney.

“Pills?” I ask, voice shaky even on the single syllable. So much rage floods through me I need to scream, but I refuse to break for her. “Is that what you want?”

“What I want is to have never had you.” A disgusted twist in her expression accompanies the hate. “And now that I know what you’ve been up to, I’m looking for what else you’re hiding.”

I cross my arms, fists clenched. “Oh, do tell. What is it I’m doing, Mom?”

“Sneaking around with Roman Moore.”

Shock radiates through me, and I swallow, shaking my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She chokes out a laugh. “Fucking liar. Elvin saw you in his car. He saw you all over each other, too.”

Everything from the other night closes in on me, from Elvin stopping me outside to what he said leaving the kitchen.

“Next time you need a ride, call me. I can keep a secret too.”

I chalked up the encounter to Daniel trying to scare me—sicking his favorites on me. But Elvin knew I’d been with Roman.

“You act like you’re so much better than me.” She picks at the bottom of her sweater. “But here you are, down at the bottom, fucking my junkie reject.”

My lungs struggle for air, and I speak through my teeth. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“He told ya he’s clean, right?” She has a sway to her stance and follows it a half-step forward. “He’s not,honey.” The last word’s so condescending I almost lose it on her. “He’s used the same act for years. Plays the good guy until he gets what he wants. If you fell for it, you’re stupider than I thought.”

---