Page 44 of The Catalyst

“You’re allergic to the smell of bleach?”

I could explain myself if my throat wasn’t in such agony. I could tell him that we’ve never had the allergy conversation, so there’s no way he would know something like this would happen.

He presses his mouth to the top of my head before sighing. “Any other allergies I should be aware of? I’d hate to nearly kill you again.”

I almost laugh, but the pain in my throat stops me and I shake my head.

“Good. Since we’re on the subject, I’m allergic to potatoes.”

My eyes widen in shock. Did he say…potatoes? That’s a first. I’ve never heard of anyone being allergic to potatoes. That means Nigel has never had french fries or anything else that requires potatoes. That sucks. I love potatoes.

“It’s not a life-threatening allergy, baby. Not like yours.”

Even though my body is weaker than a limp noodle, Nigel lifts me and tries to help me walk to the truck, but it’s impossible. I almost died, and my body hasn’t completely recovered from that cliff. He lifts me into his arms and sets me into the truck cab before closing the door. I can’t even summon the energy to put on my seatbelt.

There was only one other time this happened to me and I was a baby, so I don’t remember the effects it had on me. I’ve never felt so weak and unable to care for myself. It’s the most embarrassing thing ever, feeling like I have to depend on someone else to take care of me.

CHAPTER 21

BETH

Last night, I looked at myself in the mirror, and what I saw was horrifying. My face was a mix of red and purple and so puffy and swollen. I looked like I went a round with The Rock or John Cena.

Yet, Nigel didn’t look at me or treat me any differently. Even though I looked like I needed to be in the hospital, he still had stars in his eyes.

I look up at the mirror in his headboard and relax when I see the size of my face has returned to normal, though my coloring is still red and the hives have yet to completely subside.

At least I don’t look like a strawberry anymore.

Nigel may have complained about it, but when push came to shove, he can’t stop me from returning home. I know he’s worried my mom will hurt me, and I’ll deal with it if it comes to that. I swore to him that if my mom ever actually hurt me, I’d tell him the truth, but he’s not getting more out of me than that. I can’t tell him what she has done thus far because she’s still my mom. I know the woman who raised me, and that’s not the woman who chased me through a window. Maybe she needs a reality check, and I’m going to give it to her.

“Where have you been!” my mother yells as soon as I’m through the door, her dark hair a mess from her bedhead, but she seems sober. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

“You didn’t seem too worried when you broke down my bedroom door, hell-bent on strangling me.” Sure, she didn’t do anything, but I know the vibes her energy was giving off. She was desperate in a murderous way.

“Don’t be so dramatic. I would never hurt you, Bethany, and it truly hurts me that you would say that.” She fans herself in a melodramatic manner.

“The woman who raised me would never hurt me. I don’t see any of her in you, so cut the crap.” Her forehead creases, and sadness fills her eyes as she rears back as if I’m the one who struck her. “We need to have a serious talk. You’ve changed since Dad died and not in a good way. You started drinking, have slacked off from the time you spend at the church–that never mattered to me but was important to you–and you’ve taken an uncharacteristic interest in my love life. Not to mention, you’ve started hitting me since we moved to Grove Hill. Things need to change, or I might as well pack the rest of my stuff. My boyfriend would be more than happy for me to move in with him.”

My mother opens her mouth to speak, but I interrupt her.

“Before you say I need to break up with him, don’t. I will not be a social ladder for you to climb.”

She snaps her mouth closed and slowly nods. “Bethany, I know I’ve fallen from grace. I know this has all been hard on you. You lost your dad, and it must have been difficult watching me spiral. Sometimes it’s even hard to get out of bed in the morning, which made me realize,What if one day I can’t get out of bed. It turned into a panic for you. If I can’t get out of bed in the morning, money stops coming in, we lose the house, we stop having food and the standard of living you’ve been raised with goes away. Then, it drifted to if you ever started feeling like this. It became more than me and…” She takes a deep breath as tears fall down her face, sincerity filling her eyes. “I just wanted to make sure you were always taken care of. I know the Jordans aren’t necessarily warm people, but they’re a good Christian family and will always be financially stable.”

Wow. She’s not even addressing the biggest issues here. Instead, she’s blaming this on a stupid mid-life crisis.

“Money isn’t everything, Mom, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’mnothinglike you. For the Jordans being good Christians, that is not the case at all. Have you wondered why I don’t like Devon Jordan, even as a person? It’s because he’s an entitled little rich boy who, on our first night in Grove Hill, was coming onto me so strongly that even though I told him no several times, he ignored it and had to be persuaded to leave me alone. Then, on my first day at school, he said I was either a prude because I rejected him or a slut because I liked someone else.”

I doubt I'll ever be comfortable enough with my mother to tell her that Jordan overheard me talking about losing my panties. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen those since. I need to remember to ask Nigel what happened to them.

“What?” she gapes at me, completely taken aback by my honesty.

“And as for my boyfriend, you haven’t even met him and judged him based on what other people say.” A deep-seated part of me wants to tell her about Ana Vaughn and her piece-of-shit father and how Nigel and his friends gave her the justice she deserved, but I know my mother is not someone who could ever be trusted with that information. There’s a reason why no one in Grove Hill knows what happens to people who break the rules. It keeps the Bastards safe and able to help those in the town who have been violated. “If you can’t deal with that, then I guess I won’t be bringing him around you for the rest of my life.”

“Wait. The rest of yourlife? Honey, we’ve only been here about a month. You can’t possibly know that you’ll always want to spend your life with this boy.”

“When you know, you know,” I repeat the words my dad used to always tell me when he talked about him proposing to her after only dating for three months, which I thought was insane. I say it because I know it’s the only thing that will get through to my mother about the permanence of Nigel’s presence, even though it doesn’t mimic my feelings. He’s not going anywhere, whether I like it or not.

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