Page 89 of Three Pucking Words
After the first text he sent, I received approximately four more. All in which I ignored, because I know how much he hates when people don’t give him the attention he wants. It felt kind of good deleting them after opening them so he could see the read receipts.
“It’s rude not getting back to people,” Mom chides in a maternal tone that is almost too well rehearsed to be real.
I gape at the woman who I used to look so much like. What happened to her? She’s aged years since I’ve seen her, no longer looking like the fifty-something she is. She smells heavily of expensive floral perfume, which is an old party trick of hers to cover up the alcohol seeping through her veins. I hate the smell of it.
“You are hardly one to talk,” I say, trying not to sound upset. “Why are you even staying in a hotel and not at the condo?”
She pauses, suddenly looking guilty. “Well…” She clears her throat. “I sold it. A while ago, actually. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up in the current real estate market.”
What doessheknow about real estate? She’s never expressed interest once in it, not even when she dated somebody who did well selling in the city. He’d even been casted for some reality TV show that highlighted a brokerage he worked for. It wasn’t longafter filming started when Mom decided he wasn’t good enough for her.
“You’re giving me crap about not getting in touch with people, yet you sold my childhood home without saying anything to me about it first?”
She dismisses the comparison with the wave of her hand. “That isn’t the same thing. And what would you have done? Bought it? They don’t allow pets there anyway.”
Her eyes give a passive look to Puck and her nose scrunches.
“He’s not just apet,” I correct her. “Puck is my service dog. You’d remember that if you weren’t so drunk the last time we spoke about him.”
Her eyes, which used to be a beautiful shade of green but now are taken over by a glassy red glaze, roll. “I remember the conversation perfectly fine. That doesn’t mean I agree that you should have one. It seems a bit…obtuse. There are people who actually need them.”
My nostrils flare, and I feel Bodhi go rigid beside me. “Excuse me?” he says for the first time, voice low and rough.
Mom’s eyes widen a fraction at his unimpressed tone. “Service dogs are for people with disabilities,” she tells Bodhi, as if she finds it incredulous that someone likemehas one. “I mean, look at her. Does she look sick?”
A crestfallen feeling fills my chest. Is that what she thinks? That I’m notsickenough? That I don’t deserve the security of a dog like Puck who can literally save my life? Whohas?
Bodhi answers before I can. “She has epilepsy. They don’t just train and hand out dogs unless they see a need for them.”
Mom laughs, but it sounds nervous. “She hadoneseizure.”
Now I’m officially mad. “No. You onlywitnessedone seizure. I lost count at how many I had as I got older, Mom. Do you have any idea how life threatening grand mal seizures are? Do you even know what that is?”
Educating her would do very little. People have to care in order to learn. The way Bodhi learned about my PCOS. He didn’t need to spend his time understanding something that I dealt with day to day, but he did. But my mother has never done that. Not once.
I swallow down the pure disappointment, the raw anger boiling inside of me. “The first time,” I tell her, “that I had to deal with one alone, I waspetrified. I had no idea where you were. You didn’t come home. I was—” My voice breaks, and I feel betrayed by it. “—I was so scared. One second I was fine, and the next Mila, her parents, and at least three EMTs were surrounding me on the floor and asking me if I knew my name.”
I didn’t. I didn’t know where I was or who I was. I didn’t know Mila or her parents’ names. It took a while for that information to come back. I’d spent a night in the hospital being monitored for a concussion because I’d apparently hit my head on the floor during the episode and was discharged to Isabella and Manuel the next morning.
Nobody asked me where my parents were.
Nobody threatened to call CPS or get in touch with my father.
At the time, I’d been grateful. I didn’t want to move away from Mila or my home, even if my home didn’t feel like one.
But now…
Maybe that would have been for the better.
“It wasn’t just one,” I whisper. “It was one of many. There’s a difference, Mom. And if you’d been around more, you would know that.”
You would care,I add silently. Bitterly.
Max sticks his hand out at Bodhi, ignoring the tense conversation between my mother and me without inputting anything useful. Then again, he’s no different than my mother. They were always a little too alike. “I’m Max Decker. Honor’s husband.”
Without missing a beat, Bodhi says, “Ex-husband from what I hear.”
Max doesn’t seem phased by it. In fact, his lips tug up at the corners as if he’s amused by our current standing. What a dick.
