Page 42 of Bitter Desire
Law’s fingers clenched down on mine. “What?”
I waved my other hand and looked up at him with a shaky laugh. “I know it doesn’t make sense but it’s where my brain went when you said we had to talk. I know,” I stopped and then sighed, before going on, “I know that’s not how you feel, but I couldn’t-I just-”
Law reached out cupping my face. “It’s okay.” His touch was gentle, his eyes soft on me and I relaxed. “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain it to me, but this is why we have to talk about who you were before New York, before me.”
“I know.” He was right, even if I didn’t want to have this conversation. I’d worked hard to leave that part of me behind.
“I had someone look into the number that was texting you,” he said, moving to dish up eggs and bacon onto my plate. “It’s not a surprise that it’s your fuckwad of an ex that was behind it.”
I rolled my eyes, leaning my chin into my palm and watched Law fix my plate. “When the texts first started coming in I was hoping that it wasn’t him. But now...now I’m relieved that it’s him.”
He nodded and added toast and pancakes to my plate. How he expected me to eat all of that I didn’t know, but when Law set to fussing over me it was best to just let the man do what he wanted. “Low stakes if it’s him. We would know it isn’t serious because I’d handle it before it went anywhere.”
I looked to the side watching him. “Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?”
“Because there is. There were two numbers used to message you. One of them local,” he said.
“Christian?” I guessed.
He nodded, raising his eyes to mine. “The other was from Texas.”
My eyes widened. “Texas? But that doesn’t make sense. I don’t know anyone in Texas.”
“That’s what I said, but it can’t be true. There has to be someone, Honey. The coincidence that it’s a Texas number...a south Texas number. That’s too neat. It has to be someone from your past. I need you to think, princess, and think hard. Who could it be?”
I sat up straight and shook my head. “There’s no one there. I was never in any place long enough to put down roots.”
“Why?”
Law’s question shocked me. Why? That one word had the power to make me silent and I swallowed hard looking at him. The why was simple, but as much as I’d thought of the why, the reason for me being so adrift, I’d never really said it out loud. Not to anyone. Not to any of my friends, not to any of my exes, no one.
“My mom,” I said softly. “She, ah, she had a thing about settling down in one place.” Law leaned back in his chair. Studying me. But he was giving me the space to talk and so I continued on. “She was a singer, or is a singer, I guess? I don’t know, it’s been a really long time since I’ve had anything to do with her.”
“How long?” he asked.
I fidgeted, shifting in my seat and looked out the window behind him. It was a bright and beautiful day. The kind that made me think of summer sunshine and vacations. It was my favorite time of the year, even if it wasn’t my favorite time in the city. The summers were hot and unforgiving. It would have been nice to have had more time in the Catskills where it was cooler and the trees made summer enjoyable. The red glow of the EXIT sign flashed through my memory and I winced, turning my eyes away from the window.
“Last time I saw her was when…” my voice trailed off and I swallowed hard, forcing myself to go on. The story about my last visit home was not a proud moment for me. “It was after my first year in the city, so nine years ago, I was broke, pretty much homeless,” I told him. I’d been robbed that Christmas, my roommate, a sketchy model with a pill problem had emptied out the cash I kept in my room. She’d never been home so I had traded off her less than savory behavior for the fact that I was pretty much without a roommate most of the time. It had worked out, even when she was home and out of her mind on Xanax or Fentanyl, but that had all come to an end the day she’d figured out I kept cash in my room.
I was young, 18 and not thinking straight about a better hiding spot than the coffee can I kept in my sock drawer. I should have put the damn cash in a bank. I knew better now, but it was a rough lesson learned. The model had skipped out after, and I never saw her again. I’d gotten kicked out of the place we were in, a shitty place to be fair, but I’d had nowhere to go and that had taken me home.
Or what I’d thought of as home.
It was a small town outside of San Antonio. Not much to look at, a handful of people and one gas station, but it had my mom. I don’t know why I thought she’d help me. Probably because when I was desperate and broken enough I’d fooled myself into believing that this would be the one time she’d remember she was a parent and act like my mom. I was wrong. She hadn’t even bothered to pick me up at the Greyhound station. I’d walked the three miles to the small house she rented in the middle of the Texas heat. And when I’d gotten there the house had been empty, even though I’d called and left a message telling her when I’d be in.
That had been fine. Maybe she’d had an errand or an emergency, or I don’t know? Whatever. What hadn’t been fine was the laugh she’d given me the second she’d set foot out of the beater she drove.
“I should have known you’d turn up here looking for a handout eventually,” she laughed, strutting towards the front door with a grin. “You were never going to make it. You know that, right?”
“I didn’t come here for this.”
“And do you know why you were never going to make it, mija?” The last word, the one that was supposed to be tender, spoken with love and familiarity was like acrid ash when it rolled off her tongue. “Because you’re my daughter, and there’s no world where you’re better than me,” she said, tapping her finger against her chest.
“Just stop it. Why are you like this?” I asked, shooting up from the stairs. “Can’t you for once act like a mom?”
“What for? No one ever gave me shit. You need to learn to take care of yourself. What did you think was going to happen? You were going to show up here and I’d make it better? That’s bullshit, Honey.”
“Forget this.”
