Page 7 of His Heart

Oh god. Either I’d make a break for the front door, or haul ass back upstairs and put on headphones. Listening to my mom and her boyfriend have drunken sex was one of the most horrifying parts of my life. And it happened way more often than I wanted to admit.

Front door it had to be. I hurried forward and started to open it.

“Brooke!”

Mom’s voice again. I froze, my hand still on the doorknob.

“Where the fuck you think you’re going?” she asked.

“Outside.”

“Like hell,” she said. “Did you do your homework?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t just leave.” She stumbled toward me. “I’m your mother, Brooke.”

I’d never understood why she felt the need to remind me of who she was as often as she did. I’d been hearing that my whole life—I’m your mother. She threw it around like a title, as if mother was the same thing as queen. When she was sober enough to notice I was around, at least.

“I know, Mom,” I said, trying to keep my voice meek. She was on the edge, teetering between blowing me off and deciding I needed punishment for opening the front door without her permission.

Paul stood in the background, his eyes half-lidded, his arms crossed over his chest. I guess I was lucky in that he left me alone—Mom’s boyfriends always did. Whether she made sure of it, or she somehow chose guys who had no interest in her underage daughter, I didn’t know. She dated some dirtbags. It could have been a lot worse.

But none of them ever tried to stop her when she got violent with me, either.

“Where you going?” she asked again.

“Just outside, Mom,” I said. “Maybe for a little walk.”

“What? It’s getting dark. Who you going with?”

Fuck. I didn’t want to tell her it was Liam. If she thought anything was happening between us, she’d forbid me to see him. It wouldn’t matter how many times I told her we were just friends. He’d taken me to a dance, and ever since then, she’d been watching me with a wary look in her eyes, like she expected me to announce I was pregnant any second.

She was obsessed with making sure I didn’t get knocked up, as if me reaching adulthood without procreating was the primary benchmark of her parenting success. Since my eleventh birthday, she’d been warning me about the dangers of boys. Strange, coming from a woman who was almost never without a live-in boyfriend. She would break up with one and, within days, she’d be madly in love again, shacking up with some new douchebag.

She’d gotten pregnant with me at sixteen, and had told me many times how it had ruined her life. I suppose her strictness when it came to boys might have been a sign that she cared about me. Although, growing up hearing I was a mistake hadn’t done much for my self-esteem.

But if I lied to her, and she caught me with Liam, it could be worse. I turned to face her so I could see her eyes. They were glassy and bloodshot, but too clear for her to be wasted. Desiree Summerlin was never really sober—there had been brief times in the past when she hadn’t been using, but they had never lasted. When you were raised by a drug addict, you learned to see the degrees of intoxication. If she was on the brink of oblivion, I could have said anything, knowing she wouldn’t remember it later. But there was too much understanding in her eyes, and in this state, she’d know I was lying.

“Liam,” I said. “But Mom, we’re only friends. We’re not doing anything wrong.”

Her hand hit my face before I realized it was coming. The slap stung a little, but she was too wobbly to hit me very hard. I moved with the blow, hunching to the side and covering my head with my arms in case she wasn’t finished.

“Don’t you back talk at me,” she said. “I’m doing this for your own good, don’t you know that? I’m your mother. I won’t let you be some slut who spreads her legs for any boy that smiles at her.”

“I’m not, Mom,” I said, keeping my arms over my head. “I’m still a virgin.”

“Liar,” she said, spitting out the word.

“I swear, Mom,” I said. “I swear it.”

Footsteps went up the stairs. I guess Paul was getting bored watching his girlfriend smack her daughter around.

“Wait, where you going?” Mom asked.

“Upstairs,” Paul said. “Come on, Desiree.”

“Watch yourself,” Mom said to me. “You fuck up your life now, and I won’t help you. You’ll be out on your ass, you hear me?”

---