Page 4 of The Weight of Your Wishes

That’s when I feel it, and everything goes black.

* * *

When I come to, the distinct antiseptic smell of a hospital invades my nostrils. Immediately, I blink my eyes open and am met with a white paneled ceiling.Fuck.The crash comes barreling into my mind all over again, and I jolt from the bed, trying but failing to sit up.

“Slow down.” A small hand presses down on my chest as I meet my mother's disapproving eyes. A shiver runs down my spine. Even at a time like this, I can’t detect a spark of warmth in her gaze. I swipe her hand away.

On instinct, I curl my fingers, and they move on command. A sigh of relief escapes my dry lips. I know I threw my arm out to protect Marina—

I flick my gaze back to my mom. “Where’s Marina? Is she okay?” I croak out the words, peeling my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

She huffs, an aggravated wrinkle forming between her brows. “She’s fine—practically unscathed because she was wearing her seatbelt.” She looks at me pointedly.

“Guessing my seatbelt wasn’t on then.” My entire body aches—especially my torso and neck.

“No, it wasn’t, and you were driving under the influence. You’re lucky your blood alcohol level was under the legal limit; otherwise, you’d be on your way to jail right now.”

Thank fuck for small mercies, I guess. In a lot of ways, this could be worse.

“Your car is severely damaged. You hit a light pole.” I stare dazedly at the ceiling. The white tiles blur together, and her words fade away.

“You need to pay for the damages, and your Uncle Grant is on his way.”

“Wait, what?” My attention snaps back to her with startling clarity.

“Grant. He’s coming to get you,” she says, exasperation lacing every word.

“But why?” I sputter, heat rushing to my cheeks.

She shakes her head, exhaustion clear as day on her face. “I can’t do this anymore. You don’t listen to me. I got the mail from your school about your scholarship, you know. And now this—drunk driving. You could’ve died, could’ve gotten a DUI.” She digs her fingers into her temples. “I don’t even want to think about what you’ve been doing this whole time when you were supposed to be in school, starting your life on the right foot. I thought you’d do better than this, better than I did.”

And there it is. Her constant reminder to me that I ruined her chance at a good life. No matter how many times I hear any variation of those words, it still stings. She looks at me, her one and only son, and all I’ve ever seen in her eyes is a cloud of regret.

I swallow the lump in my throat. “I haven’t even seen Grant since high school graduation, and before that, he stopped coming around when I was, like, twelve. He’s practically a stranger, and you want me to go stay with him?” I’m stumbling over my words, trying to quell the storm of panic closing in on me.

His rugged, angular face appears in my mind, and I feel the same weird guilt I always have.

He’d bring us groceries sometimes and babysit me whenever mom had a late shift at work, which was often. He was everything to me as a kid who just wanted a brief respite from my mom's resentment. Grant never looked at me like she did. Matter of fact, the only time I ever saw some form of light in his eyes was when they were on me. So of course, I wanted his attention—cravedit. But eventually, the comforting warmth I felt around him morphed into something different—something more.

I blamed it on puberty, and I still do. Everyone’s had a weird childhood crush, right?

Right.

Mom’s bored voice brings me back to the present. “It’s just for the summer. No need to be dramatic. And he’s not a stranger; he’s my closest, longest friend and your uncle.”

I scoff. He’snotmy uncle. What’s with people doing that, anyway—calling their parent’s friends “aunt” and “uncle”? He’s just a family friend, and every time she calls him my uncle, it makes me feel worse for my wayward thoughts.

“Besides, I’m going away for a while with Ned, so you’d have been alone at the house anyway.”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Her relationship with Ned is shaping up to be the longest yet, and for her sake, I do hope it works out. But I’ve seen how she tries to fix her issues with a revolving door of men, and each time it fails, she becomes more bitter and desperate.

“No invite?” I ask, and when her eyes narrow, I know the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“After all the years I spent taking care of you, don’t you think I’ve earned the right to go on a vacation without that responsibility?”

She seems genuinely exhausted, and I don’t think she understands how wrong the things she says are. Shit, I didn’t even realize how wrong it was until I had my first sleepover in middle school. Seeing the way other kids were treated by their parents was shocking. It was in the little things.

I lift my hand to rub at my eyes, hoping to weaken the headache coming on.

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