Page 129 of Grin and Bear It

“You’ll sleep in my bed,” Cole said, something fragile fracturing all that seriousness. “You’ve spent enough time with these dickheads. Time to get the real bear shifter experience.”

“What, farts in bed?” Nash asked, daring to smile.

“Hogs all the covers?”

“Blows his load before you even get excited, probably from humping your leg a couple of times,” Nash added and I couldn’t help but smile.

“We’ll fight that out together,” I assured them, “later. I just need to grab some stuff…”

They agreed finally, my fragile facade convincing them I wasn’t about to run for the hills. I even convinced myself, caught up in the moment, the banter, right up until the point I got into my own car.

But there’s no outrunning pain.

My hand shook as I unlocked my car, tap, tap, tapping the key at the lock before managing to push the key in. Then I was inside, my fingers wrapping around the steering wheel, gripping it hard, harder, until I heard the vinyl creak, the sound in counterpoint to the noisy rasps of my breath.

I felt stupid, so fucking stupid, then so horribly ashamed. Now that I had nothing else to distract me, that was what flared bright and hot. I thought again of the reactions of Steve and the boys in the hallway… The twins acting squirrely in class… The rest of the kids, the obligations I’d gotten so invested in, their reports, their work, the feedback I needed to give, the program I had designed but, most of all, the relationships…

I knew the kids would move on to other history teachers or just other subjects as they moved into senior school, but I’d expected that break up to happen naturally, but not like this. Not having all of those kids seeing me… I gulped in breaths, one after the other, just trying to breathe as my body fought that with everything it had. My chest was tight, my throat swollen with unshed tears, my eyelids heavy and tender at the same time.

This was why I’d told the guys that I had to go home. I didn’t give a shit about a change of clothes, not really, I just needed this. A moment of quiet, with nothing more than my shitty little car and the view of the car park beyond, to just grieve.

I cried. Of course, I cried. I was beyond exhausted, feeling wrung out and flat, the emotional upheaval of the day having burned through every synapse, leaving me just to flatline afterwards. But at some point you have to pull yourself together and dry your tears, start that car and drive home so that, at the very least, you can wash your face.

I don’t know about you, but often when I think I’ve hit rock bottom, something comes along to remind me how much further I can fall. I drove up to my house to find I had someone waiting for me. Not Coll or the guys, but Erica Jennings, my mother, sat on the front step with a sour expression on her face. As I got out of the car, she looked me up and down, the look of disgust only deepening before she met my eyes, hers flashing.

“Hello, Mum,” I said, bracing myself for the onslaught, and I wasn’t disappointed.

“And where have you been? Your work… Your former employer called me when they couldn’t get a hold of you and it was a good thing they did. Nude paintings, Eleanor? What possessed you to think that was a good idea.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but Mum was there before I could even respond.

“And a woman of your size as well. What were you—”

“Thinking?” I snapped the word out and Mum recoiled physically in response. “Probably the same thing a skinny woman would, Mum. That I was with one man that cares for me, l…” She perked up when my voice trailed away, but I charged on. “One that loves me, while another man who feels the same way decided to use his considerable skills to capture that moment.”

“Love?” I watched my mother’s face screw up. “Don’t be ridiculous. You always walked around with your head in the clouds as a child and you’re still doing it now. Any man that would… treat you like that has no love for you, let alone…” Her perfectly shaped brows creased as she tried to do the maths. “Two?”

“Four,” I replied, snorting when her mouth fell open. “Four men, Mum and they do care for me, deeply.”

“What sort of—”

“And sure as hell a lot more than you do. You’re my mother.” I stepped closer then, seeing her more clearly as I did so. Sure, she was shorter, smaller, something she liked to point out as an enviable difference between us, but right now she just looked little, old and fragile. “You’re supposed to love me, be there for me when I’m hurting, support me and help me to feel better. News like this isn’t an opportunity to come and kick me while I’m down.”

“You’re my daughter,” she said, puffing herself up. “You embarrassed yourself today, embarrassed me—”

“And now’s when we get to the heart of the matter.” I might have been crying, only half an hour before now, from the sheer fucking shame of it all, but faced with my mother’s attitude, I didn’t feel a skerrick of it. I drew myself up to my full height, my spine straight, my weight coming with it and for once I didn’t try to suck that in around her, or try to make myself smaller. “It’s all about you in your mind, isn’t it?Yourdaughter,yourembarrassment,yourstandards,youropinions. Well, news flash, Mum. It’snotabout you.”

“Oh, my freaking god.” I spun around to see Colleen come rushing up the driveway, then fall at my feet, making a great show of bowing down before me. “I have been waiting for my whole damn life to hear you say that. Whatever these guys are doing, they need to keep on doing it, because damn—”

“That’s enough, Colleen,” Mum started to splutter.

“I believe my bestie told you that she’d had enough of your shit, Erica.” And then Colleen buried her finger in Mum’s shoulder, giving her a little shove. “So unless you want a great heaping serve of shutthefuckupcakes, and each one is twenty bazillion calories each, or a trillion Weight Watchers points, you need to piss the fuck off.”

“You’re going to let her talk to your mother like this?” Mum asked me, fixing me with a deathly stare.

There comes a time, at some point in your adult life, when you stop seeing your parents as all-powerful figures who have the authority to tell you how to run your life. Instead, you see them as just as other adults who fuck things up on the regular.

Like Mum was right now.

---