“Jonathan, Denise...” Miss Tate stood up. “I think it’s best if we end the meeting without saying another word to each other. You’re both doing so well. You don’t want to lose all the ground we’ve made so far do you?”
“You’re still holding that bullshit from last year against me?” My mother scoffed. “Seriously? That’s what this is about? You’re over our past, but you just want to throw in the Claire drama to keep me out of your life?”
“My keeping you at a distance doesn’t have shit to do with Claire. It never has.”
“Then why are you still treating me like this?” She stood up, hissing. “Why are you acting like a goddamn child? I said I was sorry. And just in case you didn’t catch what I said earlier, I’ve apologized every damn day and I’ve even apologized to your girlfriend—excuse me, your fiancée, telling her how much I wish I could take it all back. What more do you want?”
I felt like I was going to vomit. She was literally making me sick. “I treat you like this because it’s never been about me.” I stood up and narrowed my eyes at her. “I could’ve handled myself. I did handle myself. It’s always been about Hayley and how you left her in my care—a child’s care. Why can’t you see that?”
“Hayley has nothing to do with what happened between me and you, Jonathan. It’s her fault if she doesn’t want to reconcile with me because you know damn well I’ve tried. You’re just coming up with another hoop I have to jump through, and you know what?”
“Go to hell.”
Her face paled as soon as I said those words, and for half a second I regretted saying them, but not enough to stay.
“Mother, Miss Tate, I’ll see you two next week. I can’t deal with this right now.” I stormed out of my office and headed towards Angela’s desk.
“Mr. Statham? Is everything alright?” She looked up.
“No...Can you call my fiancée and tell her I’m on my way to pick her up for dinner please? Tell her it’s non-negotiable.”
“Yes sir.”
I hit the down button on the elevator and stepped inside as soon as the doors opened. I wasn’t sure why I still put up with my mother—why I even tried, because she honestly didn’t deserve anything from me after what she did last year.
Maybe deep down it was pity—shame, but I promised myself I would never forgive her until she completely acknowledged and understood how she’d almost wrecked my little sister for life, how she’d singlehandedly damaged her, leaving me to repair what little I could.
Chapter 2.5
Jonathan
Summer 1995
I sighed as I twisted the door handle to our trailer, slowly stepping inside.
“Where the f**k have you been?” My mom sat up and took a long drag of her cigar. “It’s three in the afternoon and you’ve been gone all day.”
“I was at school.”
“Oh, right. Well, could you go back there and shut your sister up? She’s been screaming all day and I can’t get any sleep. All she ever f**king does is cry.”
I looked down the hallway and noticed that once again, the door to me and Hayley’s room was locked so she couldn’t get out.
“Can you sign this?” I pulled a paper out of my backpack and handed it to her. “Pre-K starts next week. You have to bring that form next Monday so she can go.”
“Ugh, god, Jonathan! One thing at a damn time! Can you do what I asked you to do first? Can you shut that girl up please?” She threw the paper onto the floor and curled into a ball. “How can you expect me to sign paperwork when she’s back there screaming her lungs out? Get the hell out of my face.”
I realized that I was going to have to pull out one of her old checkbooks again and forge her signature. I was also going to have to come up with one hell of an excuse because I knew she wouldn’t show up for Hayley’s first day of school.
She never did anything for Hayley.
Before I could make it down the hall, a beer can hit me square in the back. I turned around and saw my father taking a seat on the couch next to my mom.
“There’s more of that in the fridge boy,” he said. “If you can’t get her to shut up, just give her some of that and she’ll be out in twenty minutes. It worked like a charm yesterday.”
I stared at the two of them for half a second, wishing that I would wake up from this nightmare any second, that they would go back to being who they used to be; but I knew it wouldn’t happen. They’d been this way for the past couple years and there was no going back.
Untwisting the doorknob to my bedroom, I slipped inside and saw Hayley hugging a pillow to her chest, rocking back and forth. She hadn’t noticed that I’d stepped in and she was still crying, screaming. “Let me out please, Mommy! Let me out please!”
At four years old, she was a lot smaller than other kids her age, and even though she was the spitting image of my mother, she was the only person in my family who had blond hair. She hadn’t always cried so much, but that was back when she actually got attention from my parents. As soon as she turned three, their interests went elsewhere and she cried for their attention all the time.