“Then why are you following me?”
“Because I don’t believe you,” I said simply, bouncing up the steps until I was standing beside him, careful to stay just out of claws’ reach in case Dolly caught my scent and went all wild animal on me again.
“Don’t believe what exactly?” Boone stayed square in front of the door, trying to rifle through the purse wrapped across Dolly’s chest.
“That you don’t need help.” Abandoning my claws’-distance policy, I stepped up and pulled Boone’s hand out of her purse before slipping my own in.
Holding his drunken mother on the steps outside her trailer that looked months away from being condemned couldn’t have been easy. Fishing around for a set of keys in her purse while maintaining his hold on her was impossible.
When I pulled out the keys, I held them up. “See how helpful I can be when I put my mind to it?” I smiled in an attempt to ease the heaviness from his face, but it did nothing. “What’s the matter?” I tried a few keys in the doorknob before getting the right one.
He didn’t answer right away. “I didn’t want you to see us like this again.”
I’d opened the door and was about to step inside, but the smell that rushed at me from inside kept me in place, trying to get used to it before getting assaulted by it at maximum strength. “What do you mean?”
“All this time that’s gone by . . . you’ve really done something great with your life. You’ve made something of yourself.” Boone gave a small shrug, his gaze sweeping around the trailer before landing on him holding his mom. “But look at us. The same seven years have passed us by too, but nothing’s changed. Same old shit, different day. Having you here, seeing this”—he motioned down at Dolly with his eyes—“it’s humiliating.”
My eyes closed as he uttered the last word. Boone had been through a lot and survived a lot. He’d had so much thrown at him from those who deemed themselves better than him and others who just plain thought judgment was their calling in life. Most people would have assumed he was no stranger to shame and humiliation, but the truth couldn’t have been further from that.
Boone had never let others box him into feeling any certain way. He’d never let circumstance or situation dictate his sense of self-worth. He’d never admitted to feeling humiliated, not once . . . until right this moment.
I hated that I was the reason he had to experience it.
“You have made something of yourself. How can you not see that?” I kept my voice quiet as a force of habit. I wasn’t sure if the old woman who used to keep her window facing Dolly’s trailer open so she could eavesdrop on every word, curse, and shattered bottle still lived next door, but I wasn’t giving her any snooping pleasure if she still did.
“I tried,” he replied. “And I failed.”
I stepped closer and lifted my finger. “And you’ll get back up and try again because that’s the kind of person you are. So why don’t you stop acting like you’re this defeatist nothing and get on with it already? I’m tired, and I’d like to crawl into bed soon, so if you’ll be so kind, can we get her settled so we can be on our way?” I waved my arms inside the trailer, waiting.
He stayed frozen on the porch for another few seconds, then he stepped inside. He had to lower his head so as not to bang it on the top of the doorframe, but he’d had to do that since he was sixteen.
“What makes you so convinced I’m going to get up and try again?” he asked as I followed him.
I tried to breathe through my mouth and not through my nose. The scent was so pungent, I could actually feel it swirling in my stomach. “Spending close to ten years watching you get up every time you got knocked down.” I stopped behind him as he lowered Dolly onto the same brown couch I remembered.
“I never learned when to stay down and admit defeat, did I?” Boone chuckled as he snagged the afghan hanging over the old rocking chair missing one of its arms. He draped it across his mom’s body and tucked it around her.
It was hotter than Hades in here, but I knew Boone tucking that blanket around his mom had more to do with his deep-seated need to look after her and protect her in whatever ways he could. He might not have been able to save her from the slime of mankind she was drawn toward or keep her from the bottle, but he could tuck an old blanket around her as she slept.
My throat tightened as I watched him. He didn’t deserve this. He deserved so much better. Life had spent the last twenty-five years cheating Boone Cavanaugh, and I was sick and tired of watching it play out.
“Why haven’t you left, Boone?” I whispered as he carefully slipped off her boots. “Why didn’t you ever escape this place like I did?”