Joni nods. “So you used me. My feelings never factored in at all, did they? You’re no better than Jeff and Karen.”
“That’s not exactly—” I stop there. She’s right. I used her. I lied to her and had sex with her but didn’t really think about her during any of it. Like I was about to do with Shoshanna tonight. And exactly the way Meg used me—as a means to an end.
There’s a long stretch of silence. Minutes and minutes go by, and I still don’t know what to say. Joni picks at the stitching on Elijah’s seat cover.
I need to go inside soon and let Joni leave. So eventually I say, “I hope someday you can forgive me.”
A beat goes by, and then she says, pissed off and dejected all at once, “You really need to figure out a way to make peace with your life, Ryden.” She starts the car engine. “And please, don’t drag me or anyone else into it until you do.”
Chapter 32
Mom is sitting on the stairs when I enter the house, her head resting on the banister. If I thought Joni looked tired, Mom looks as if she hasn’t slept in a year. Her eyes are strained, the skin around them dry and taut. All the worry she’s been hiding for the past year has finally sprung free.
She doesn’t say anything, but she watches me, really looks at me, like whatever she’s seeing is just as bad and just as new as what I see on her.
I sit on the step below her, put my head in her lap, and hug her legs. Her arms go around me, and she strokes my hair.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble.
“Shhh,” she says. “All that matters is that you’re okay. Are you okay, bud?”
I nod.
“Good.”
“Where’s Declan?”
“I asked him to go home.”
I lift my head. “Because of me? Mom, I’m so—”
“It’s fine, Ryden. He’ll be back. I thought it should be you and me when you got home, in case you wanted to talk.”
I lean my head back against the wall. Suddenly it’s hard to support my own weight. I feel like absolute shit. “I can’t talk tonight,” I tell her.
She nods and stands up. “Come on. Bedtime.”
I follow her up the stairs and down the hall, dragging my feet and using the walls as support. We part ways at our respective doors, but I pause.
“Where’s Hope?”
“She’s asleep in my room. I figured that would probably be best tonight.”
Wow. That’s the first time Mom has taken Hope at night. Like, ever. I consider telling her that she doesn’t have to. In a weird way, I’ve actually gotten used to Hope sleeping—and crying—in my room every night.
But all I say is, “’Kay. Thanks. ’Night.”
? ? ?
I open my eyes and know immediately something’s off. But my head is pounding and my face is sore and my mouth tastes like I swallowed a handful of sand and I don’t have to look to know that my stomach is bruised. So I can’t quite place it at first.
But then I realize: a lot of somethings are off.
The room is quiet. I didn’t wake up to the sound of crying. In fact, Hope isn’t in her crib or in the room at all.
The sunlight coming through the blinds is different than it should be. It’s brighter and hitting my bed at a weird angle. It must be late in the day. I check the clock. Two p.m. Holy shit.
I’m supposed to be at work.
I get up as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast at all, grab some clothes, and head to the bathroom to jump—okay, inch slowly and carefully—into the shower. I meet Mom in the hall. Hope is saddled to her chest, looking alert and happy and curious, going “Da-da-da-da” like the world is just aces.
“You’re up,” Mom says.
“I’m late.”
She shakes her head. “I called in for you. I told them you got injured at the game last night and need a few days off.”
I blink. “We need the money.”
“I know. But you need some time off, Ry.” She looks at me seriously.
“Is my face really that bad?” I reach up to touch the tender flesh around my eye.
“It’s not your best look. But that’s not what I meant. I meant you need some time off emotionally.”
Truer words…
Since I apparently don’t have anywhere to be, I head to the living room and fall onto the couch. Mom follows and moves my feet aside so she can sit too.
“Hey, Ryden?”
“Yeah?” I say into the couch cushion.
“Wanna fill me in?”
Nope, don’t particularly feel like rehashing the Shakespearean tragedy that is my life. But she took the baby all night and let me sleep until two, so she’s kind of my hero. I owe her one.
I roll over to face her and stick to the highlight reel: the journal, quitting the team, the fight with Dave, all that shit with Joni. The end.
She sits there, nodding to herself, like she expected most of it. Alan must have told her more than I thought.
Then she says, so quietly I almost think she’s talking to herself, “You found the second journal.”
“Um, yeah. Didn’t I just tell you I did?”
“No, I know, but…” She trails off, as if she’s putting together some sort of mental puzzle.