“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“Okay.” He slides on a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. I feel his friendly blue eyes studying me from behind the mirrored lenses, and I instinctively cross my arms over my chest, though I doubt Noah’s into ogling poor, homeless girls with drug addict moms.
“So, I guess this is it?” Are we supposed to hug?
His face tenses. “Take care of yourself. You’ve got the money to find your mom a good rehab center. Make her go.”
I chuckle half-heartedly. “It’s not that easy.”
“I know, but right now, you still have a chance. You have to take it before it’s gone. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
I quietly watch his back as he takes smooth, measured strides all the way to the door, my stomach churning the entire time.
His hand rests on the handle for two . . . three . . . four seconds.
“You know what?” He tosses his bag to the floor. “I’m not ready to drive another twelve hours just yet.”
An unexpected sigh of relief escapes my lips.
“How about I stick around. I can help you get things sorted.” His hands are in the air in a sign of surrender, as I’m opening my mouth to argue that I don’t need help. “I know you can handle yourself fine, but . . .”
“But what?”
He slides his sunglasses off and I see his earnest gaze. “I’m not in any rush to get back home.”
I press my lips together, hoping he can’t sense my sudden and pathetic giddiness. “How long are you going to stay?”
He shrugs. “A few days? Until you’re settled somewhere new.”
So basically, I’m going to spend the weekend with Jackie Marshall’s son. “My mother can’t know you’re here. You’ll remind her of my dad.”
He frowns. “How is that not a good thing?”
“She’s weak.”
“She’s been through a lot.”
“Strong people don’t pick up and run because of a brick through their window. They don’t start taking heavy drugs and leaving their child to fend for herself. She’s a weak person. She can’t handle facing the past like that.” God knows what it would do to her mental state, as fragile as it already is.
His full lips twist in thought. “Then don’t introduce me as Noah right away. Tell her my name is—”
“She’d take one look at those blue eyes of yours and know exactly who you are. I mean—” I cut myself off as heat touches my cheeks. I’ve basically just admitted to him that I’ve been admiring his eyes.
His jaw tightens and he stares at me with intensity. “She was like a second mother to me. I’d like to talk to her again.”
He doesn’t get it.
“Dina Wilkes is dead. This Dina . . . she can’t handle it.”
He slides a palm through his hair, sending it into disarray. “Fine. I’ll wait outside the hospital for you.” His gaze skitters over me briefly. “Let me talk to the front desk while you get ready and then we can grab breakfast on our way over.” He waits for my nod and then heads out the door, leaving me to wonder why he’s staying.
Because, as nice as Noah is, my gut says there’s something he’s not telling me.
* * *
“I didn’t mean to take so much. I don’t know why I keep doing this.” A tear trickles down her cheek.
“Because you’re a heroin addict, Mom.” We’re long past sugarcoating reality. All the same, it hurts to watch her flinch as I say it bluntly. Not as much as it hurts to see her lying in a hospital bed, her hair stringy and matted with bits of dried vomit. The nurse gave her a sponge bath but until she’s strong enough to use the shower, she’s stuck like this.
There are other things, though, that won’t be fixed with a simple shower. She used to have a nice, creamy complexion. Now, her cheeks are sunken in, and her skin tone is sallow and marked with splotches. That pretty smile she flashed in pictures is now distorted by swollen gums from lack of care. It’s only a matter of time before her teeth begin to rot. And the track marks along her arm . . . will those ever go away?
So, no. I won’t sugarcoat this for her.
“That was the last time. I swear. I’m done with this.” She squeezes her eyes shut as if she’s in pain. She probably is. It’s been about twenty-four hours since her last hit and, while the meds will help abate the withdrawal symptoms, they won’t stop them entirely. The nausea is especially hard on her.
The first time she was in here, I stayed with her as much as I was allowed, through the cold sweats, the vomiting, the emotional whirlwind. I thought living through that would have been enough for her to never touch drugs again.
Clearly, I was wrong.
“I should go. You need to rest.”
She gives me a weak smile. “You go home and take care of things there. I’ll be out of here in a few days and then that’s it. I’ll stay clean; I’ll get a job. We’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.”
I wasn’t going to say a word—detoxing is hard enough—but the unintentional lies spewing from her mouth make my rage flare. I can’t bite my tongue fast enough. “We don’t have a home, Mom. You burned it down.”
“What? What are you talking about?” She grapples with her memory, her brow furrowing.
“You put one of your cheese sandwiches in the toaster oven to cook and then decided to take a hit.”
“I don’t remember . . .”
“Of course you don’t.” How many neurons has she fried in her brain by continually poisoning it? What can she even remember about anything?
“I wouldn’t do that.”
And yet you did. “The trailer went up fast. We tried to put it out with the fire extinguisher.”
“And I was inside?” My words finally seem to be sinking in.
“I got home from work in time to get you out.” There’s no way I’m telling her who carried her out.
“How bad is it?”
“I’m guessing everything’s gone.”
It’s a long, slow moment of dull shock as I stand there, quietly watching her try to process that truth. And then her eyes widen with panic and her hands fly to her throat. “Everything?” She whispers, the words strangled, her face going even more pale. “What about the closet?”
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. Shit. I completely forgot about the closet—about the few things she managed to whisk away with us when we ran from Austin. A handmade quilt from my great-grandmother, my first pair of tiny, pink cowboy boots, the menu from dinner the first night my parents went out, a shoe box brimming with photos.
Back when she wasn’t a full-fledged junkie, she used to drift off each night with a picture of my dad resting on her pillow.
Suddenly, Mom’s fumbling with her sheets to push them off. She struggles to climb out of bed.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to go. I need to see if—”
“Mom!” I pin her down by her forearms. “You’re in detox. You can’t leave!”
“I need to get the box!”
“I’ll go.”
Her head’s shaking back and forth furtively as she writhes against my grip. “No, you can’t. You don’t know . . .”
“You need to stay here. Look at you! You can barely stand!”
Tears well in her eyes. “It’s all I have left.”
“I’ll leave now and go straight over to the Hollow. If it survived the fire, I’ll bring it back. Just tell me which box it is.”
“The only one that matters!” My mother’s brow furrows deeply with distress. She wrings her trembling hands, fumbling with her bare finger where her wedding ring should be. She traded the simple gold band for a few Oxy pills years ago. She was high when she made that swap, and hysterical when she sobered up and realized her terrible mistake.
That ended up being a turning point for her. For the worse.
“It was in the closet?”
“Yes! I mean, no. I mean . . .” She hesitates, as if she doesn’t want to tell me. “The floor, there’s a hole in it. Pull the carpet up and you’ll find it. Bring it to me. Just . . . bring it.”
My suspicion flares. “If you think I’m going to bring you drugs—”