Текст книги "The Wall of Winnipeg and Me"

Автор книги: Mariana Zapata

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten for a second how long we’re in this for.” I pulled my suitcase up another step angrily.

When I didn’t say anything else, he took it upon himself to continue. “What the hell is your problem?”

I turned completely around to face him, my hands going instinctively to my hips. “I already told you what my problem is. I’m in a shit mood and you left me hanging, and that bothers me way more than it should, I know that. But I know I should have known better.”

He scoffed. He scoffed so hard his nostrils flared and he shook his head, his eyes going everywhere except at me. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I felt my blood rush away from my face, but I’d be damned if I walked back up to my room now. Sometimes facial features said so much more than words could, and I hoped the smart-ass smile I was giving him said exactly what I wanted it to say. Fuck you.

A sharp noise that could have been mistaken for a bitter laugh exploded out of Aiden’s mouth. “I’m not paying off your loans and buying you a house to have to put up with this, Van. If I wanted someone to nag at me, I would have gotten a real wife.”

Oh… hell… no.

Every drop of blood in my upper body went south. Ugly, hurtful words pinched my throat and I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even breathe.

I didn’t have to take this shit.

Standing there on the step, I nodded, my hands shaking. “You know what? You’re right. You’re completely right. I’m sorry I opened my fucking mouth. I’m sorry I gave a shit and started looking forward to you coming along with me.” And I was sorry I was blaming him for starting off a chain of events that spiraled downhill.

I really was being a wee bit of an asshole, but I couldn’t muster up enough fucks to give in that moment to let the situation go.

Clenching my hands together, I jogged up the steps with my suitcase in my bad hand and slammed the door shut behind me once I was in the room. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, staring around me at what suddenly felt like a five-year prison. If we weren’t already “married,” I’d pack my stuff up and leave.

But I’d signed the papers and made a promise to him. Five years. I won’t go anywhere until you’re a resident, I promise.

That was the difference between Aiden and me though.

I actually kept my word.

Dropping my bag on the floor, I scrubbed at my cheeks with my hands, trying to calm down. My eyes felt oddly dry. This hole the size of Crater Lake took residence where the important parts of my soul used to be. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to fucking cry.

I bent down to unzip my suitcase and took all the clothing out to wash later when The Wall of Asswipe wasn’t hanging around. That knot in my throat I’d gotten back at Diana’s seemed to swell back to its original size. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry even if the urge to was more overwhelming than it had ever been.

I was in the middle of sliding my suitcase beneath the bed a little more forcefully than was necessary when a knock rapped at my door, two taps too low to be Aiden.

Controlling the anger and the not-tears creeping around in my eyeballs, I called out, “Yes?”

“Van.” It was Zac.

“Yes?”

“Can I come in?”

Taking off my glasses, I rubbed at my eyebrow bone for a moment with the meaty part of my palm and let out a shuddering breath. “Of course. Come in.”

Sure enough, Zac opened the door and slid inside my room, a funny, wary smile on his face as he closed it behind him. “Hi, darlin’,” he said in an almost delicate voice.

I gave him an equally wary smile, trying to suppress my aggravation with the guy downstairs, with my family back in El Paso, and the idiot known as my best friend in Forth Worth. I played with the sleeve of my hoodie again to make sure it was down to my wrist. “Hey.”

“I like your hair.”

“Thanks.” I probably would have liked the teal color a lot more than I did, in any other circumstance, but I was so pissed and disheartened, I couldn’t find it in me to care my hair was now like something straight out of Candyland.

“You all right?” he asked, moving to take a seat on the edge of my bed just a couple feet away from where I was kneeling.

Reluctantly, I kicked my luggage the rest of the way under the bed frame and got to my feet. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

Shit. “You heard all that, huh?”

“I heard,” he confirmed with a blink of those wonderful blue eyes.

Of course he had. I’d been pretty much yelling toward the end. “He gets on my nerves so easily sometimes, I don’t understand.” I took a seat right next to him with a sigh.

“I know.”

“He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

“I know.”

“Then he gets mad when someone is disappointed in him,” I grumbled at the floor.

“I know,” Zac agreed again.

“I didn’t beg him to go with me. I just mentioned it. I would have been fine if he’d said he was too busy.”

“I know.”

“Why is he such a pain in the ass?”

In my peripheral vision, Zac held out his hands. “The world will never know, darlin’.”

I snorted and shifted my gaze over to him finally. “No, probably not.” I nudged his elbow. “You wouldn’t have backed out on me, would you?”

“No way.” He nudged me back with his thigh, drawing my attention down to the reindeer print pajamas he had on. “Bad trip home?”

I hadn’t told him much about my family situation in the time we’d known each other. Besides a few casual mentions of how I wasn’t close to my mom, how much of a pain in the ass my sisters were, and possibly bringing up my foster parents in passing once or twice, I’d never gone into too much detail with Zac. But he knew enough.

Drawing my gaze up, it settled on the stubble he’d let himself grow out over the course of some time; he usually shaved that baby face every day. Light blue circles were nestled under his eyes and his cheeks looked hollower than they had two weeks ago, making me feel like a self-centered asshole. Some people had real things to worry about, and here I was losing it over people who didn’t care about me.

“Yes.” That was an understatement. I shook my head, bottling up the argument with Susie and her husband for the time being. “It sucked. A lot.”

Zac fed me a pity smile that I ate up. “Why do you think I haven’t gone back home?”

Ahh, hell. “I hear ya.” Tilting my head to look at him, I took him in. “I’ve been worried about you, you know.”

He made a dismissive noise in his throat. “I’ll be fine.”

How many times had I not said those exact same words to myself when it felt like the world was falling apart on me? Reaching over, I put my hand on his thigh. “Of course you’re going to be, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry or wonder what you’re going to do.”

That sandy head dropped back and his sigh seemed to fill my room. “I don’t fucking know, Vanny,” he admitted to me in a tired voice. “I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

Maybe I couldn’t fix the situations with Aiden, my sister, and Diana, but I could try to help Zac as much as possible now that he finally wanted to talk about it. “Do you still want to play?”

He chuffed. “Of course.”

That was easy enough. “Then you know what you’re going to do. You’re going to start training again, and you’re going to get your agent to find you another team to join. Maybe not this season, but at least next. No if, ands, or buts about it. Don’t give yourself another option,” I told him. “What about that?”

Zac’s sock-covered toes tapped against the floor and the sound of his steady puffing told me he was there. His hand came to rest over mine and I elongated my fingers upward to link through his.

“Maybe things won’t work out, but maybe they will. You’ll never know unless you try, and if you don’t try, you’ll probably end up an old geezer wondering what would have happened if you hadn’t given up,” I warned him before letting go of his hand and reaching around to give him a one-armed hug.

That had him snickering.

“You’re okay on money?” I wasn’t rich by some standards, but I had my savings still, and I was proud of how much I’d set aside all on my own.

“I’m okay,” he assured me.

I figured he was. He wasn’t extravagant. “If you decide to stay, I’ll even let you run this marathon in February with me if you’re a good boy,” I added, pulling him into my side for another side hug.

His back stiffened. “You’re going to run a marathon?”

“Why do you think I’ve been running?”

“Because you’re bored?”

I’d done more research on the training process that was suggested for people running their first marathon, and I couldn’t see anyone doing it because they were bored. “No. I just want to do it. I haven’t had time to train for one before, and I like the idea of it being a challenge.” Plus, I wanted to prove something to myself. Do something for my poor knee. I wanted to remind it that it could do whatever it wanted to. That it wasn’t anyone’s bitch.

I wanted to know that nothing was impossible and give my sister a big fuck you for what she had done to me.

I leaned into his side and let out a shaky breath, suddenly feeling overwhelmed over the entire weekend. “Are you in or what?”

The long Texan let out a deep sigh.

“What? You’re going to be a loser and back out?”

His face angled slightly toward me. The corner of his mouth hooking up. “What do I get out of it?”

“The same thing I do—personal satisfaction that you did something you couldn’t do before.”

The smile that came across Zac’s face wiped out any lingering resentment I had right then over Aiden’s behavior, at least. Those blue eyes twinkled and he radiated something awesome. “You are just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you, darlin’? Do something you couldn’t do before. Well, fuck it. Count me in to this trial of terror.”

Yeah, I might have squealed, surprised he’d actually taken up my offer. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Just like that, his smile drooped a little. “How many miles is a marathon again?”

I winced, not wanting to kill our agreement before it even got started. “You don’t want to know, Zac.” Sliding my arm off, I gave the middle of his back a solid pat. “You don’t want to know.”

“Fuck me, huh?”

“Basically.”

He grinned and I grinned right back at him.

“Are you going to be okay?”

I nodded. “I’m always going to be okay.”

An hour or two later, I was lying in bed with one of my favorite movies on, the volume on ultra-low—I had the captions on—when three soft knocks tapped on my door.

Three. It was Aiden.

After a moment, three more low, low, low knocks hit the door.

I kept my mouth shut and went right on watching Independence Day.

He could take his real wife and shove her up his ass.

Chapter Sixteen

“You’re up early,” I noted dryly as Zac dragged his feet behind him into the kitchen.

The big Texan raised two sleepy eyebrows in my direction. If I didn’t know any better, the expression on his face would lead me to think he was drunk, but he was just really tired. “Mm-hmm.”

Okay. Someone wasn’t in the mood to talk, and that was fine by me. It wasn’t like I’d woken up in a fantastic state of mind. It didn’t help that the first thing I did after I was awake was call Diana’s brother so I could tell him about what I’d seen the day before, only for him to let me know that one of his sons had already told him about them a couple days ago.

“I tried talking to her, but she said she hit her hip,” he’d explained.

So she was keeping her story straight; I still didn’t believe it. “I don’t believe her.”

Her brother had made a hesitant sound that left a bad taste in my mouth. “I don’t know, Van. I don’t like that douche as much as you do, but I don’t think D would lie about it.”

That was the problem with growing up in a family that was usually honest and open with each other—you didn’t know the lengths someone would go to hide something shameful. And I knew right then that unless Diana blatantly told her brother that Jeremy was getting physical, or unless she ended up with a black eye, he wouldn’t assume the worst.

The conversation had been pointless, only adding to the aggravation simmering under my veins for days. I was perfectly fine admitting to myself that when I hadn’t been tossing and turning last night, I’d been wide awake, thinking about all the things I shouldn’t. All the things I knew better than to let bother me, but it was impossible to ignore them when they’d all hit me so hard. One after another, nip, nip, nipping away at my resolve.

Aiden. My mom. Susie. Diana.

My technically husband. My mom. My sister—though I still wanted DNA reports to confirm that connection. My best friend of my entire life.

Was there anyone in this world I could trust? I could rely on? Only myself it felt like sometimes. You would figure I’d know better by now.

The sound of weights clinking together in the gym down the hall had me scowling. Someone had already been busy working out by the time I’d come down the stairs. While most athletes took their bye week off to vacation or spend time with their families, the big guy didn’t. Hadn’t.

I should have known better.

By the time I was done talking myself into pushing thoughts of them away, Zac had nuked some oatmeal in the microwave and dumped a cup full of toppings on it, taking the seat opposite mine at the breakfast nook. A part of a puzzle Aiden was working on decorated the middle of the table. Zac and I happened to glance at each other at the same time, and we smiled at one another, his a tired one and mine an aggravated-but-I’m-trying-not-to-be one.

My tablet sat next to my bowl of cereal; I had been absently flipping through page after page of a website that sold T-shirt designs from freelance artists. I’d sold some of my work on there in the past, and I was looking to see if any designs gave me ideas to work on today, unless I got an unexpected last minute request.

The doorbell ringing once—not long enough to be annoying but not too short to be ignored—had me getting to my feet. “I got it.”

The face on the other side of the peephole had me smiling a little. Leslie didn’t deserve my bitch face when I only saw him a couple times a year. “Good morning,” I greeted as I opened the door.

“Wonderful morning to you, Vanessa.” Leslie smiled back. “After you.”

A gentleman. That had me genuinely smiling as I stepped back and let him in, watching as he closed the door.

“How are you?”

My chest gave a dull throb in response. “I’m okay,” I answered about as honestly as I could. “And you?”

The expression on his face caught me off guard completely. It was like he was surprised I told him the truth, or maybe he wasn’t at all surprised I wasn’t fine, and was just acknowledging that I’d been honest with him. “I’m alive. I can’t ask for more.”

That had me sniffing in near indignation. I could be mopey every once in a while if I wanted. That sounded pathetic even in my own head. Letting out a slow, controlled breath, I nodded at the older man. “Good point.” I gestured with my head toward the gym. “Aiden’s working out. Would you like something to drink?”

“Do you have any coffee?”

I was the only coffee drinker in the house. “I’ll make some right now.”

With his hands behind his back, he dipped his chin in thanks. “I appreciate it. I’m going to check up on Aiden.”

Leslie peeked into the kitchen and raised his hand, giving Zac a no-tooth smile. “Morning, Zac.”

I headed into the kitchen as Leslie went to the gym, and scooped out the pre-ground coffee beans into the coffeemaker, hitting the button to start the brew. By the time I made it back to my seat, Zac was scraping the sides of his bowl, looking way more awake than he had half an hour ago. “You feelin’ better?” he asked.

“Not really.” Was I that obvious? I lifted a shoulder. “What are you doing today?”

“Gonna work out.”

I held out my fist for him to bump, and he only slightly shook his head as his fist connected with mine.

“You want to go for a run today?”

To give him credit, he tried to control his facial features so that they didn’t resemble a grimace. “Sure.”

“Don’t sound so excited.” I laughed.

Zac grinned immediately. “I’m foolin’ ya, Vanny. What time do you wanna go?”

“Is four okay?”

He nodded. “I’ll be back by then.”

I held up my hand again and he fist bumped it.

“I’m gonna get dressed so I can get outta here,” Zac said, already pushing his chair back.

We agreed to see each other later, and after rinsing off his plate and sticking it in the dishwasher, he disappeared up the stairs. With the intention of finishing looking through the rest of the current posts on the website I still had up on my tablet, I made it through one more page before Leslie appeared.

“Thank you for making this,” he said once he was at the coffeemaker, pulling out a cup from the correct cabinet without needing direction.

“Oh, you’re welcome.” I put my tablet to sleep, figuring I didn’t have much time before Aiden appeared. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his crap right then. Just thinking his name had my blood boiling.

A real wife.

Fucking asshole.

“I’m sorry for dropping by unexpectedly,” Leslie chimed in from his spot at the counter, pouring coffee.

That had me snapping out of cursing Aiden in my head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

“It isn’t okay. I felt terrible after Aiden told me you were going home.”

Home. What a word to use for El Paso.

“I didn’t mean to take up your time alone. I remember what it was like to be a newlywed,” the man who had put into motion Aiden’s future said.

Newlyweds. I wanted to puke. “It really is okay. I know how much you mean to him.” Or at least, I had a good idea of how much the older man meant to him.

Aiden had two friends he kept in touch with semi-regularly. He saw them in person maybe once a year. Other than them, there was only Leslie. Leslie who had been his coach in high school. Leslie who Aiden had said repeatedly had groomed him and pushed him to succeed. In the twelve years since he’d graduated high school, they still saw each other often enough. Leslie continued to train Aiden in Colorado when the season was over. Then there were the other times that the former coach came by to visit.

If that wasn’t its own form of love and respect—at least in Aiden’s case– I had no idea what was.

My comment though had him chuckling. “Only because he knows how much he means to me.”

As bitter as I felt, I couldn’t help but soften a little as Leslie walked around the island with his cup in hand. His eyes strayed to the table, a smile coming over his face. “He’s still doing those?” He gestured toward the puzzle.

“All the time. Especially when he’s stressed.”

Leslie’s smile grew even wider, turning wistful. “He used to do them with his grandparents. I can’t remember there ever not being a puzzle at their home.” He snickered softly. “You know, after his grandmother died, he didn’t speak to me for almost a year.”

Uh. What? His grandmother?

“I can’t tell you how many times I tried calling him, left him voicemails. I even went to several of his games at Wisconsin to see him, but he went out of his way to avoid me. It damn near broke my heart.” He took the seat that Zac had just left. His white eyebrows rose as he looked at me from over the top of his cup. “That’s between you and me, eh? He’s still sensitive about that time period.”

Aiden? Sensitive?

“When his grandfather died, he was devastated, but when Constance, his grandmother, passed away… I’ve never seen anyone so distraught. He loved that woman like you couldn’t imagine. He doted on her. She’d told me he called her every day after he went away to school,” he continued on like this wasn’t the greatest secret I’d ever heard.

There was no way I could pull off being casual about what he was saying. Plus, I had a feeling that the second he really looked at my facial expressions, he’d know damn well I had no clue about anything relating to his grandmother and grandfather.

And because I was tired of being lied to so much over the course of the last few days, I went with being honest with this man who had never been anything but kind to me. “I didn’t—he’s never even mentioned his grandparents to me before. He doesn’t like to talk about things,” I admitted, messing with the leg of my glasses.

Leslie set his cup on the table and gave me a little shake of his head. “That shouldn’t surprise me.” Of course it shouldn’t. “Between us” —he tipped his forehead forward– “he’s the most remarkable man I’ve ever met, Vanessa. I’ve told him that before a hundred times, but he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t believe, and I’m not sure he cares. When I first met him, I couldn’t get a single sentence out of him. One sentence, can you imagine that?”

I nodded, because yes, yes I could imagine that.

“If I would have asked him to try out for the football team on any other day than the one I did, he never would have agreed. His grandfather was alive back then, you know. He was already living with them. Aiden had gotten in trouble with the lacrosse coach again the day before for fighting with his teammates and his grandfather had told him something—he’s never told me what—that got him to agree to try out. It took me four months to get him to really talk to me, and I was persistent. Even then, the only reason why he did was because his grandfather had a heart attack and I had this feeling he needed someone to talk to.” Leslie let out a sigh at whatever memory was bouncing around in his head. “You can’t live your life bottling everything up. You need people, even if it’s only one or two, to believe in you, and as smart as that boy is, he doesn’t understand that.”

At some point, I’d planted my elbows on the table and set my chin in my hands, caught up in every detail he was telling me. “Did you know his grandparents well?”

“His grandfather was my best friend. I’ve known Aiden since he was in diapers.” Leslie’s mouth twitch. “He was the fattest baby I have ever seen. I remember looking at his eyes and knowing he was sharp. Always so serious, so quiet. But who could blame him with his parents.”

I had about a million more questions I wanted to ask but didn’t know how to.

“He’s a good man, Vanessa. A great one. He’ll open up to you in time. I’m sure of it,” Leslie added. “He used to say he would never marry, but I knew all it was going to take was him finding the right girl to convince him otherwise. Even mountains change over time.”

And that had me feeling like a schmuck. Like a giant, fake schmuck.

It messed with my head.

I wasn’t his real wife. He didn’t love me. This was all a charade.

The knot from the night before swelled in my throat again, leaving me unable to speak for a moment while I tried to collect my thoughts. “I know he’s a good man,” I finally managed to get out with a tremulous smile that felt way too transparent. “And, hopefully, we have a long time ahead of us,” I added even more weakly.

The way Leslie’s featured lit up made my stomach roll.

I was a fluke. A con woman. Imaginary.

I was what I made myself to be.

“Is he almost done?” I forced myself to ask as I snuck my hands under the table and clenched them.

“Almost. He should be—oh, here he is. Were you eavesdropping on us?” Leslie joked.

I pushed my chair back, trying to school my emotions, my face, and my body all to behave and get through these next couple of minutes until I could disappear in my room. Before I could even make it to the island, the big guy was in the kitchen, heading to the sink.

“No.” Those brown and caramel irises were on me.

Rinsing off my bowl, I set it in the sink as I faintly listened to Leslie and Aiden discuss his workout. I ignored the way his shirt clung to his sweaty chest, ignored the way he kept glancing at me. Regardless of what Leslie had said, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him even if he’d loved the hell out of his grandparents.

Somehow, I managed to paste something similar to a grin on my face as I walked right by Aiden, purposely letting my shoulder brush his arm because I was positive Leslie was watching. “I have a lot of work to do. I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” I said more to the older man than to the one I was married to.

Only Leslie responded.

Which was fine. It was totally fine, I assured myself as I climbed the stairs. Aiden could be pissed at me all he wanted. I was mad at him.

I had just gotten to the top when my phone started ringing. Closing the door behind me—because anyone who would be calling me right then was not going to be on my list of people I’d want to talk to—I picked up my cell from where I’d left it on the nightstand. MOM flashed across the smooth screen.

To give myself credit, I didn’t flip the phone off, curse, or even think about not taking the call. I was going to take the damn call because I wasn’t petty. Because I had nothing to feel bad about.

I just didn’t want to talk to her. Now or anytime soon. That was all.

“Hello.”

“Hi, baby.”

Okay. That had me rolling my eyes. “Hi.”

“I’ve been so worried about you,” she started off.

Was that why she’d waited almost two days to call? Because she was so worried? Damn it, I was being a bitch. “I’m fine,” I let her know in a dull tone.

“You didn’t have to leave like that.”

There was only so much a person could handle, and I was at my tipping point. I’d been at my tipping point, and it was all my fault. If I hadn’t ignored my instincts and gone to El Paso, this could have been prevented. I’d been the idiot. Then I’d given everyone else the ability to piss me off. “You—”

“I love you both.”

“I know you do.” Once upon a time, when I was a lot younger and lot more immature, it had killed me that she loved us equally. I wasn’t a borderline psychopath like Susie. I hadn’t been able to understand how she didn’t take my side each time there was an issue. But now that I was older, I realized there was no way I could ever ask that of her. It was just one of those things. On a bitchy day, I thought broken things couldn’t help but love other broken things.

I might not be flawless, and I might have hairline fractures all over the place, but I’d sworn to myself a long, lone time ago that I wouldn’t be like either of them.

It was a terrible, shitty thought. Mostly because I held my mom and Susie as the prime examples of who and what I didn’t want to ever be.

But there was only so much I could take. “I’m not asking you to not have a relationship with her, but I don’t want one with her. Nothing is ever going to change between us. I might get along okay with Erika and Rose sometimes, but that’s it.”

“Vanessa—”

“Mom. Did you hear what she said? She said she wished she’d hit me harder with her car. She tried to spit on me. Then Ricky grabbed my arm. I have bruises. My knee hurts every single day from what she did.” Damn it, my voice cracked at the same time my heart seemed to do the same. Why couldn’t she understand? Why? “I’m not trying to argue with you, but there’s no way I could have stayed after that.”

“You could have walked away,” said the woman who had walked away a hundred times in the past. This was the person who couldn’t deal with her problems if there wasn’t some sort of bottle around.

Damn it. I was so angry with her in that moment, I couldn’t find a single word that wouldn’t be brutal, that wouldn’t hurt her feelings. She said some things that I didn’t listen to because I was too focused on myself. I shoved my sleeves up my forearms in frustration. Squeezing my free fist closed, I didn’t even bother trying to count to ten. I wanted to break something, but I wouldn’t. I fucking wouldn’t. I was better than this. “You know what? You’re right. I really have to go. I have a lot of work to catch up on. I’ll call you later.”

And that was the thing with my mom. She didn’t know how to fight. Maybe it was a trait I’d picked up from my dad, whoever the guy was. “Okay. I love you.”

I’d learned what love was from my little brother, from Diana and her family, and even from my foster parents. It wasn’t this distorted, terrible thing that did what was best for itself. It was sentient, it cared, and it did what was best for the greater good. I wasn’t going to bother analyzing what my mom viewed as love again; I’d done it enough in the past. In this case, it was just a word I was going to use on someone who needed to hear it. “Uh-huh. Love you too.”

I didn’t realize I was crying until the tears hit my chin and plummeted to my shirt. Fire burned my nose. Five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-and-fourteen-year-old Vanessa all came back to me with the same feeling that had been so strong in those years: hurt. The Vanessa who was fifteen and older had felt a different emotion for so long: anger. Anger at my mom’s selfishness. Anger at her for not being able to clean her act up until years after we’d been taken away from her. Anger for being let down for so long, time and time again.

I had needed her a hundred times, and ninety-nine of those times she hadn’t been around, or if she had been, she’d been too drunk to be of any use to me. Diana’s mom had been more of a mother figure to me than she had been. My foster mother had been more maternal than the woman who had given birth to me. I had practically raised Oscar and myself.

But if it weren’t for everything I’d been through, I wouldn’t be where I was. I wouldn’t be the person I was. I’d become me not because of my mom and sisters, but in spite of them. And most days, I really liked myself. I could be proud of me. That had to be worth something.

I’d barely managed to wipe off my teary face and set down my phone when a familiar bang-bang-bang called a knock rattled my door. If I was capable of snarling, I’m sure the facial expression I made would have been called exactly that.

“Yes?” I called out in a sarcastic tone, resisting the urge to throw myself back onto my bed like a little kid. Not that I’d ever done that, even back then.

Considering “Yes?” wasn’t exactly an invitation to come in, I was only slightly surprised when the door opened and the man I didn’t exactly want to see in the near future popped his head inside.

“Yes?” I repeated, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from calling him something mean. I was sure my emotions were written all over my face, my eyes had to have some trace of the tears that had just been in them, but I wasn’t going to hide it.