“I don’t want to lose you,” she admitted through a whisper, burrowing deeper into my side. “Not when I’ve finally found who I’ve been looking for.”
I kissed her forehead. “And you’re exactly what I’ve been running from all along.”
A frown pulled to her brow, understanding winding into her expression.
The girl taking me under. “Will you tell me about her?”
A tremor rolled through my body, and I opened my mouth, because somehow, I’d allowed this woman to cut me open wide.
Thirty-Five
Ian
Seventeen Years Old
The apartment door creaked open slowly, and the dread and worry that Ian had been tossing in all night shifted into anger. His hands balled into fists, and he pushed to standing from the couch as his mother walked through the door.
A whole twenty-four hours since the last time he’d seen her.
She was wearing a skin-tight dress and no shoes, and her hair was ratted and her makeup smeared under her eyes. She hobbled inside, limping on her left leg like she’d been injured.
Beaten down.
Worn and used up.
That anger gripping Ian’s chest shivered in a flash of repulsion.
How could she do this?
She’d promised when they’d moved back to the city after Jace went to prison that things were going to be different. That she’d never touch drugs again. That she was going to take care of him, just like he’d promised he was going to take care of her.
Things were going to be better. They had to be because Ian couldn’t fathom anything worse than the emptiness he’d felt when his brother had been taken away.
Jace had been the one person he could rely on, his protector and his best friend, and now Ian was trying with all his might to step up and take his place.
How was that ever gonna happen when his mama kept doing this?
Ian’s jaw clenched, staring at his mother who was just repeating the same bullshit he’d spent his years growing up in.
She lifted her face to him. There was a scratch down her cheek, and part of him wanted to run to her, demand to know who had hurt her so he could hunt the asshole down.
Fight for her and protect her.
But he was so over it. So over her promises that were nothing but lies.
His lip curled and the hurt and hatred came spilling out. “I can’t believe you. You’re into that same bullshit again?”
Rage thrummed with the heartbreak, fractures cracking through the middle of him.
It was supposed to be different.
She’d promised. She’d promised.
A soft whimper left her mouth, and she edged forward, dropping her purse directly onto the floor as she inched toward him. “I had to, Ian, you don’t understand.”
Disgust shot out of him on a hot breath. “I don’t understand? What’s not to understand, Mama?” He spat the last like it was a filthy word. “That you’re nothin’ but a junkie? That you’d rather leave me here to worry about you, worry you’re dead in a dumpster somewhere, while you go get your fix of dope and dick? Is that what I don’t understand?”
She gasped out a tortured sound, and her body bent in half as if Ian had physically injured her.
But he’d never do that. It was his mother who’d allowed it to happen to him again and again. His own body covered in scars that would never heal. The ones that couldn’t be seen only went that much deeper.
He could almost feel it, the deep grooves carved out in his back, the years of black eyes and busted lips and broken ribs.
The marks that had been written on his soul.
She took a pleading step forward, and the smell of her cheap perfume and men’s cologne slapped him in the face. He wanted to puke.
“Please, don’t say things like that to me, Ian. Not when everything I do, I do for you.”
Scornful laughter rocked from him, and he took a step her direction. “For me? That’s rich, Mama, when the only thing you’ve ever cared about was yourself. Everything you’ve ever done was for your benefit. You let me and Jace starve so you had the money to fill your worthless body with drugs, or you let men use us as punching bags just as long as they kept you supplied with that shit.”
“No,” she wheezed. “No, Ian. I never, ever wanted you to get hurt. There are some things you can’t understand.”
He gripped two handfuls of hair, tugging hard, at his end. He got in her face, spewing the words, “God, I’m so sick of your excuses. You might have kept me hooked on your every word when I was a little boy, desperate for a little love and attention, but guess what? I’m not a kid anymore, and I can see right through you.”
A sob wrenched from her. “No, Ian. Please, don’t say things like that. You’re the only thing I have left. The only reason I breathe. The only reason I have to keep going.”