Page 48 of Recovering Ivy

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“You threatened to kill me.”

“You wouldn’t be the first and you won’t be the last. What you will be is six feet under if you look at Ivy again.”

“You’re gonna let him speak to your mama that way?” Sarah asked me.

I admit, I was struggling the tiniest bit with Zane threatening to shoot my mother in the head. I was more than a little afraid he was serious. But then I remembered.

“You remember when you let Lance smack me around because I flushed a baggy of cocaine down the toilet? You remember after I pulled Joey out of a dealer’s house and he came banging on the front door and you let him into my room when he said he was getting his money’s worth and was going to rape me? And my personal favorite, the time you needed money and you were too fucked up to leave the house and you asked me to take a couple of Johns for you?”

“What does that have to do with anything? You are always bringing up the past like it matters.”

“It matters, and it has everything to do with everything. I’ve tried to help you. I’ve tried to get you clean. I tried with Joey. I’ve tried so many fucking times I can’t count. I’m done. Leave me alone. You’ve hated me my whole life. All I’ve ever done was try to love you. You’ve done this to yourself. I can’t protect you from Zane and if I could, I still wouldn’t.”

“You’re an ungrateful bitch. I’ve kept Forester away from you. You’re the one he wanted but I gave him Joey instead. She was stronger than you. She could take it. Now, I wish I would’ve let him take both of you. At least you would’ve learned your place.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, she was walking away. Zane had his phone out and was speaking but I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying over the words I was replaying in my mind.

You’re the one he wanted.

17

Zane

Mine.

Ivy was mine. Mine to protect. Mine to avenge. Mine to keep.

All day I’d been wrestling with my emotions, not something I was use to. I liked my life neat and orderly. The only emotion I was comfortable with was anger, and the only things I allowed myself to feel daily was guilt and determination. I knew I should let Ivy go. I should walk away now and save her, but I wouldn’t. I would set a course and not deviate from it until I owned her. I would accept nothing less.

A war had been raging inside my head and in that moment the battle had been won. I knew what I needed to do. I knew it was going to be a long, hard road paved with landmines and more emotional baggage than I was equipped to handle, but I’d figure it out. The promise of what Ivy had to offer would be my guide. I wouldn’t fail her. The broken and battered woman standing in front of me was meant to be mine. I felt it to my core. She was stronger than I could ever have imagined. I’d spent five minutes in the presence of the venomous snake that was Ivy’s mother and I wanted to commit murder. Knowing Ivy had spent a lifetime hearing what I just heard was a hard pill to swallow. No one deserved that. No child should have to grow up seeing what Ivy had seen.

The shock of her mother’s visit had not worn off when I helped Ivy into the passenger seat. She didn’t speak on the drive home. She remained pulled into herself when I guided her into the house and sat her on the couch. Her knees came up to her chest, her tiny feet rested on the edge of the couch, and she hugged her legs tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so embarrassed you witnessed that.”

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” I told her.

“That was her going easy on me.”

“Jesus. Fuck. Baby, I’m so sorry.”

“My whole life she’s been telling me I’m trash. My whole life I spent trying to prove her wrong, show her I’m not what she thinks I am. I’ve been trying to prove to myself I can be something different, something better. But what if she’s right? What if the filth and stink can’t wash off? I’m her daughter after all. What if what she has in her is in me, too? I’m so tired of fighting it.”

Hell fucking no was that bitch going to beat Ivy down any more than she already had.

“You’re not fighting anything. There is nothing to fight because you are nothing like her. Nothing, Ivy. No part of you is even remotely close to her. You are beautiful and strong. The woman I met today is weak. She didn’t have it in her to beat back whatever demons plagued her life. She is vindictive and envious. Baby, stop fighting and start living. You are just you.”

“I can’t unlearn what she’s taught me, Zane.”

“Yes, you will, and I won’t stop until you forget every last nasty word she’s ever said to you, every fucked-up lesson she shoved at you. Sarah Long will be a forgotten memory.”

“How do you forget?” she asked.

At her question, I felt my breath leave my lungs and struggled for oxygen. I understood her question, but I didn’t understand why she was asking. No one had ever flat out asked me that. My brother was the only person with balls enough to dance around the topic. Everyone else gave me the respect I’d earned and left my personal life off the table. But if I was going to claim Ivy, I had to try. Opening myself up was not easy, it wasn’t something I ever wanted to do, it wasn’t something I’d ever thought I would do. Not even with Linc.

“I don’t,” I answered.