Page 86 of Before You Fell

My apartment is all glass, money, and ego. Top floor because it has the biggest view and a private elevator that opens directly into the kind of cold, expensive air that used to make me believe I had finally achieved something.

Black leather. Designer furniture. A marble table that looks too pretty to touch. Shelves of awards, bathed in soft light, lined up like proof that every egotistic thing I did to get here was worth it. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrap around the city, all those lights spread out beneath me like the world once had the good sense to know where I belonged.

Back when I bought this place, I thought it meant I had it all. Now it only gives the silence more room to echo.

I drop my keys into a bowl that costs more than my first microphone and listen as the sound dissolves into a home that has never once felt like one.

My phone buzzes and for half a second, the stupid, desperate part of me awakens.

Willow.

My pulse kicks hard enough before I reach for it and see the name. Then the hope drops so fast it leaves scratches on its way down.

Mom.

Mara Stone only calls when she wants something or when she needs to feel as if she has checked the motherhood box for the week.

She has never been a mother in any way that mattered. Not to the boy I was when boys still needed their moms. Not when I came home bruised, hungry, pissed off, or too quiet for a kid who already knew silence was safer than asking for anything.

Now she calls because my name brings in money. And because some stupid part of me still answers.

“Hey.”

“Phoenix. Are you busy?”

“What do you need, Mom?”

A pause. “I was just calling to talk to my son.”

“Sure.”

“I saw something online about a tour” Her voice lifts, growing warmer now that she is close to the part she actually cares about. “You must be making good money from all that.”

There it is. Not how are you holding up or that you sound like shit. Just money. The real reason for her call.

I walk to the bar, already reaching for a glass because that is the only way I can get through a phone call with the woman who remembers she has a son whenever my bank account looks useful.

“Nice to hear from you too.”

“Don’t use that tone on me.”

“What tone?”

“The one that makes me feel bad for asking.”

“Then don’t ask.”

She sighs.

In the background, I can hear the television and my father saying something too low to make out. Ray Stone, present enough to need money, absent enough to let her do the asking.

“Things are tight,” she says.

Of course they are. Things have been tight my whole fucking life, and now I’m the one with the bank account big enough to make her remember she gave birth to me.

“How much?” I ask.

“I hate when you say it that way.”