Page 79 of Saints & Sailors

Dreux tipped his head. “Yeah, one minute.”

Angela paused, and then she went back inside, leaving us alone.

Dreux turned back to me. “Be right back.”

“It’s okay.” I waved him off. I grabbed my math book. “I need to be on this anyway.”

He regarded my abandoned books, and then me. “Can you swim?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s this place I’d like to show you, a getaway. I know there’s the local swimming pool, but some of us go to the Pier.”

“The Pier?”

The sun was shining down on him. Dreux grinned, squinting at me, making my giddiness worse. So much worse. “You’ll see.”

Scott was in the middle of cooking dinner when I got in later after my shift at Angela’s. The smell of fish in the air let me know what was on the evening’s menu. I greeted Scott briefly with a wave from down the hall before climbing the stairs for my bedroom, my heartbeat pounding hard and heavy in my chest.

Once in my room I felt antsy, jittery—nervous. For the longest time, I paced the length of my carpeted floor before finally kicking off my sneakers and climbing on to my bed.

Sitting cross-legged in the center, I tucked my hair behind my ears and calmly and slowly released a breath before calling my mother on FaceTime.

It was almost five thirty back in LA. Wherever she was, my mother wasted no time in answering my call.

She came on screen, her blonde hair up in a messy bun, her young face surprised to see me. Around her neck I could see where she was wearing an apron. I’d caught her in the process of a pottery project.

“Bad time?” I wondered.

She vigorously shook her head. We hadn’t spoken in forever it felt like. “Oh no, honey, no. Is everything okay?”

My eyes watered and I had to look up at the ceiling to keep the tears at bay. “No.”

“Saylor, what’s wrong?” Concern leaked into my mother’s tone and that broke me even more.

I wasn’t even surprised to find my voice cracking as I spoke. “I’ve been a terrible daughter.”

When I looked back at my phone, I could see my mother was already tearing up as well. She was quick to conceal this as she swiped at her face. “No, you haven’t.”

It was a lie. “I talked to Scott. He told me about you guys, and h-how…how he left you—us.”

Against her efforts, tears rolled down my mother’s cheeks. “He told you about that?”

I nodded, wiping at my own wet face with my arm. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. Fuck.” My heart poured out of me. The lock was broken on all the guarded pain I felt about being abandoned. “You are the strongest woman I know, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t good to you. Your father. Scott. You’re so brave, Mom.

“A-And, you picked me. You had your whole life ahead of you and you chose me. You’re so fucking brave.” I covered my face with my hands, embarrassed for how entitled I’d been to treat her this way for so long. She gave me everything and I took it all for granted. “All I’ve ever had was you, and I wasn’t good. I wasn’t good, Mom.”

My mother had to look away from the camera, her wet blue eyes glistening. “Oh, baby. It’s okay.” She took a breath, gathering herself, seeming to be smoothing her hands over her lap as she peered downward. “I never…I never wanted to talk about that. About my parents, about how ashamed of me they were. I never wanted you to feel like an accident or a mistake or a burden. From the moment I first held you in my arms, you became my only family, the only thing that counted to me. You were wanted, you were loved, and that’s all that matters. You can come home.”

My sadness halted. “W-What?”

My mother attempted to clean herself up, leaning offscreen to gather a tissue. I could hear her blowing her nose soon before she came back to me. “I shouldn’t have sent you away. I should’ve talked to you, I should’ve listened, I should’ve done more. I just thought this was what you needed, and oh, Saylor, I miss you so much. You can come back. We’ll figure it all out.”

Everything stopped and I didn’t know how to feel or what to do. I was free. Able to go back home to where it all made sense—but then, it made sense here, too.

I sniffled, unable to block out my treacherous thoughts. “I…I can’t.”

“Why?” she asked.