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“Why can’t your dad—” I cut off, realizing the answer halfway through my question. “Because your mom would get it out of him in a heartbeat.”
“Yeah,” Adam said dryly, his stress now audible. “And if she had it, she’d be terrorizing Holland in person, which… I fucking hope to God she isn’t doing right now.”
My grip tightened on my phone as I felt a sharp rise in my pulse. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“My mom.” Adam muttered some choice expletives for Jeannie before explaining. “She finally snapped today. I mean she’s been a ticking time bomb so I guess we should’ve known it was coming, but Christ… Holland forwarded me the voicemail and that psycho was crying like she was being fucking murdered. Talking about how ungrateful Holland is, how she was going to hurt herself. All the classics minus the whole ‘I’m coming for you because I found out your address thing.’ That’s definitely new.”
I palmed my hand over my entire head.
What the fuck.
“So, what’s going on now? Where’s Holland? Is she okay?” I asked, not bothering to disguise my urgency.
I wasn’t even sure when I’d told my driver to pull over the car. All I knew was that we were stopped now, my jaw clenched tight and my mind was racing a mile a minute as I ran through every possibility of what Jeannie Maxwell’s crazy ass was capable of.
“I don’t know where Holland is, but the good thing is I don’t think she went home to Jersey,” Adam said, providing me only a hint of relief. “My dad said she hasn’t been by the house, but he also said my mom’s been gone all day and he doesn’t know where she went. And Holland’s phone has been off since the morning, so it’s been… fucking stressful,” Adam said, heaving another sigh. And just as I opened my mouth to ask why he didn’t call me, he said it himself. “I wanted to call you, but when I told her I was going to have you check in, she was… really fucking adamant against that idea. Made me promise not to contact you,” he said, managing a breath of laughter despite the anxiety still thick his voice. “I think because she felt like I was babying her.”
No.
More because I last-minute fucking canceled on her right as all this shit was going down.
Fuck.
“And you have no idea where she went?” I asked, gritting my teeth. “Where was she when you talked to her?”
“She was leaving her office when I talked to her around noon your time. I don’t know where she went though. I told her just to stay away from her apartment and get drunk till her roommate was out of work.”
I closed my eyes. Goddammit, Adam.
I inhaled deep as I thought about all the levels on which that was horrible fucking advice for Holland. She was already upset. She was probably alone. Her roommate was working so if she was out getting shitfaced, she was definitely not with anyone she knew very well.
Unless she was at her roommate’s bar.
Fuck, let her be there, I prayed, because even if she was completely trashed at that bar, it wa
s a better place for her to be than alone with her batshit insane fucking mother.
“Look, I gotta go,” I said, barely waiting for Adam to respond before I hung up the phone, my heart hammering in my chest as I told my driver to turn the car around.
26
HOLLAND
The streets were quiet by 1AM. Never totally quiet, especially in the East Village, but quiet enough to match my mood, which was calm.
Exhausted, but calm.
And better.
Taking a deep breath, I took the crinkled bus ticket out of my pocket and tossed it into a trash can on the corner. Total waste of money, I thought. One I couldn’t be more grateful for.
I hadn’t gone back to Jersey.
I’d realized what a bad idea it was within pretty much two blocks of leaving my office. I still went to Port Authority, and I still bought the ticket, but I’d wound up just sitting with it for forty minutes before walking back out onto Eighth Avenue. I had just needed some time to quiet my brain, to remember what I had staunchly promised myself when I first moved out.
Which was to let my wound breathe.
I was better, happier than I’d ever been before. But just because I was strong enough to withstand Mom’s abuse now didn’t mean I should go ahead and let her hurt me. The healing process was going to take longer, leave a bigger scar if I kept letting someone scratch at my wound.
