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She did fuck up.
And maybe I did, too, by convincing her to head to Europe. Sure, I thought she would be safe there, and she had been, for months even, but Father’s found her somehow.
What the fuck are we supposed to do now?
CHAPTER24
I rub my forehead.“Mom, all you have to do is move somewhere else.”
“Move somewhere else. Geez, why didn’t I think of that myself?” she asks, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
I wince. “Mom, you don’t have to be mean.”
“Maybe I do. Maybe that’s what I have to start being so that people will stop walking all over me.”
My brow furrows. “Mom, who has been walking all over you?” I ask cautiously.
“You mean besides your father?”
“Who else?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Oh, just about everyone I’ve met here.”
“Where are you?”
“I suppose I might as well tell you since your father already knows. How the hell did he find me? I swear your father must have hired a private investigator to find me. I thought I saw a man wearing a trench coat the other day.”
“Because all PIs wear trench coats. It’s cold out, Mom.”
“Where you are?”
“No,” I admit, “but I’m in Texas. You’re in Europe.”
“Northern Italy, and it’s cold out here to me, but not to those who live here. The temperature can vary between forty-five to, oh, about sixty to sixty-five degrees. The higher end shouldn’t require a trench coat from those who live in Italy, but for me, that’s chilly. For others from Texas, it would be cold enough to warrant a coat.”
“I think you’re being paranoid.”
“How else did he uncover where I am?” Mom demands. “Don’t treat me like a child.”
“I’m not, Mom, but you need to be reasonable.”
“Who says I’m not being reasonable?” she spits out. “Your father is going to come here. He’s going to try to drag me back into my old life, into my old role as his doting wife. I can’t go back to that, but I also don’t think I can continue to stay here either.”
“You can’t stay in Italy.”
“I know that,” she snaps. “I can’t stay here in Europe either. This isn’t where I want to live, and I just forced myself to sign a lease for an apartment. If I break it, I’ll owe a lot of money, and I can’t afford to keep running. I just can’t.”
“Maybe if you explain to the landlord…”
“That won’t work. They won’t care. My life has become such a mess, and I don’t know how to make things right.”
“Mom, we’ll figure things out.” I blink back hot tears. “You can’t give up.”
“It’s too late,” she says, her tone almost unrecognizable. “I already have.”
And she hangs up.
Muttering a curse, I call her back, but she doesn’t answer. As soon as it goes to voicemail, I hang up and call her again and again, but she never answers, and on the seventh try, it goes straight to voicemail. She shut her phone off.
