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“So, you stayed?” I whispered in disbelief.
Why would she do that? She hated every single one of the Poison boys and didn’t care what happened to them, never mind their parents, especially one who sold her body for money. It didn’t make any sense.
“Yes, I stayed. I wanted to make sure that she got proper care.”
I pulled my phone away from my ear and stared at the contact to make sure that I was still talking to Mom. Maybe I had called the wrong number by accident, or maybe this was some fucked up dream of some sort. Because Mom … she didn’t care, did she?
“Imani?” Mom said through the phone.
After confirming that this was definitely Mom’s number, I pressed the phone against my ear again. “Yeah, I’m here. I just …” I rubbed a hand over my face and sat crisscrossed beside Kai, furrowing my brows. “Why? Why’d you stay? You don’t care about people like him.”
A moment passed, and the line remained quiet.
“I care about you, Imani,” she whispered. “And I know you might not believe me, but after your friend was shot by his own parents, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how your father and I grew up in the slums. Stuff like that happened all the time, and nobody talked about it. Nobody cared. That’s why I wanted to become a doctor. It wasn’t for the money.” She let out a sorrowful sigh. “Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything to her. What could I say? It had taken Landon getting shot and almost dying and me caring for him for her to realize that she’d been a bitch for the past eighteen years of my life.
Maybe part of me didn’t believe her still. She had screwed me up.
“You don’t have to believe me, Imani,” she said. “But I’m not as bad of a person as you might think. I’ve tried to do some good over the years to people who were in bad situations. I’ve tried to help them out the best I could.”
“Like who?” I snapped, still in shock and in disbelief.
Mom was trying, but was she really? Or did she just want me to believe that?
“I can’t tell you, Imani. It will put you in danger.”
I balled my hand into a tight fist. Of course she couldn’t tell me. She hadn’t saved anyone. She was lying yet again, and I fucking hated it. I hated how she thought being nice to a couple of my friends would make up for years of hurting me mentally.
It didn’t make anything better.
“I’ll be at the hospital in a little bit,” I said through the phone, then shut it off without saying good-bye. I stared at the screen and frowned, tears welling up in my eyes. I didn’t even know why I wanted to cry right now, but I did.
I fucking wanted to so badly.
It wasn’t fair.
After quickly texting João, shoving my phone into my pocket, and refusing to let any tears fall, I stood and grabbed Kai’s hand. “Come on, Kai. We have to head to the hospital. João’s mother is stable, but he isn’t there yet.”
“Are you okay?” Kai asked, following me to Ana’s room.
“I’m fine,” I whispered. “I just don’t know why I keep expecting Mom to be different.”
Once Kai picked up Ana from her bedroom, he placed her in the car seat in the back of my car. I slid into the driver’s seat and glanced into the rearview mirror at Ana, who swayed in her seat and grabbed a bunch of Kai’s wavy hair.
“Where are we going?” she mumbled, half-asleep.
“Go to sleep, Ana,” Kai said, smiling softly at her. “I’ll wake you up when we get there.”
“Okay,” she said, resting her head against the back of the seat and snoring already.
My lips curled into a small smile, and I started the car, ready and anxious to get to the hospital already. Kai slid into the passenger seat and clicked on his seat belt, looking over at me as I headed toward the hospital.
“What’re you smiling for?” Kai asked me.
“No reason,” I said.
But really, butterflies fluttered in my stomach at the thought and sight of Kai being so good with kids. Don’t get me wrong; João was good with Ana, too, because she was his sister, but Kai was almost innately good for someone who didn’t have any siblings.
