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“I do!” I cried out, because I did. I really did. “You think that people don’t watch you? That they don’t see what you and your friends do? And I know you’re all connected. You to Blaise. Blaise to Aspen. Aspen to her brother. Her brother to the Kades. The Kades to my boss! My boss to Bren and her whole group. You’re all interconnected and Idoknow what you guys do. I just thought—” I looked away because what had I thought? That Zeke was different?
He wasn’t.
I was the fool for thinking that.
“You and people like you don’t understand that when you guys do the things you just said, you’re not the one who gets hurt. For whatever reason, it’s not you. It’s never you. It’s the others. The bystanders. The people on the outskirts. It’s people like my mom, like my grandmum. It’s people like me.” My voice cracked. “We’re the ones who get hurt and we’re the ones who have to spend the rest of our lives dealing with it, surviving it, existing despite it. My grandmother couldn’t escape my grandfather. She kept expecting him to come and ‘finish her off.’ That’s how he was, how she was. That kind of thing doesn’t leave you. It stayed with her, stayed with my mom, stayed with me. My mom lost her legs in an accident. Did I tell you how she lost them?” I turned away, tasting my tears, but my God, he needed to understand it. “My dad was drunk, and he got into a fight. And he was driving, and my mom was in the car, and guess what happened? She lost her legs, and thenhelefther, so she lost her husband too.”
He looked visibly stricken. “Ava—”
“She lied.” I just kept tasting those tears. I guess they needed to be released. “When the cops came in and asked what happened, because my dad was sober by then, she lied. She said he lost control. It was raining and it was just an accident. He repaid her kindness by leaving her because he didn’t want to be saddled taking care of a disabled wife. Those were his words. But if you ask me, she’s not disabled. She’s not anything. She’s my mom, and she’s never let her not having two legs stop her from doing a damned thing. It never will. If she’s gotta get upstairs, trust and believe, she will. She will lift herself all the way up, two stairs at a time, and she’ll rig a rope or something and get her chair up behind her. My mom can do anything.” My voice cracked again. “But I can’t. She’s the survivor, not me. I’m exhausted. That’s what I am. I am just exhausted from life because the whole of it, I’ve just been trying to get by while the rest of you, the God-blessed ones, youlive. Not me, though. Not me.” I knew I was fully crying, and I didn’t care.
I was just feeling the crushing weight of the impending doom coming my way. This time, I knew I wouldn’t outlast it.
I loved him. That gave him the power to destroy me. The kind of destruction that I wouldn’t survive.
I was shaking my head before I knew what I was going to say, what Ihadto do. “I can’t do this, Zeke. Maybe it’s me. I can’t handle it again. I can’t stand by and… I don’t even know whatwillhappen, but something will happen. To me or to you, and I can’t deal with it. I’m not made of that tough stuff people seem to need to thrive in the world. I don’t have it, and what’s worse, I don’t know if I want it. If I have to blackmail someone or break into someone’s house or set someone’s car on fire—I don’t have that in me to hurt another person. Whether they’re good or bad, or if they deserve it or not. I just don’t have it. Consider me weak, if that’s how you perceive it. I just don’t have it in me, that’s all I know.”
“Ava,” he spoke, softly.
That made it hurt, but I was already hurting. I’d be hurting for a long time. I knew that, but this way, I can still stand. I wouldn’t be able to stand whenever my world would shatter, and this was my life. Of course, it’d shatter.
I was getting out before it happened. It’s the only way I could survive this.
I’d run out of words and there didn’t seem to be anything else to say. I’d made up my mind except, I looked at him. “I can’t do this with you. I’m sorry.” I left, sliding out of the Jeep and somehow, I made it to my own vehicle.
I drove away, not having a destination in mind.
I just needed to go away.
25
AVA
Iwent to my mom’s place, and she opened the door, wheeling back and stared up at me.
I shrugged. “What? You’ve never seen me wrecked before?”
She only pressed her lips together before jerking her head. “Come in. And I’m not saying this to be a mean mama, because I’ll always have time for my daughter, but I’m getting picked up for movie night tonight.” She motioned with her wrist. “Let’s hurry this along.”
I grunted, rolling my eyes, but went to the kitchen table and sat.
She zoomed in, going to the fridge and grabbing a beer for both of us before closing the door, and grabbing a bowl of popcorn she already had on the counter. She came back, hitting one lock on her chair before handing the beer over. The bowl went on the table between us. “Okay. I’m here for you, daughter of mine.” She patted my arm before opening her beer and tipping it back for a sip. “Spill. What’d your new man do?”
I gave her a look. “You don’t have to sound so brisk about this.”
She gave me a look right back. “I love you, but your grandma left us both explicit directions that we’re supposed to live life to the fullest. I’m living and you’re living, and you’re really living. Got a hot new and well-off man, but you’re here moping. You’re moping at my kitchen table. I know you enough to know something happened with your man. Let’s hear it out. Tell me. Come on.” She made a waving motion with her hands before grabbing some popcorn.
She really was hurrying this along, and I gave her a whole different onceover.
Her hair was freshly cut, and cleaned, and shining. There was gel in it, giving it extra volume. She had makeup. Not a lot, but a little, enough to give her some extra shine there too. And she was wearing a skirt, along with a white frilly top.
I shoved back my chair, gaping at her. “You have a date.”
She looked away, scratching the back of her neck before she grabbed more popcorn. “I do not.”
“You do too. You’re dressed up.”
“I am no—”
