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“He would’ve looked into you, found her, and went to her.” He added, “Angela never recanted her statement.”
I frowned. “What?”
“She’s on your side. After your call, she realized it was her roommate and Bianca who leaked the first story about Carrington. She’d been talking to Flynn the whole week too. My guess is that he contacted her after the first story came out. Angela made a comment to her today that she was overwhelmed, something to the effect that she just wanted to take it back and make it all go away. The roommate ran with that and there you go. Angela’s moving out right now, but she never recanted her story.”
Hope. The bare minimum spurred inside of me. “Flynn still thinks she’s recanting?”
“Probably. I doubt the roommate’s going to call him and make sure he’s on the up-and-up of her mistake.”
A little bit more hope. It hadn’t all been for nothing then. But still. “The damage is done about my mom. They don’t understand how she’s so manipulative, and how she twists things. They won’t get it. Mothers aren’t supposed to be like that.”
“I think some will get it.”
Most won’t. And that’s what he wasn’t saying.
He added, “Her story wasn’t true, and she’ll have to take it down. We’ve had her fined for some of the shit she writes about us because it hurts people.”
He didn’t get it, or well, maybe he did. All areas of my life were now connected, and I was once again living under her shadow. She’d invaded my sanctuary. People would know, but it wasn’t even about my friends, or going to a party and knowing people will judge me. It wasn’t about that, none of this was. It was about her, violating my boundaries.
She was in my college life.
I was hiding out in a laundromat because of her.
Cruz tugged on my hand until he wasn’t just holding my pinkie, or my hand. He reached over, lifted me up so I was on his lap. He wrapped his arms around me, propping his chin on my shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”
Maybe. Probably not, though.
“I hate when she would say she was going to kill herself. I hated it so much.” A last wall broke in me, and the tears started. I looked down, unable to see him seeing me because it was too real. Too raw. I was too exposed. Those tears were slow. I’d been through so much because of her that it was hard for her to make me cry, but this, in regard to this subject, I’d cry all day long.
“That’s real. That’s a tragedy. If someone says it, you believe them. You just do. You don’t ever mess with that, but she did. It’s the one go-to she can use that I will respond every time. I have to, because if I don’t, what if she’s not twisting it? Her doctors and her psychologists and her therapists, and her psychiatrists tell me that typically with her disorder, she won’t go through with it, but when’s the line? There’s not a line with that, not that. Someone says it, they get believed. It’s my rule. Because if you don’t… If you don’t believe it one time… When does her one disorder converge into another and that one, they do this. She does this. When’s that call coming? And I can’t do anything, like anything. I go to her, and she uses me up, over and over again until I’m the one who–” I stopped myself, choking back a sob. “Until I’m the one who’s thinking about it. But I’m the bad guy. I am. I can’t get away, and I can’t give enough. It’s never enough. It’s never–and I’m trapped and here she is, in this life now. This was mine. Just mine, and she got in here. Again.” I looked up, half seeing him through the tears. “But I love her, and I wish I didn’t, and I wish I could just not care. But I do. I do, and no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, I never want to get the call that she’s gone because then she’s gone and she’s the only mother I have.”
“Baby.” I heard the tenderness in his tone, but I couldn’t see it. I looked down, my eyes swimming, and he pressed a hand to my temple, pulling me close to him. He kissed my forehead, smoothing my hair down, and held me. “I’m sorry, Mara. I’m so sorry.”
He held me, and right then, that was enough. There was nothing to say.
Him talking shit about my mom? I didn’t need that. I thought enough shit about her. He understood. He got it, and that was the takeaway here for me.
I got him. I got someone who understood.
We stayed like that for a while until Cruz asked, “Let me do some things for you.”
