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My spine stiffened. “Why didn’t you?”
She shrugged.
My eyes burned into hers. I couldn’t let that loaded comment slide.
She turned her back and stared at the window. “Do you think it might rain?”
“Why didn’t you abort me, Mother?”
She turned. “Because I’m not a fucking murderer. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. And I thought about my mother. Despite her throwing me away, she still gave me life. And that’s all I could think of. So, I went ahead with it, and here you are—a stunning, foul-mouthed, unappreciative daughter who hates her mother and cuts herself.”
How the hell does she know that?
Peyton must have told her.
He’d discovered me once on the bathroom floor after I’d seen that young girl on his computer screen. I should have reported him to the police.
That was when he’d asked me to leave.
Nice as I’d thought he was, one couldn’t expect anything good to come from a pedo.
I’d already decided to report him, after that difficult conversation with Drake. Anonymously. I wasn’t about to expose myself to trials, however. I would just type out a letter giving the police all the details, then they could follow up by cracking into his computer.
Better late than never. I could sleep knowing that dirty detective was dead, but I couldn’t sleep knowing that some poor girl had fallen victim to Peyton.
“Did Peyton tell you?” I asked at last.
She shook her head. “I saw you cutting yourself.”
I frowned so hard my brow ached. “Why didn’t you say something to stop me?”
“Because I was shocked. Because it reminded me of what a mess I’d made of not just my life but yours. I couldn’t deal with it.”
Her eyes went glassy.
Were those tears?
Impossible. She was the toughest person I’d ever known.
I couldn’t recall if anyone had ever shown her kindness. Having spent my life hating her for chasing away my dad and for all the men that had come and gone, I’d never felt the urge to hug her. Only for show. Then her body would go all rigid in my arms.
“Did you love my father?” I asked, despite emotion choking my speech.
“I did.”
She hid again by turning her back. Something my grandmother often did. If hiding feelings ran in the family, I’d missed out because, when it came to emotions, I cried at the drop of a fake eyelash. Especially since Drake had come into my life and stripped away at me, leaving a ton of raw emotions on display for anyone who came close to see.
Even with her back to me, I sensed something wanting to burst out from my mother.
“Then why cheat on him?”
She opened her palms, as though the answer were too obvious. “We were starving.”
“Didn’t he work?”
She turned and faced me. “He gambled. He drank. And when he drank, he became a monster. He’d attack me. Nearly killed me one night.”
The haunted look in her eyes stole my breath.
