Page 9 of Highest Bidder

Is it the most deranged thing I’ve ever done? By far.

Do I have anything better to do with my time? Sadly, no.

Until I figure all of this out, I’m not using that money for music school or a fresh start. I need to know why it’s there before I touch it.

After placing my phone on the shelf next to my bed, I roll onto my opposite side. The thought of my mother feels like picking at a wound that refuses to heal, so I attempt to brush the thought away. This always seems to happen. It’s like a cruel game of six-degrees-of-separation. Thinking about work makes me think of Ronan, which makes me think of the account, which makes me think of my mother, which immediately makes me think of her grisly and torturous death.

It seems every thought leads to this point eventually.

I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is. Once I get going, thinking about her in that bed, sunken, pale, and struggling to breathe her last breath, it’s all downhill from there. And I know sleep will never come.

There I go again…my brain replaying the whole thing, even though I explicitly begged it not to.

I was eighteen when my mother died—which is a terrible age to lose a parent, not that any of them are all that great. But being thrust into adulthood, both literally and figuratively, is bad enough on its own, but carrying the weight of grief on top of that is completely unfair.

I had nothing when my mother died. In the figurative sense, I mean.

So I coasted for three years in a home that reeked of her absence, and soon that home turned into a prison. Until one day late last year, I was going through her paperwork in search of something the insurance company wanted, but instead of finding it, I found a bank statement from when I was twelve with the name of a man I had never heard of before.

To say I became obsessed would be an understatement. My life revolved around this mystery, and still does.

There were a few things I ruled out immediately.

First, I asked my dad if he knew a Ronan Kade in Briar Point, and he said no.

Second, and this one is a relief, Ronan and I are not in any way related. He’s not my long-lost grandfather or secret daddy. Thanks to my dad’s strong biological genes, I look just like him, so that’s a saving grace I didn’t ever think I needed.

And Ronan is old, but not old enough to be my grandfather, so that’s ruled out.

My first observation was that Ronan Kade didn’t know me. I worked at the club, my name tag in full view and not once did he say, “Hey, aren’t you that kid I gave a million dollars to almost a decade ago?”

Not once.

So, whatever the reason, I’m clearly a mystery to him as much as he is to me.

Which leads me to my last two theories.

One, that I won some random Ronan Kade lottery for a hefty sum that neither of my parents chose to tell me about. Doubtful.

Or two…it has to do with my mother.

My parents split when I was twelve, and that first summer, as a child of divorce, I spent it with my dad. My mom went on a work trip to Briar Point. This much I was able to find out, thanks to social media, but that’s all I have. I know she was here and from what I can tell, she stayed longer than she was supposed to.

Did my mother have an affair with Ronan Kade?

This seemingly impossible scenario still doesn’t quite explain why he would leave me so much money. And yes, I admit, I could just ask him, but I don’t think I’m ready to know the answer to that question just yet. It’s like a vault I’m too afraid to open.

So here I sit in a renovated camper van I purchased with the money I got from selling the house, and I call it freedom.

Freedom from that house with all of its memories.

Freedom from all the empty spaces my mother should be filling but isn’t.

Freedom from the suffocating weight of disappointment, mostly in myself.

I could have driven this van anywhere. Woken up on the beach or at the base of a mountain range. Instead, I drove straight to Briar Point because I knew he was here. I got a job at Salacious because I stalked him just enough to know he’d be there. Now, I’m sleeping in public parks and, on occasion, Geo’s couch, until I get the answers I need to move on—or the guts to ask those questions.

And as for the money, until I know why it’s there, I’m not touching it.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com