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She turns slowly, blue eyes the same shade as mine, widening with shock.
My mother has never looked happy to see me.
A sobering truth.
My first thought.
She left when I was five. My memories of her are hazy and abstract, not happy. When she showed up, about a week after my dad died, it was to tell me she moved a whole two towns over, and she’d heard about the accident. Then she came to the high school with some half-assed explanation for why abandoning her two kids was in our best interest. I haven’t seen or heard from her since, and I didn’t expect to.
And now she’s standing three feet away, looking like the ghost she is in my memory. Lookingunhappyto see me.
“Hello, Holden.”
I study her more closely. “Are you…okay?”
It’s a stupid question to ask.
Her skin is sallow and pale, and she’s lost weight she couldn’t afford to in the first place. When I saw her four years ago, she was skinny. Now, she looks skeletal.
“I’m fine.” A forced smile stretches the skin across her pale face.
“Then why are you here?” I challenge her because it’s the only way I know how to interact with my mother. My instinct is to doubt and distrust her.
I’m not even sure the brief, rare encounters we’ve had since she abandoned our family can be categorized as a relationship. But we’rerelated. And I care, even knowing I shouldn’t. Knowing it’ll only hurt more when she inevitably disappears and disappoints again.
She looks away, avoiding my gaze. Unease suffuses through me, spreading like wildfire.
A middle-aged man approaches, the strides of his heavy work boots echoing down the linoleum hallway. I expect him to pass us. Instead, he pauses. Ignores me and focuses on my mom as he tucks a folded white paper into his pocket. “We’re all set, Lana.”
My mom nods. “Thanks. Let’s go.”
“Who the fuck are you?” The question is out before I can think it through. Just one of my many impulsive decisions.
He focuses on me for the first time, raising one unimpressed brow as he scrubs a palm against his thick beard. “Who the fuck areyou?”
I look at my mom. The common denominator.
When she told me she was living in Ridgemont, I didn’t ask for any details. Where she was working. If she lived alone.
Is she married to this guy? Do they have kids? Do I have half-siblings?
Questions burning in my mouth like I swallowed acid. Questions I’m not sure I can stomach the answers to.
“Why are you here?” she asks me.
Soundingangryabout it. Like being in the same building as her son is a fucking inconvenience.
My jaw works angrily. “I’m here with a friend.”
“Go look after your friend, Holden.”
She continues walking, and that’sit. That’s the end of the third conversation with my mom that I remember.
I’m expecting her “friend” to follow. But he doesn’t. He remains standing a few feet away, sizing me up.
He kinda looks like my dad, which pisses me off. Broad shoulders. Trimmed beard. Brown hair.
“What?” I snap.
