Opening my eyes back up, I realize he’s staring at me, and I feel like an idiot. Awesome.
“If you’re staying, take… Dad’s room.” I almost just offered him Aidan’s room, but that would be weird, since Aidan screwed Whit in there.
Everything about this is weird and awkward.
“The couch is fine, Mika. I’ve slept on worse.”
He grins at me, but I think it’s only to ease the sadness out of that statement.
“Why did you come tonight?” I ask him. “Really.”
He stares at me for a moment before reaching down and untying his boots.
“Like I said, I know you hate storms. Take the candle up with you. I’ll find another. When will Aidan or Hunter be back?”
I tense, knowing this isn’t good territory.
“I don’t know. They… don’t give me times or dates as to when they’ll be somewhere.”
“Why the hell not?” he asks, confused.
This is something normal people would get confused over.
“Because I’ll expect them to be there at exactly that time on exactly that day. Being unable to leave something unfinished isn’t a cute quirk of mine anymore, Chase. Good night.”
He looks baffled, but I turn away and jog up the stairs as the storm continues to batter the house. Having him here is distracting me from the storm.
It’s also distracting me from reality.
Chapter 19
MIKA
“I’m eighteen now! I can leave if I want to!” I scream, pushing my psychotic mother off me.
“No you can’t! You can’t leave me! Everyone keeps leaving me!”
She’s such a maniac. I really hate her. You can’t down five different pills for depression and then drink a bottle of wine. It just makes you crazier. But that’s what happens when you have a dick uncle who gets your mother
stuck on all sorts of pills just so he can have unlimited access to her checking account.
He should have been the actor instead of her. He fooled us all like the brilliant asshole he is.
The storm rattles on outside, but I barely pay it any attention. All it does is make me miss Chase that much more—like all storms do. And I don’t want to miss him because I hate him almost as much as I hate my mother.
“I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back. I hate you. I hate this house. I hate your tool of a brother! I hate everything you represent!”
Her eyes are wild and she keeps gripping my arms, slinging me around. “You ungrateful little shit! Do you know what I sacrificed to be your mother?”
“You sacrificed your acting career,” I say dramatically, rolling my eyes. “You can’t even lie good, Mom. Do you really think your acting career would have been that incredible? You’d be a broke wannabe begging for a role, while sleeping in a cardboard box if it hadn’t been for Dad. Who’s ungrateful?”
“Would you two please stop arguing?” Aidan groans from his bedroom down the hall.
I look over at his open door while shoving away from Mom again. He wants out of this as much as I do, but he hates the conflict.
Just as I start to walk down the stairs, Mom is grabbing my hair like the crazy bitch she is, and jerking me back, slamming me against the bannister of the hallway balcony.
“Take that back!” she roars. “I would have been famous. I would have been beautiful. I would have been happy!”