“But is she your bitch or not?”
“Not,” Maddox says flatly. “She lives with us. She’s basically my sister.”
Ouch.
I don’t know what I expected. The truth is, I must have started to expect something, even without meaning to. Because these past few weeks, I haven’t just been waiting for Lennox to prove himself. I’ve been waiting to see if I even needed to choose.
Guess not.
“Then you don’t mind if I make her my bitch?” Reggie asks.
“The fuck I don’t,” Maddox growls.
“You said she’s like your sister,” Selma points out.
“Exactly,” Maddox says, and I can practically hear the smug smile on his face. I can barely make out his form slumping back against the railing, his foot still extended to my spot, like he’s saving me a seat. He drags on his cigarette and blows a slow stream of smoke toward Reggie. “Make her your bitch, and I’ll make your sister mine.”
Selma must be fainting with joy at the prospect. I decide to stop lurking, so I stride down the hall, purposefully making my footsteps heavy so they hear me coming. I elbow open the screen door and pass the beers around, then take my spot on the top step again. Maddox leaves his foot where it was on the second step, so it’s under the crook of my knees.
Before any of us can start up a new conversation, we’re interrupted by the sound of a trash can scraping along the sidewalk. My mother is out, dragging the can toward the curb. She looks up, her eyes sweeping over the four of us and moving away. My heart twists in my chest. Not that she was ever going to win Mom of the Year, but to not recognize her own daughter…
Just when I’m about to think the worst, her gaze snaps back, finding mine.
A small rush of relief goes through me. She’s just out of it, like usual, and didn’t expect to see me on Reggie’s porch.
Maddox’s foot nudges the back of my thigh. “You good?”
I swallow and nod, setting down my beer and wiping my hands on my shorts. “I’m going to say hi.”
Without giving him a chance to argue, I stand and make my way across the street. Mom stands rooted to the spot, like a second trash can next to the first on the curb.
“Hey, Mom,” I say.
“You’re here,” she says faintly. “I was so worried. When you disappeared from the shed…”
I shrug. “I’m sure they would have notified you if they found my body.”
“Oh, I know,” she says, giving me a pained smile. “They didn’t even show up to see why you weren’t at school, so I figured you were still going, that you’d found a place to stay with a friend.”
“I did.” I smile at her, but it must be as pained as hers, because all I feel is sadness. I can get out. Lee never wanted me around anyway. She’s stuck there forever.
“And you’re… You’re doing okay?” Her expression is so painfully hopeful. She always did want the best for me, even when she couldn’t give it. “You look good. Healthy. You’re staying somewhere safe?”
“Yeah,” I say, crossing my arms and squeezing my hands into fists, feeling my nails bite into my palms. “I’m okay, Mom.”
“Good,” she says, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. She reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. She gives me one last smile, then drops her hand. “I’m glad you’re happy.”
I don’t say anything. What is there to say? I could be spiteful and point out that she never protected me, that all she can offer now is a lame sentiment about being happy for me because I got out when she didn’t. We both know she’ll never get out. She can’t, and it makes me sad, but I won’t stay for her.
I was strong enough to leave, and I’m safer living with gangsters than I was living under the same roof as my own mother. I could offer to help her, to get her out, but we both know she wouldn’t survive it. Lee thinks she owes him for all the years he’s supported her, and he wouldn’t let her go that easily.
Plus, she’s too broken to have a normal life, too damaged by all the blows to the head. One day, he’ll hit her just a little too hard, and that’ll be the last time. He’ll say she fell down the stairs, and it’ll be ruled an accident. There won’t even be an investigation. His word will be enough. All three of us know it, but we never say it, just like we never said what happened behind closed doors. But I escaped through those doors, and I’m never walking back into that hell.
“I better get back inside, or he’ll wonder where I got off to.”
“Yeah,” I say, tears thickening my throat. “Yeah, Mom. I…I love you.”
I reach out and give her a quick hug. “I love you too,” she murmurs into my shoulder.