“Yes, right.” I glance at my mom. “Is she okay to leave?”
“Yes, she’s been discharged. She’ll have some abrasion on her chest from the seatbelt. And some bruising as well.”
“Okay.”
Dr. Brown looks like she’d like to say more, but she settles on nothing but a smile.
“Let’s go,” my mom says, climbing off the bed and standing. She winces at first but straightens and heads for the door.
“Where’s your car?” I ask once we reach the parking lot. “How bad is it damaged?”
“I don’t know,” she says, looking away.
I sigh, pulling my keys out of my pocket and unlocking the SUV.
The first half of the drive is spent in total silence. Until I say, “I called Dad.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Do you really want me to answer that, Mom?Really? And I’m taking all the car keys. You need to go somewhere, you tell me, and I’ll drive you. Except for the drugstore or the liquor store. You can walk there.”
“I am your mother, Natalie Evelyn,” she snaps. “Do you think I don’t know all the times you’ve stayed out all night? Come home drunk? You need to—”
“I’m doing exactly what Ineed to, Mom. You may be okay with living with the guilt if you kill someone, but I’m not.”
“You shouldn’t have called your father.”
“Well, I did.”
“He’s handling an important deal in London. He won’t come.”
He’d better.“More important than his family?”
She doesn’t answer, which tells me she thinks the answer is yes. I do too.
As soon as I park in the driveway, she climbs out of the car.
“You’re welcome for picking you up, by the way,” I say.
She shuts the door on my snarky tone. I sigh and lean back against the soft leather seat, inhaling and exhaling. It’s almost six now. The sun is rising. Pastels creep across the sky slowly, signaling the start of a new day.
Exhaustion sags my shoulders and makes each blink last longer than it should.
Once again, I’m startled awake by the sound of my phone. The buzzing does nothing to wake me up, in comparison to the spike of adrenaline when I see the name on the screen.
I stare atLiamfor so long that when I finally answer, I think the call already ended.
“Hi.”
“Shit.” He half-laughs, half-exhales. “I, uh, I didn’t think you’d answer.”
“Then why’d you call?”
“Good question.” There’s a beat of silence, and what sounds like waves in the background. “It put the ball in your court, I guess. On whether you called me back.”
“So it was a test?”
“I—maybe? Sort of. I—I also wanted to apologize. The bathroom at Weston’s party was a dick move. I don’t—I shouldn’t have…”