“I like your kind of normal, Remy. The work you do is worth it.” I shot to my feet and cleared my throat roughly. “I’m going to jump in the shower really quick. Thank you for waiting for me.”
She practically growled at me when I turned to walk away. I told myself the entire way to the bathroom that I absolutely was not going to think about how much I liked the way Remy looked while she was holding my daughter. I swore I wouldn’t obsess over the way Hollyn smiled at the only other girl who had ever had a permanent place in my heart.
It sucked that I always seemed to do the opposite of what would be best where my relationship with Remy Archer was concerned. All because I knew there was no way I was ever going to get the image of my child and her together out of my head.
Remy
IT WAS A silent ride to my car. Hyde asked if I wanted to stop somewhere and grab breakfast, but what I really needed was to get away from him and his too-cute baby before I did something stupid, like fall in love all over again. There was a slim chance I could still resist Hyde because of all the bad blood between us—but that baby, no way could I keep my heart safe from her. She was just too precious, and seeing the scars on her tiny body, a testament to all she had to endure to come home, made me feel a kind of kinship with her. I knew what it felt like to have to fight to survive. And I knew what it was like to be loved so deeply by someone that they would sacrifice anything to save you. My mom did it for me when she went behind my back and sent Hyde away, knowing if I found out I would hate her, and Hyde was going to do the same for Hollyn. Even if it was something as easy as sleeping in a comfortable bed, he was willing to give it up to be there when his kid needed him.
Once I was in my flashy red car, instead of heading to my place in LoDo, I felt oddly compelled to swing by my parents’ house that was a little out of the city in Lakewood. Maybe it was spending the morning with a little girl who lost her mother and would never get the chance to be disappointed by her that spurred me into action. Or maybe it was seeing how desperate Hyde was to do the right thing for his daughter that opened my eyes to just how hard it could be to be a parent. I tended to only see things from my own perspective and focus on how they would affect me. I rarely managed to put myself in someone else’s shoes. That was one of the biggest things I struggled with when it came to my mental health. I didn’t want to be selfish and so self-absorbed, but it was really hard to force my brain to work any other way.
We’d moved a couple of times when I was younger, always to a bigger house with more outside space and more room for my dad and brother to have various big-boy toys. Since all of us Archer kids went to a private school, it didn’t matter where we lived; we all stayed together. We were also the guinea pigs who tried the school out before most of my parents’ friends and colleagues sent their children there as well. At one point, it felt like I saw my classmates more outside of school than in it. The house in Lakewood was where we spent most of our time, where I really grew up, and where most of the family gathered for holidays and big get-togethers. I had avoided it like the plague for years.
The only time I went voluntarily, up until recently, was when I knew my brother was there.
This was the first time in years I was heading home, knowing my mom was the only one home. My dad was at work, and Zowen was back at school in Golden. My mom still worked a few days a week for my Uncle Rule’s tattoo business. When she was younger, she was a body piercer, but after Zowen and I came along, she started focusing more on the management side of things. She handled all the paperwork and accounting, and when my dad’s business really started taking off, she even went to school to get a degree in finance and later became a certified CPA. When I was a kid, she seemed invincible and unstoppable.
It wasn’t until the symptoms of my BPD started to show that I realized my mother was merely human and fallible like the rest of us. For a long time, everyone thought my issues were just part of me being a loud, quirky kid. Then when I got older and had trouble in school and the fear of abandonment and obsessive behavior toward Hyde started, they realized it was something more. I was treated for ADHD, depression, and anxiety. At one point, there was an evaluator who was convinced I was on the autism spectrum, so it wasn’t like my parents didn’t try to help me. The problem was, no one managed to nail down an exact diagnosis until after I tried to take my own life. I was put on a mandatory psych hold, and fortunately, it was one of the doctors who took care of me in the hospital who identified borderline personality disorder as a possible diagnosis. My parents grabbed onto those words like a lifeline and immediately booked me with a specialist for evaluation. I clearly remembered how frustrated and helpless my mom seemed whenever I was having a particularly hard time adjusting to new meds and new doctors, and how relieved she was when something finally seemed to make a difference.
For me, the enemy wasn’t Hyde, or even the wonky way my brain worked. The issue was the stigma around mental health and being looked at as somehow different just because I wasn’t wired the same as everyone else.
Lost in thought, the trip to my childhood home went much quicker than usual. But it took forever to sit in front of the house, deciding if I should just walk in or knock on the door like a stranger. Both seemed wrong, so I finally settled on texting my mom to let her know I was in the driveway and asked her if she was home.
A moment later, the front door was thrown open, and a small blonde woman poked her head out. She stuck out a hand and crooked her finger, indicating I should come in. I took a deep breath to brace myself and climbed out of the car. I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d been alone with my mom. My dad and brother were always quick to act as buffers because they knew my mom and I both had tempers and could make a bad situation worse with a few cruel words. After I tore into her and threw the mother of all hissy fits over her intrusion with Hyde, I pretty much left Denver and hadn’t been back, except for short visits, until recently. When I did see her during that time, it was only briefly and never alone.
I took my time walking up the steps and noticed her gaze skim over me from head to toe. I knew I was a wrinkled, day-old-makeup, no-shoe-wearing mess, but she didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at my disheveled appearance. Instead, she pulled me into a fierce hug and held onto me like she never planned to let go.
I was a tad bit taller than my mom and a whole lot less colorful, at least on the outside. Aside from her two different-colored eyes, my mom also had her arms covered from shoulder to wrist in bright tattoos. One side was full of flowers, the other was inked with fantastical images of mythical creatures. Unicorns, mermaids, leprechauns, a jackalope—it was like a child’s imagination exploded across her skin, and I loved it. I used to tell people all the time that no one could possibly have a cooler mom than mine. Honestly, even when I was mad at her, I still thought she was the coolest person I knew.
I patted her back as she squeezed me to death and laughed when she asked, “Why don’t you have any shoes on?”
I put some effort into escaping and wiggled out of her grasp, then I pushed my tangled hair out of my face. “I spent the night at a friend’s, so I slept in my clothes and didn’t want to put my heels back on.” I wiggled my toes against the hardwood floor. “I should throw a pair of flip-flops in my car or something.”