“You sure about that, Momma, or are you just siding with her because that’s what you do?” Dad asks.
“Oh my God, really, Dad? Don’t start a fight with her because you’re pissed at me.”
“I’m not pissed, Tris; I’m concerned.”
“Oddly”—I pull my crossbody over my head and toss it on the couch—“they both carry the same tone.”
“At least I’m consistent.”
“Zandor,” Momma Joe scolds him, and I hear my mom in the background do the same.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean I haven’t flipped shit. I’ve done the things I’m told to do by our therapist and—”
“Six months,” I call as I walk toward my room in the suite. “Six months, and I am no longer your responsibility or burden. Goodnight all. Forever Steel.”
I shut the door behind me and, like always, I listen.
“She take her meds today?”
“Zandor …” Momma Joe sighs.
“I love you, Momma, but you have no idea how fucking hard this is. You have no idea how scary this is. None of us ever tried to—” He stops.
He can’t even say it.
“She was hurt, angry, scared, and full of guilt and shame.”
“She didn’t have to be. We get it. God, we get it more than anyone. We were feeling it, too.”
“There you are, then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dad’s voice sounds like a teenage boy.
“It means she carries hers and yours. You must let it go. I am begging you to so that she can.”
“I don’t blame her, not one bit. I am not ashamed of her. She is fucking amazing.”
“Then ask yourself why.”
After a brief pause, he responds. “What if she does it again? What if that little cocksucker, Marcello, gets in her head and I can’t stop her this time?”
Momma Joe whispers, “He’s trying, and she’s not letting him.” Then she tells him about the texts and the videos.
“I’m gonna kill him with my bare fucking hands,” Dad growls.
“You just let her deal with it exactly how she is. Be there, but let her come to you.”
“But, what if—”
“Stop that now. She feels that, too. She’s counting down the months until she can fly.”
“Did she say that?”
Now he sounds manic.
“She didn’t have to say the words. I see it. How can you know when you see her like this?”
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks.
“Proving a point.”
I crack the door to see for myself what she’s doing.
“And that is what?” Dad asks, annoyed.
“Showing you that sometimes you have to step back.” She pulls the phone back from where she had it smooshed to her face. “To see things clearly.”
“Momma, I am an ocean away and—”
“She’s getting over him the way in which we all do. We—”
“With all due respect, Momma Joe, if you say by getting under someone else, I may flip shit.”
I quietly close the door as she says, “I do think that is the quickest way, but what I was going to say is, sometimes seeing yourself with new eyes has the same effect as stepping back.”
“This man is too old and too worldly.”
“This man, this Matteo Arias, could have given not only all of you, but your father, a run for his money when going after what he wants.”
“Highly doubtful,” Dad huffs.
“He sees her as she is—beautiful and deep.”
“And how’s that any different than—”
“He’s not a bull in a china shop like all of you when you go after someone. He sees her, and he’s just as mesmerized and intrigued by his feelings for her as she’s realizing hers for him. He sees that, too. He’s dancing with her, Zandor. I wish you could see that. And he’s holding something back for her, I believe. But mark my words, when he knows she’s ready, he’s going to pounce, and like your father, he’ll say the word, and she’ll be gone with him like I was.” I hear a finger snap. “I’m telling you. See her, do not smother her.”
“Not even two nights, and I feel like I can’t fucking breathe, Momma Joe.”
“And I’m sure she feels that, and it hurts her enough that she has to look away. So stop. Please, stop. I can’t have this family be torn in two when we need each other the most.”
“Patrick sees her, and he—”
“Patrick’s heart was broken recently, much like he believes hers was—by betrayal and broken promises. He doesn’t know what she went through. Not all of it.”
When I have had enough, I walk into the stark white bathroom and look at my own bottles of pills.
Opening my mouth, I drop just one of them, the one that I know will knock me out, and hope to hell it works so I’m not awake all night, wondering why Matteo is taking so many pills and why none of the bottles say his name on them.
He’s probably a drug addict.
Figures that I would start falling for someone as equally fucked up as I am.
Hey, but at least, this time, I didn’t break him.
When the alarm sounds, I regret setting it just as much as I would regret sleeping the entire day away and allowing these drugs to work.
I force my eyes open and try to take in the calming surroundings and the sun’s warmth through the floor-to-ceiling, arched windows.
When I roll over to hit snooze, Momma Joe is beside me, white duvet pulled up to her chin.
Eyes still closed, she sighs. “The most annoying sound in the world is an alarm clock going off while on a vacation.”
“You slept with me?” I’m not sure if I’m annoyed or shocked.
Smiling, she opens her eyes. “Of course I did. No one is allowed to go to bed angry with me and not wake up to me beside them.” She rolls over, back to me, and hits snooze. “Mind you, that is usually only reserved for the two men who’ve earned the privilege of being in my bed.” She rolls back over on her side and smiles. “But, in all seriousness, look at me; how could anyone wake to such beauty and still be angry?”
“And now I know where Dad gets his confidence,” I half-joke.
“Ah, yes, and it’s inside you, too. That little bastard just threw a mountain of dirt on it. What remains on you is very little, and you have to shake it off.” She reaches over and pushes my hair away from my face. “And you’re doing that with your art and your new friend, yes?”
“I’m not sure about Matteo.” I roll onto my back and stretch.
“Because that annoying little winged pissant is buzzing around your ear still?”
“No, it’s because I really don’t know him at all.”
Like at fucking all.
She places her hand over her heart. “But in here, does he feel right?”
I place my hand over mine. “I don’t trust this.”
She begins making a buzzing sound, looking above her head, then reaches up and slaps her hands together. She looks back at me with a big smile. “And now?”