“Nah,” I said, shaking my head and wishing she had never left me alone. “I haven’t fucked that up yet, apparently. She loves me.”
“She told you that?”
“Yeah …” Fuck. My eyes watered, remembering the moment from last night.
“Oh, Blake,” Dr. Travetti said, her tone lilting whimsically. Chicks fucking love romance. “That’s so wonderful. You have no idea how happy I am for—”
“My parents signed the papers to send Jake away,” I cut in. Because while Audrey’s love for me was certainly worthy of joy, there was a greater, darker force looming over my head, robbing me of all the light I’d recently found in my life. “They didn’t even fucking talk to me like they said they would.”
“I don’t know what to say, Blake.” My heart felt the burden of her tone, coated so heavily in sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”
“I got into a fight with my mother last night and went to Audrey’s, because I didn’t want to be alone,” I went on, eyeing a particularly appealing bottle of vodka. “But today, she went shopping with her mom, so I came home. I ended up calling my parents to apologize for last night and to try and work this shit out—”
“That’s something the old Blake wouldn’t have done,” she commented, speaking to me like a proud mama.
“Yeah, well,” I snickered sardonically, “I wish I hadn’t. ‘Cause you know what I learned today, Doc?”
“What’s that?”
That bottle was looking more and more like a thing of need. “My mother despises me. And get this—she blames me. How fucking funny is that? All this time, I’ve been blaming myself, and it turns out, she’s been doing the same fucking thing.”
“How do you know this?” Dr. Travetti asked, speaking slowly and eerily calm.
“Oh,” I laughed with cynicism, “believe me, she didn’t try to hide it. She just came out and told me. Did you know that God punished her by giving her me?”
She exhaled against the phone. “Blake …”
“Yeah,” I nodded, licking my lips, so parched and desperate. “That’s funny, right? I mean, I always thought I was punishing myself because there is no fucking god, but as it turns out, the bastard used me to punish her. And then I guess she decided to take it upon herself to make my life miserable, because I made hers a living hell by existing and ruining Jake. Or some fucking shit, I don’t fucking know.”
“Blake,” her voice nipped at my ears, in an attempt to snap me out of it, “I need you to breathe—”
“No. I won’t fucking breathe.” I pushed away from the wall to lurch forward and take the few strides to the shelf of booze and snatch that damn bottle. “My own fucking mother hates me. Who the fuck hates their own kid? Who the fuck takes their anger out on a fucking kid? Who the fuck …”
My breath was ragged and the sob escaping my lungs surprised me. As my hand tightened around the bottle’s neck, I leaned forward, smacking my forehead against a cabinet door. “Goddammit, Doc,” I cried into the phone, all at once noticing the tears on my face and the trembling in my voice. “They’re taking him away from me. I don’t want them to take him away.”
“I know, Blake,” she spoke to me in that tone meant to drag me from off a cliff, “and I am so, so sorry this is happening to you.”
I smacked my head again, barely holding onto the phone with my bad hand, as I demanded, “Tell me what to do. You’re always telling me what I should do, so tell me something now. Tell me what the fuck I can do.”
“Blake, I need you to listen to me,” she said, coddling in her tone. “I am not a lawyer. I don’t know how it is you could battle something like this, other than to say I’m sure there is a way. But right now, you need to calm down because you’re not helping anybody by acting out in rage, okay? Let’s calm down.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”
“Well,” she said, “why don’t you tell me about what happened with Audrey?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE PHONE CONVERSATION with Dr. Travetti had calmed me down, and that night, Audrey came to stay. I was grateful she hadn’t seen me at my worst, because she only deserved my best, and together, we decided I’d talk to Amy, Miss Thomas, the next chance I got. Audrey was certain she would know what I could do, and I felt a calm in knowing that I had a plan.
I spent the weekend buried in her arms and between her legs, in some attempt to drown my anxieties in something that wasn’t alcohol. She and Freddy agreed to accompany me to hang out with Jake on Sunday and acted as a buffer between my parents and me, knowing they wouldn’t attempt to get a rise out of me with her there.
Come Monday, everything seemed back to normal. Jake and I went about our morning as though our days weren’t numbered, and there was a real bittersweet sadness in that. When I dropped Jake off at daycare on the way to work, I pulled Amy aside and simply asked how I could go about getting legal guardianship over Jake. She was surprised to learn I wasn’t already his guardian, and I briefly explained our personal situation. I omitted the details about the mother I only recently acknowledged had been abusing me my entire life and the father who’d allowed it all to happen by turning a blind eye.
Curiosity glinted in her gaze as she had said, “Well, I guess you could always talk to your parents—”
“No, that’s not an option at this point. I just need to know how I’d go about doing this from my end, without getting them involved.” Until I saw them in court, I’d also neglected to mention.
Slowly nodding her head with unspoken understanding, Amy went to her office to retrieve a few pamphlets regarding disability law and obtaining guardianship. Then, in a quiet voice, she’d said, “And Blake, if there’s anything I can do, please don’t even hesitate to ask. Jason and I are always here.”
I thought about what she’d said a number of times in the days that followed. About the support system I’d developed in the time since I’d met Audrey. The kind of people who I had kept at arms’ length, until she had entered my life and acted as the bridge between me and everybody else. Connecting and pulling me from the private island I’d banished myself to.
Had I ever deserved being exiled?
I no longer thought so.
On Friday, I was no closer to having a plan than I had been before, but otherwise, I was happy. My issue of ModInk had hit the stands, and with the excitement of having my name in print, the turmoil of the previous weekend had dissipated. Audrey insisted that we should invite Cee and Shane over for dinner to celebrate, and that was how I found myself flipping pancakes and grilling sausages for a table of six.
“Blake,” Shane said, coming up behind me, “your brother is fuckin’ awesome, man.”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “Please don’t feel obligated to say that.”
He scoffed. “The fuck? Why would I feel obligated? I’ve never seen someone build with Legos so fast in my life.”
“Oh, he showed you, huh?”
“Hell yeah, he did, and honestly, it doesn’t really surprise me. I mean, with your talent, I guessed he’d have to be artistic, too.”