I struggled to choose between the conflicting thoughts in my head. In the end, I found myself nodding, defeated.
“Fine,” I said sharply. “I’ll tell you what I can, and then you can make up your mind whether you want to do this. You can decide what to think of it.”
What you think of me.
“I won’t change my mind.” His hand cupped my face. “Whatever it is, thanks for trusting me.”
I shrugged in indifference, even though his soft expression rattled me to the core. It wasn’t a matter of trust; it was a ploy to push him away.
“We should sit down. Then I’ll tell you.” I was ready to reveal the parts that made sense. The parts Jude knew. The parts that were ready to be unveiled. Everything else I’d keep in the dark, the way I liked it to stay. No questions asked.
Chapter 15
Once I began to speak, the words just gushed out with no regard as to who was listening. It was as though a rivulet of emotions had given way to a river bursting the dam that had acted as its walls. I kept my head low, my gaze avoiding the man sitting beside me, listening in silence as I told the story I had kept buried inside for years.
“I never knew my father, only that he was someone very important and rich. So when he died shortly after I was born, my grandparents insisted my mother remarry because they didn’t want to see me growing up without a father,” I began. “She married Clint when I was about eight, and shortly after we were playing happy family.” I shrugged, sensing Chase’s unspoken question from the way he seemed to tense up. “I didn’t mind. Because I had never met my father, it was nice to have someone around. Someone who asked about school and pretended to care about what I was wearing. And then I was sent to a private school, and we didn’t really spend a lot of time as a family, except for the festive holidays.” I looked up and smiled.
Chase smiled weakly, but remained quiet which, I figured, was my clue to continue. “It was shortly after my ninth birthday that things started to change. It was a hot August day when my mother became really sick. Around that time Clint took over her business affairs. As time went by, she got worse and started to be gone for weeks at a time. Sometimes Clint took me to visit her in those hospitals. They looked more like rest homes with bars on the windows and nurses watching her day and night.” I looked up into Chase’s frown. “Only later, as I grew older, did I understand that it was a mental health institution. Eventually, Clint explained that she had suffered a nervous breakdown and as such had to be treated, but the treatment wasn’t really working.”
“She was being treated for a mental breakdown?” The incredulity in Chase’s voice didn’t escape me. At some point he had leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs, as though he was eager to hear the story but didn’t want to press too hard. I moistened my lips, unsure whether he’d think me crazy if I told him the rest, even though I wanted to…badly.
I nodded. “I guess he wasn’t really telling me the truth…or the extent of her mental problems. Maybe he thought it’d be too hard for me to accept what was happening to my mom. What girl wants to acknowledge that her mom is sick in the head while all her friends go shopping with their mothers and have a great time?”
The images began to take shape in my mind—grim pictures painted in sadness and despair, in the colors of a child’s ignorance and her inability to grasp the bigger meaning.
“I remember her coming home one day,” I whispered, lost in reminiscence. “She seemed fragile, horribly thin, but she was so much better. She laughed a lot and wanted to spend time with me. She kept making promises, that we’d do some gardening together, which she’d never done before. And that we’d grow wild rose bushes around the fence, which was absurd because she wasn’t into gardening or any sort of outdoor activity. It was like she was a completely different person, but I didn’t think anything of it. All that mattered to me was that she was back and seemed healthy. I was so thankful that she wanted to spend time with me. And then the weird things started to happen.” I looked up into Chase’s face. His eyes were hooded by dark lashes, but there was a glint of pensiveness in them.
A soft shudder ran down my spine, and for a moment I was pushed back into the body of a child, watching my mother’s frail figure from the huge bay windows in the living room.
“What weird things?” Chase asked softly.
I shook my head, hesitating, as I let the memories invade me until my throat felt tight and my hands started shaking.
“She began to lock herself in her room, always flinching at every sound. She freaked so much she kept sending me out of the house to keep me away because I made her nervous.” I paused as I allowed the picture of me, as a ten-year-old sitting on the lawn, gazing up at the dark windows and wondering when she’d let me in, to cloud my vision. It was such a bleak memory that I flinched and instantly pushed it to the back of my mind.