I touch my swollen jaw, and grimace. "An accident."
"Ow." She grimaces in sympathy.
"I'll be just a minute." Shooting her a grin, I hurry down the long corridor with doors on either side and slip into the familiar room. Closing the door behind me, I lean on it, allowing myself a second to gather myself.
Fighting with Sebastian isn't hard. Sure, it hurts, his punches land hard, and my knee is still giving me trouble two days later, but it's all physical, superficial. The pain will fade.
Being in the gang is hard. Keeping my damn mouth shut, my fists in check, doing my best to appear harmless and obedient, watching over my brother, it's hard.
Visiting her, though … That's the toughest shit. Seeing her like this hits me in the chest every fucking time, grabbing my insides and twisting.
Mom, I think, though I've never said it to her.
Because it isn't true, anyway, and it doesn't matter. It shouldn't.
She's seated in her chair, the TV playing on mute, her gray hair coming loose from its tie at the back of her neck. She's dozing, and I stare at her, my throat closing up.
I could go. Come back another day. Put off this conversation, that it's the same every time. Same questions, same answers, same ache in my chest.
A floorboard creaks under my foot, and her eyes open.
Too late. Fucking shit, it's always too fucking late.
She stares at me, and I know she doesn't recognize me. I'm always a stranger to her, every time.
"Hi," I say, stepping closer, trying to smile. "It's me, your favorite man, Rett. How are you today?"
She shoots me a suspicious look. "The food here is terrible. They're trying to poison me."
"No, they're not." I sit down across from her, reach for her hand, but she draws it away. "Besides, you've got cake." I nod at a small cake on a plastic tray beside her, on a coffee table. "A friend of yours brings those, right?"
She shakes her head a little, as if not understanding my words.
My chest tightens. "How are you?"
"Fine. Who are you?"
"Rett." I swallow hard, smile wider. "Your awesome secret admirer. Don't you remember?"
She snorts a little. "You young men, these days … "
Every time I make her laugh, I give myself bonus points. It warms up something inside me. Makes me think my visits are worth it.
Then she glances up at the TV, and her gaze goes distant again. "I don't like this show."
I grab the remote. "Let's change it then. What do you want to watch?"
"Nothing." She turns to look at the door. "Where is my son? Is he here with you?"
"He couldn't make it today," I lie.
I lie to her every time, and every time she asks about him.
Sebastian, her real son.
It's normal, I tell myself sometimes, when I'm feeling sorry for myself and need a lie to believe in. Her short-term memory is gone. She probably doesn't even remember meeting me, let alone taking me in. Having me in her house. Those memories are gone.
In her mind, there's only Sebastian. As it should be. Right?
Damn right. That's why I try to keep him safe. Keep him alive. For her. As for me, I'd never have made a good son anyway.
Funny how it still hurts, like a bullet lodged under my ribs, sinking deeper with each breath. Funny how I like that pain and I hope it never goes away. It carries in it all my memories of her, the ones she has forgotten, and I need them. Memories are all that's left in the end, all you have-and the good ones are too few to let them fade.
Her hand on my forehead when I was sick one time.
Her frustration with me when she caught me smoking, time and again.
Her smile when I hugged her back the second Christmas I spent with her family. Her, Mr. Lowe and fucking Sebastian. When I felt I'd maybe found a home, at last.
If only she could remember it, too.
Chapter Fifteen
Gigi
"Gigi. Wake up." An elbow nudges my ribs. "Wake up!"
"I wasn't asleep," I mutter irritably, my pen dropping from my fingers to the floor. I glower at the girl sitting next to me, then up at our boring linguistics lecturer. I feel that it'd be perfectly justifiable if I fell asleep. "Just thinking."
"Ah-huh," she says, and chews on the cap of her pen.
I was thinking. I swear. My brain won't stop spinning my thoughts into threads and webs of doubt and confusion.
It's Jarett's fault.
Something isn't adding up. That night with him last week … God, the memory of it has haunted me every single day and night since. So hot, the way he pressed me down, gripped my hair, fucked my mouth. Who knew I liked that so much? And later his mouth on mine, then between my legs …
I squirm on the seat, all hot and bothered all over again.
The girl beside me, whose name escapes me, shoots me a murderous look. I probably make her look bad with my behavior.
Screw her.
Jarett. His thick cock in my mouth, his groans of pleasure in my ears, his masculine scent all around me. That night he owned me. Broke me. Marked me.
I keep thinking about it, and about all the other times I met him. I have to talk to him, but if I do, I'll be hooked again.
And I can't figure him out.
He saved my friend, and not for the first time. He didn't even ask me to pleasure him, until I followed him home.
He asked for payment, fucked my mouth.
Then asked me if I'm okay.
He went down on me, made me come like nobody ever has before.
And gave me his phone number.
I have it. I copied it carefully from the palm of my hand into my phone, my fingers shaking as I entered his name, and then I felt like a fool for not scrubbing it, erasing it and forgetting all about it in the first place.
Now I'm sitting in the classroom, my instincts warring, and stare at my phone that's resting so innocently on the desk. Pretending it doesn't contain a link to him.
It'd be so easy to text him. Ask him how his day is going. If the wound on his back is healing fine. If he's also thinking about the time we spent together. About me, like I'm thinking about him.
Oh boy. This is bad. So bad. Why am I even considering texting him? He admitted he's in a gang, and he obviously invited me to his apartment so I could suck him off.
But then why ask me if I'm okay, why look concerned, why all that confusing stuff? Is he trying to drive me crazy?
Crazier.
Gathering my stuff, I shove everything into my backpack and get up. I can't take this anymore. I need to move and clear my mind.
"Miss Watson," the lecturer snaps. "The class isn't over. Where are you going? I'll mark an absence if you leave now."
"Something came up," I mutter, and make my escape. I hurry down the hallways of the college, squeezing between groups of students talking. I need fresh air.
What's this feeling, this indecision, this inability to get him out of my mind? After the way he behaved, after the way I behaved … any sane person would have just walked away.
But I can't.
He's a bad boy, and bad boys don't turn good through the power of love. I'm not so stupid as to believe in such fairytales.
Any fairytales.
I've seen what bad boys do, back in Destiny. Bullies. Arrogant dicks. Violent drunkards. Selfish boys who enjoy causing pain.
No way am I doing this. I know better. I've learned things.
And yet I feel so lost. I need to talk to someone, but my go-to confidante is Sydney, and she's the last person I want to see right now. I mean, I called and texted a thousand times since last week, asking if she's okay, and she only replied with the shortest of texts to say she's fine.
Well, screw her.
I stand, indecisive, in the hallway, streams of students flowing around me. Who can I talk to? Not my mom. Or Merc.
God, no.
I need to talk to my sister.
"Sure, you can come over," Octavia says on the phone. "Is everything okay?"
"Oh yeah. Absolutely. Fantastic." I cross the street quickly, heading to the bus stop.
"Gigi. You're not very convincing, you know. You're worrying me."
"No. God, no. I'm fine." Shit. I managed to scare my very pregnant sister. Way to go. "Everything's just fine, I promise. I only want to see you and ask you about something."
"You pinky-swear you're okay?"
"Yes, yes. Please, Tati, don't worry, okay? I'll catch the bus and be there soon." I fish in my purse for my bus card. "See you in a bit."
If she goes into early labor because I stressed her out, I'll never be able to live with myself. Maybe going to Octavia for help was a stupid idea.
But who else could I talk to?
I chew on this as the bus arrives, and I climb inside, shivering in my thin red jacket. Finding a seat at the back, I unwind my earbuds from around my phone and plug my ears, shutting out the buzz of the other commuters.
I hit play and lean back as the first notes of "You Don't Own Me," the remake by Grace with G-Eazy, rock me. Humming, I press my forehead against the cold glass of the window, staring out at the streets and houses and people rolling by.
Octavia understands me. She didn't fall in love with a bad boy but with an honest-to-god wild man. Instead of listening to all of us and ditching him when he behaved badly, when he was confusing her with mixed signals, she held on to him, and married him a year later. Now she's about to have his baby.