5. Reid
CHAPTER FIVE
reid
PRESENT DAY
*3 unread messages from unknown number*
*2 unread messages from Kacey*
T he text message notifications on my phone mocked me as I stared at them.
I knew they were going to be about my mother without even having to look at them. Over the last few years, the texts had been constant. And always the same thing. Why haven’t you come home? Why are you avoiding your family?
Every time she sent a text like that, one of my younger siblings would text me afterwards, saying they were fine and Eileen was being dramatic. Funny of her to pull the guilt card when she never made an effort to be there for us when we were younger.
We had to grow up fast.
Too fast.
I did my best to protect the twins—Cooper and Kacey—and Ryker from her, but I wasn’t always able to. Eileen was working on her sobriety now, according to my siblings, but I couldn’t help but hold some resentment for the way I was raised. I was practically a parent from the age of twelve, and when I graduated high school and left them to go to college, the guilt almost ate me from the inside out. That wasn’t something you could just forget.
Now Coop was in the military, and Kacey graduated from college last year but moved back to our small town immediately after graduating. Ryker just finished his sophomore year of college, so he was home right now too. I was surprised when they told me they were going back, but I respected their decisions.
I opened the texts from Kacey and they were exactly what I was expecting.
Kacey
I know Mom texted you.
I don’t know what she said, but whatever it is, don’t let it get to you. We’re fine, Reid. I swear.
What Kacey didn’t know was I hardly ever opened the texts from Eileen anymore. Maybe one day we’d have a relationship, but right now, I couldn’t.
My father was still barely home—not that he could have helped it when we were younger—but now it was almost as though he continued traveling for work to avoid being home and having to deal with his wife. It wasn’t like he needed to work now. My career in the PRCA was more than enough to provide for them.
Looking back, my father was almost as bad as my mother was. I didn’t blame him, though. He was doing what he could to keep food on the table for us while not being home, sending checks in the mail. The problem was, we hardly ever saw that money because of my mother’s addiction .
I tried typing out a message to Kacey but deleted it halfway through. I’d address it later. I deleted the texts from the unknown number without reading them.
The first few times my mother had sent those types of texts was when I was in college. I had just started my freshman year in Goldfinch.
My phone buzzed once, twice, three times in my pocket.
“You’re sure popular today, Lawsy.” One of the older guys on the rodeo team gave me a hard time.
I smiled at him and looked at my phone.
Eileen
Are you coming home this weekend?
Hello?
Don’t ignore me, son.
I can’t, I’m sorry. I have a team thing
Eileen
You never make time for your family anymore, Reid. Don’t you care about how we’re doing?
I do, I just have other things now too
The message never delivered and I assumed the worst, so I told Coach I had an emergency and drove home that weekend to find everything was fine.
I let her fool me a few more times before I finally decided enough was enough. It killed me not to come back and see the twins and Ryker, but it was clear she wasn’t going to accept any help and I needed to take care of myself.
After that, I made myself promise that even if I couldn’t take care of my mother—a hard lesson to learn— I could still do whatever it took to help everyone else I loved.
I was more than willing to sacrifice my own happiness if it meant the people I loved wouldn’t feel the pain I experienced as a twelve-year-old kid raising his younger siblings because his mother didn’t give enough of a shit to get sober.
That’s why when Colter started drinking more and more after his breakup with Sophie, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t watch another person I loved fall into those habits.
I just couldn’t.
My hands must have had a mind of their own, because instead of tossing my phone aside like I usually did, my fingers drifted to my recent phone calls, hovering over the familiar contact name. I hesitated for a beat but then pressed her name and turned my phone on speaker. I just wanted to hear her voice.
“Hello? Reid?” Isa answered on the second ring.
“Hey, sorry, I—” I wanted to say I called on accident, hang up, and go about my day, but I didn’t. “How’s everything going?”
“Great! We’re finally back on track with the wedding planning things, thankfully. I was starting to worry we wouldn’t finish everything and Ellison would have to go back home and do it all by herself. Because God knows she won’t let Colter help.” Her laugh on the other end of the line calmed me, although it did nothing to slow my racing heart.
If anything, it made it beat even faster.
“That’s good to hear.” Man, have I always been this bad at talking to Isa?
Stop acting like an idiot with a crush. She’s your friend .
Isa knew a little bit about my family, though I hadn’t divulged everything to her. We’d talked about them a couple times over the past year, but it was still weird for me, so I never gave up too much information. Most of the time, I was the person who my friends came to with their problems, not the other way around. I was always lending a listening ear. Colter had jokingly called me his therapist several times before I told him to knock it off.
“Did something happen?” She seemed to always know when something was off. It was a skill we both had, but I hadn’t expected her to use it on me.
I sighed into the phone. “My mother texted me again.”
The other end of the line was silent. But before I could ask if she was still there, she asked, “Have you ever considered hearing what she has to say?”
I tensed my jaw, taking a long, deep breath. “No.” The truth was, I didn’t know if Eileen really deserved it. It was always the same thing every time.
“I know it’s not what you want to hear, but maybe you should?” Her suggestion sounded more like a question.
“You’re right.” I huffed, almost regretting telling her about my mother’s illness. “It’s not what I want to hear.”
I could imagine what she looked like. She was probably biting her lip, one arm crossed over her body resting on her waist as she thought about how to respond. I’d seen it before when she was nervous and didn’t know what to say.
“What if she’s getting sober?”
The thought had crossed my mind. But it always ended in the same reality: Eileen Lawson couldn’t get sober. Kacey and Ryker had been trying to get her into a program for the last three years. And even if she went, she always relapsed. She never lasted more than two weeks sober.
“I just don’t believe that, Isa.” It pained me to say it, but my mother wasn’t like Colter. She didn’t want to get better. It felt like we had done everything we possibly could to help her, but she wouldn’t accept it. I spent the better half of my childhood trying to get her to stop drinking. To talk some sense into her, make her see that we— I was struggling.
A sigh I probably wasn’t supposed to hear came from Isa. “I can’t pretend to understand what you’ve been through. Or what your siblings are still going through. I just want you to know you can talk to me about it. I’m not judging you or your mom.”
“I know.” I should have been happy she was there for me, was someone I could talk to. But I wasn’t, not really.
I could handle Eileen on my own; I didn’t need someone to help me with that. I’d been taking care of myself for the past fifteen years. I didn’t need anyone to take care of me when I was twelve, and I didn’t need anyone to take care of me now. Besides, knowing the full scope of my problems would only bring Isa down with me.
I didn’t need to be the one to dim her light.