Lake
LAKE
The phone has stopped ringing by the time Ryker gives up trying to become a wall between me and the rest of the world. I should be annoyed. The previous version of definitely would have been. Ryker’s version of finds the protective streak endearing and sweet. Hot, too, but it’s not the right moment to ponder that right now.
Plus, it’s getting bitterly cold outside, so unless I want to risk freezing my ass off, I better call Mom back. It would probably be smarter to wait until I get home or do it tomorrow, but there’s no guarantee she’d pick up then.
I lift the phone to my ear and wait. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take her long to answer my call.
“Honey!” Her voice is full of warmth. “It’s been too long.”
I haven’t seen my mother in a year, and our phone calls are hectic at best. She lives in Sydney with her husband, Glen, who finds me barely tolerable on a good day, so I’m not too motivated to visit.
“Hey, Mom.”
“I’m getting you a plane ticket for Christmas. I miss you! For January or February. It’s dreadful then in New York, but Sydney is lovely, so you can get out of the cold. Like a bird. You’ll fly south for the winter.” She lets out a trill of laughter. My mother has always had a very charming laugh. She’s always been the popular girl. Her whole life. Unlike some other people, she didn’t just peak in high school. No, she kept peaking and just effortlessly floats through life.
In a way I’m her biggest failure. Not that I’m taking any blame for what happened on my shoulders. I didn’t make anybody sleep with anybody.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the idea, but I have school.”
“Darling, but you’ve never been to Sydney, and you should really grab the opportunity.” To her credit, she sounds genuinely disappointed, which is nice. It’s nice that she cares. It’s nice that she misses me. I know Ryker has a less than favorable view of my mother—even though he does his best to hide it—but she does love me.
“Sorry. Maybe we can figure something out during the summer?”
She hums. “Well, we’ll see how things go.”
There’s something about the way she says it that makes me take notice. I wait for a bit to see if she’s going to elaborate, but I don’t have high hopes. Mom has always had a flair for the dramatic.
“How’s Glen?” I ask.
“Glen’s Glen,” she says in the most flippant tone possible.
Divorce.
I’m calling it now.
They lasted longer than I predicted.
“How… are you?” I venture after another second.
“I’m so glad you asked. I have the most exciting news.” The flippancy is replaced with so much brightness I get whiplash.
“Oh?” I pull the zipper of my jacket higher. My nose is freezing. I really should have waited until I was somewhere warmer to do this.
“I’m getting married!”
Uh. Called it? Five seconds ago, so I’m not sure it counts.
“To… Glen?”
“What?” Another trill of light laughter. “No. Honey, Glen is yesterday’s news. We’re getting a divorce. I haven’t been happy for a long time with him, and I finally realized I have to put myself first. It’s the only way to be happy.”
“Sure?” I say slowly. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“His name is Jason, and he is”—she lets out a happy sigh—“oh, honey, he’s perfect. So attentive and attuned to my needs. He puts me first at all times, and we’ve been having such a great time. He’s taken me out on his yacht. We’ve gone to Haiti and Japan and Sumatra on vacations, and now he’s making one more of my dreams come true.”
There’s another pause, and this time, I don’t bother to fill it.
“Well, Jason’s a producer, and…” She draws in an excited breath before she blurts, “I’ve been offered a part in his new movie!”
I’m actually speechless for a little bit.
“Wow,” I say, and sensing that I’m probably not being supportive enough, I add, “That’s cool.”
“I know. It’s an amazing opportunity. You know I’ve always wanted to act, and it’s such a blessing to finally get the chance. And it’s not even some sad little production. It’s an actual movie they’re going to release on Netflix. Isn’t it perfect?”
“So perfect,” I echo. “What’s the part? What’s the movie about?”
“I’m playing the lead character’s best friend. I know, I know. It’s not a lead part, but it’s still a prominent role. It’s the funniest story. They already had an actress hired, but call it feminine intuition, I just knew she wasn’t right for the part. Now, I debated for a long time whether I should say anything because it just wasn’t my place, and I’m no expert, but then I did because I knew Jason would value my opinion, and I’d already become so invested in the project, and guess what? Jason completely agreed with me. And then this is where it gets really crazy. He was trying to recast, and it wasn’t going well because it’s a challenging role. Maybe even more challenging than the actual lead, Jason says. Anyway, he was trying to recast and getting a bit frustrated already, so I was joking around one day and was all, ‘Darling, I’ll do it myself just to get you to smile again.’ I said it just for laughs, but then he looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Why don’t you?’ Now, at first I, of course, thought he was joking, but turns out he meant it. And now I’m in a movie. We start shooting in April.”
I have no idea what to say to all of that, so I finally settle on “Congrats?”
“Oh, honey. Do you realize this also means I’m coming back to the states? I’ll be in LA soon, and that’s just a short flight away. You can come to the set and see me work.”
This all sounds fishy as hell, but I don’t think it’s my place to voice those thoughts.
Instead, I go with “I’m happy for you.” I really mean it. I’m skeptical as hell about everything she just told me, but if my mother is known for anything, it’s landing on her feet.
“Thank you, hon,” she says warmly, and then she starts to laugh again. “To think I wanted to deck Scott in the face the first time he called me after all these years.”
I was about done with this call, and frankly, I didn’t even remember I wanted to ask her about Scott after everything she just laid on me.
I remember now, though.
“Scott called you?” I ask. “Out of the blue?”
“ I hardly had a reason to look him up, darling. You know that,” Mom says. “Not after how he ruined everything for the two of us.”
I’m not going to touch that statement with a ten-foot pole and a hazmat suit.
“The past is the past, though. We all make mistakes, and you have to be able to forgive yourself. Besides, without Scott I’d never have met Jason.”
“How come? Is he a friend of his?” I ask.
“More of an acquaintance. Scott was here for business, so he took me to this party, and Jason was there, too. We got to talking. The rest is history.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, I don’t even know. What’s it been? Two months or so? About that, yes.” She pauses and lets out a dreamy sigh. “The happiest two months of my life.”
“Yeah, wonderful,” I say distractedly. “You don’t know what it’s about? He just woke up one day and wanted to make amends?”
“Suppose so,” she says before she laughs again. “That or he’s under the impression that you’re a bit of a liability and doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers, even though I told him my is not a vindictive person at all, so I don’t know where he got that silly idea from.”
It’s one of those moments when I get a firsthand account about how my mother really doesn’t know me at all. I’m not vindictive? Please and what the fuck? I watch TV series that revolve around revenge as research.
I’m so busy being indignant about not being considered vindictive that it takes a moment for the first part of that sentence to register.
“A liability?” I repeat.
“I know. What a ridiculous thing to come up with. Don’t even?—”
“No,” I interrupt. “I mean a liability because of what?”
“Because of that whole gubernatorial race thing of his.”
I stare across the street at the darkened windows of the businesses that have closed for the night. “He’s running for governor?”
“Laying the groundwork, at least,” Mom says flippantly. “Says he wants to give back to society or something. In Connecticut, of all places.”
“He doesn’t even live in Connecticut.”
Mom makes some kind of impatient noise, like she’s getting bored of that topic. “He bought a house in Greenwich a while ago.”
She starts to talk about the mansion Scott owns, but I don’t pay attention anymore because I’ve just figured out where the dog lies buried, haven’t I?
It’s not that Scott is interested in getting to know me or having a relationship with his son. It’s that he plans to run for office and is doing damage control. Because I know he’s my biological father, and he doesn’t want me to… Well, I’m not entirely sure what exactly he imagines I’ll do, but the gist of it, I guess, is he doesn’t want me to show up somewhere and bring this whole thing up at an inopportune moment or in front of people who might be put off by this information.
‘I knocked up my brother’s fiancé and then told her to fuck off and never acknowledged the kid was mine’ doesn’t really scream trustworthy and reputable.
“Honey, do you?” My mom’s voice snaps me back to the present. The present where I’m clutching my phone so hard the edges are sawing into my palm.
“Do I what?”
“You’re not even listening,” she says with clear disapproval.
I automatically start to apologize, but the words get stuck somewhere in my throat. Stuck behind the numb betrayal that is spiraling through me.
What kind of a fucking sociopath treats other people like this? What kind of person sits on the other side of the table from his fucking son and lies that he wants to get to know him? Who does that?
“Darling, I have to go. Somebody’s at the door. We’ll talk soon, okay?” Mom says.
I don’t bother with a goodbye.
My head is spinning from what I’ve just learned.
Somehow, some-fucking-how, this knocks me off my feet.
I should never have met up with him.
I should never have listened to him.
I should never have trusted what he was saying.
I should never have allowed any of this to happen.
I know better.
The absolute shittiest, worst part of this?
I’m not angry.
God, I wish I was angry.
I wish I wanted to punch somebody.
I wish I wanted to light something on fire.
That would be easier. That’s how I’ve gotten through whatever life has thrown at me so far. But sometime over the course of my time with Ryker I’ve removed every one of my protective layers. All the cynicism and distrust and anger and bitterness I’ve surrounded myself with and used as my armor for years has somehow disappeared, so I’m not angry.
I’m punched in the throat.
And…
There’s this sense of worthlessness that creeps through me, inch by inch until I’m filled to the brim.
Not good enough.
Not good enough.
Not fucking good enough!
I nearly jump out of my skin when somebody stumbles into me from behind.
“Sorry, dude,” the guy says, and he and his friends keep walking, their laughter echoing through the night.
I draw in a deep breath of the cold night air and grit my teeth.
I’m not going to think about it.
Not right now.
Maybe not ever.
Probably never.
That sounds like a plan.
I’ll just pretend none of this ever happened. That rotten feeling will disappear after a while, and things will be good again. Because I’m good. We’re good. Ryker and me. We’re good.
Minus the part where I still feel like something’s stuck in my throat. Minus the swirling betrayal in my gut.
I glance toward the entrance of the bar.
Fuck me, I can’t go in there right now. I can’t go in there like this. Ryker will take one look at me and know something is wrong with me.
I don’t want that.
I don’t want him to worry about me.
I don’t want him to feel sorry for me.
I don’t want him to feel like he has to constantly fix me. Like I’m a liability for him. Somebody who’s always going to screw up with his insecurities and issues.
I don’t want to be like this.
I pull my phone out again and my thumb hovers over the display for a little while. To be an asshole or not to be an asshole. That is the question.
I mean, I don’t want to be an asshole either, but right now it’s a choice between this or going in there and once again letting Ryk see me at my worst and having him pick up the pieces again.
At what point will he just throw his hands up and say enough?
I clench my jaw.
Asshole it is. It’s not exactly a foreign territory for me anyway.
I type out a quick text to Ryk. I’m sorry, babe, but I got the worst headache out of nowhere. I’m heading home, but don’t cut your evening short for this. Hang out with Kian. I’ll see you at home.
And then I take off.
Like an asshole.