Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
JESSICA
When I crash through the door, the others are already here.
Summer sits by Mom’s side, cradling her fragile hand, silent tears sliding down her cheeks.
She barely looks up as I hurry to Mom’s bedside.
Behind me, Chris leans against the wall, hugging his midriff, eyes downcast, as if he can’t look at Mom or it’ll become real.
“Mom?” My voice cracks. “I’m here now. We’re all here.”
She’s unconscious, but I keep talking as if she can hear me. I have to, or I’ll break down in tears. Mom was always the glue that held our family together. Without her, we’re barely keeping it together.
One look around the room confirms it.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask, surprised by the shot of anger that heats the hollow ache inside me.
The old man is always gone these days, drowning his sorrows at some rundown bar.
But this time is different. Mom might not make it, and this could be his last chance to say goodbye. So why the hell isn’t he here?
Chris keeps his head down, his eyes obscured by blonde locks, staring at the floor like he’s trying to drill a hole to the earth’s core.
“We don’t know,” Summer says quietly, more tears wobbling on her lower lashes. “He hasn’t been home for days.”
The heartbeat monitor continues its steady beat, though much slower than usual, the gap between each beep stretching too long.
I’m exhausted. The bubble I shared with Kane has burst, and now I’m bone tired and upset with myself for not being here sooner.
“You would know that if you’d been home,” my brother says with a bite in his tone. “But you were with him, weren’t you?”
“Chris,” Summer snaps, surprising me with her sharp voice. It’s not like her to stand up to our brother, or anyone. “Can we not argue for once? Mom might not regain consciousness again.” Summer wipes her cheeks, her bottom lip trembling.
Guilt slams into me like a wrecking ball, not because of where I’ve been or what I’ve done. It’s because of this… The hurt in my sister’s eyes.
When I’m busy distracting myself with Kane and running from trouble, who’s there for her? Next to Mom, I’ve always been her shelter in the storm, but I’m barely staying upright these days. One more gust of wind, and I’ll collapse.
“I don’t want to lose her,” she says, her voice barely audible above the heart rate monitor.
“Hey.” I carefully place Mom’s pale hand back down. It’s cold, with a yellow tint and protruding veins, the nails brittle and dry.
I hold my palm out to Summer, and she meets me halfway, interlacing her fingers with mine. I duck my head slightly to catch her gaze. “She’ll always be with us.”
Glassy tears well in her eyes before spilling over. She doesn’t bother to wipe them away this time, her gaze steady on mine, despite the tremble in her chin.
“She’ll never leave.” I brush my thumb over the top of her hand, back and forth, trying to soothe her as best I can, trying to soothe us both. “She’ll live on. In each of us.”
Behind me, Chris snorts because he’s an ass who takes his pain out on everyone else.
I briefly shut my eyes so I don’t say something I might regret.
It’s not the time to argue, not when we could lose our mom any minute.
The last thing she’d want is for us to argue at her deathbed, so I bite back my retort.
“What are we gonna do?” Summer’s voice trembles through the silence. I wish we could turn back time, forget all this, and go back to blanket forts and marshmallows. Lighter days and cherished memories.
Everything was easier back then.
“I don’t know,” I reply, squeezing her hand.
Honesty is always the best approach. The truth is, I don’t know what we’re going to do or how we’re going to survive, but we will.
We’ll make ends meet somehow. We always do.
Speaking of money, we’re behind on the bills, and ignoring them won’t make them go away.
Standing up, I wipe my cheeks as I pass Chris, wondering if he’s even looked at Mom yet or if he’s been staring at the ground this whole time.
Nurse Madsen lifts her gaze from her paperwork when I rest my elbows on the counter and thread my fingers through my hair. I must look like a wreck. I certainly feel like one.
“Look, I know we haven’t paid, again.”
It’s a struggle to meet her gaze. I feel too bruised for this conversation.
“And you know how grateful I am for everything you’ve done.”
“Jessica,” she says softly, but I shake my head before she can interrupt me.
“I need to say this. Let me get this off my chest… You could have canceled Mom’s care when we failed to pay the first time, but you didn’t. You risked your job for us, and I owe you—”
She sets her files down. “You don’t owe me anything. This is Falls. We look out for our own.”
A lump wedges in my throat, and I finally look at her through blurry tears.
“Besides…” She lowers her voice. “Your mom is a good woman. I’ll be damned if I’ll let her die in pain.”
What do I even say to that? She’s gone above and beyond to keep Mom here for as long as possible. Chris has paid what he can from his wages, but it’s not enough.
Never is. And now it’s become clear he’s found cash through other, riskier means. I kind of knew he had, if I’m honest, but I didn’t want to see it.
The signs were there all along. How else could we afford to stay in college? How else could we cover household bills without getting kicked out onto the street? How else could we afford to eat and keep Mom in hospice for as long as we have? It wasn’t through the meager wage we had coming in.
Madsen steps out from behind the counter and pulls me in for a rare hug. The faint smell of antiseptic lingers on her uniform, but I welcome it. God, I’ve been strong for everyone else for so long. I can’t do it anymore. The world is too heavy, and I’m exhausted.
Tears stream down my cheeks as she cups my face with a soft, motherly expression that only makes me cry harder. “You don’t owe anyone anything.”
I wipe my eyes, breaking our connection. “But the bills… Her medical treatment—”
“It’s all paid for,” she says, gazing at me in that patient way of hers. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
It takes a moment for her words to register. I pause mid-nose wipe, frowning, as she heads back behind the counter to answer a phone call.
Mom’s bill has been paid for? How is that possible? What has Chris done now? What kind of trouble has he gotten himself into?
By the time Madsen puts the receiver down, I’m teetering on a full-blown panic, but she’s none the wiser, putting her glasses back on to sign for a parcel the delivery man hands her.
The moment he leaves, I turn back to Madsen, my hands on the counter, an expression that gives her pause. “Chris settled the bill? When?”
She sets the parcel down and slides her glasses off her nose. “It wasn’t your brother who settled the bill.”
I gesture wildly, as if to say “who?!”
This is bad. We’re talking a lot of money. Cash we don’t have. The only way to pay it off fast is through debt. The only people around here who can help are dangerous individuals involved in shit no one wants to touch. Once you’re in, that’s it. You’re indebted for life.
“If it weren’t Chris… Who?”
“Mr. Ravencourt.”
“Kane?” I parrot, dumbstruck.
“That boyfriend of yours.” She reaches for the stack of folders and flips through them while I stand there like an idiot.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I hear myself say, but my thoughts are elsewhere as I try to make sense of this new information. Why would Kane pay for my Mom’s medical treatment? That makes no sense.
“No?” she asks, mildly curious yet also distracted by the note she peruses. “Does he know that?”
“What?”
There’s only one word to describe this emotion.
Confusion.
None of this makes sense.
Madsen looks up from her notes. “He’s in love with you.”
I open and shut my mouth like a fish out of water while she continues flicking through notes and typing on her computer, but no words come out. Honestly, I don’t know what to say. My brain has short-circuited.
“That was a lot of money,” I say after a while, more to myself.
“I rest my case. The boy cares about you.”
I snap my gaze to her. The computer screen reflects off her glasses, which she put back on earlier while my brain was slow to catch up.
“It’s pocket money to him.”
I feel like I need to point that out.
“Maybe,” she murmurs, “but he didn’t have to come in here to take care of your family’s debt.”
When I frown, she removes her glasses again with a sigh and gives me her full attention. “He paid it all off.”
All of it? No. Why?
“W-when?” I ask instead.
“Oh, weeks ago now.”
“Weeks ago??” I sputter.
How do I process this? I don’t even know how to feel about it. He paid my mom’s bills. When? And why? Because he cares? No, he doesn’t. It’s his ego, right? It feels good to flex. But if that were the case, he would have said something.
Right?
But he didn’t.
Meanwhile, I had no idea my mom had been cared for this whole time.
“You should hold onto him. “He’s a good egg,” she says, stealing me from my thoughts. I open my mouth to reply, but Chris barrels past, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. I run after him, intercepting him before he can leave. “Where are you going?”
Tension rolls off him. He looks over the top of my head, gazing out the window beyond the waiting area. There’s nothing there except a gloomy parking lot… nothing except poverty and lost dreams.
Chris’s throat bobs with a swallow, his roughened voice rasping low when he finally speaks. “I can’t do this. I can’t fucking watch her die.”