Chapter 38 Sloane
Sloane
Now
Day one without Dom started with me watching the sunrise through swollen, puffy eyes I hadn’t closed for more than a minute all night.
I dragged myself out of bed at five in the morning and sat in the bathtub for long hours, soaking in all of my regrets and wishing I gave Dom a real chance to explain before I asked him to leave.
I was overwhelmed by what little information he gave me, but all the questions I was too scared to hear the answers to in the moment kept me up last night. I stared at the ceiling and tried to picture the details of the night he remembers so vividly that have evaded me for years.
Me walking into a party and seeing him. A tall, impossibly handsome stranger with smooth bronze skin and trouble in his eyes.
I wondered if the connection was immediate.
If I was drawn to him the second his midnight stare locked on me, and whether I gave in to the urge to be close to him as soon as I felt it.
And then I obsessed over all the different ways we could have ended up here.
But no matter how many times I turned it over in my head—the list, the party, the note Dom says he left that I never saw—I just couldn’t put it all together.
Once I realized I wouldn’t be able to do so without the help of the one person who would probably rather lick an un-sanded piece of plywood than talk to me, I gave up trying and decided to distract myself with work.
I’ve been sitting at the island choosing materials and adjusting project budgets for over three hours when my phone starts vibrating.
I grab for it instantly, hoping stupidly that it’s Dom, and see my dad’s name flashing on the screen.
I consider not answering, but I haven’t talked to him all week, so I paste a smile on my face and accept the call.
“Hey, Daddy.”
“Bean!” he bellows. “I’m so glad I caught you. How would you like to join us for brunch at the club? Your mother says you usually have plans with Mal and Annette, but I wanted to extend the invitation anyway. We haven’t shared a meal since…”
Since your wife told me I needed to get over the death of my husband and find a rich man to marry.
“Thanks for the invite, Daddy. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it though. I’ve got to—”
Mom.
Suddenly, the memory of my mother’s visit the morning after the party hits me. She was in the room when I woke up because my roommate let her in, and I have no idea how long she was there before the weight of her disapproving stare woke me up.
It’s wholly possible she could have seen Dom’s note and gotten rid of it before I ever laid eyes on it.
That would certainly explain the way she acted after the legacy pledge breakfast: the speech about me having loose morals, the implication that I was boy-crazy and more concerned with partying than getting an education.
My mother has never been a nice woman, but that day she was especially cruel. And I guess now it makes sense. She saw me acting out in all the ways that went against her code of perfection and wasted no time nipping it in the bud.
Isolating me in a single room on the opposite side of campus from my friends. Threatening to tell my father about finding me hungover after my first night of freedom. Stealing my only chance at remembering Dom and changing the course of my life forever. But would she do something like that?
There’s only one way to find out.
“Actually, I think I will take you up on that offer. What time should I meet you guys there?”
Dad rattles off the details, and as soon as we’re off the phone, I race upstairs to get dressed. My stomach is in knots as I pull on my clothes and force my curls into submission. Just the thought of speaking to my mother about that day makes me want to throw up, but I know I have to do this.
For me and Dom.
For the future I dreamed of having with him just days ago.
For the one that was stolen from us, but that ultimately gave me Eric.
***
“Are you expecting a phone call from someone special?”
My mother’s eyebrows dance whimsically as she says the last two words, but her smile is still stiff and cold around the edges, reminding me of the ugly curl of her lips on that day.
We’ve just finished eating and are sipping mimosas by the bar while my father chats with some colleagues across the room.
The moment he left us alone, I started feeling anxious and pulled out my phone just to have someplace to redirect my energy while I figured out how to broach the topic.
I turn my phone over in my lap and hold in the laugh that’s building in my chest. The irony of her using our first moment alone in weeks to meddle in my personal life is almost too much.
She still hasn’t apologized for the hurtful things she said at that dinner, and now I’m about to ask her to own up to yet another horrible thing she’s done to me.
“No. Just waiting on some important news for one of my projects.”
She frowns at my mention of work on a Saturday. “You work too much, Sloane. When do you make time to live your life?”
I set my glass on the bar. “I love my job, Mom. I work hard because I’m good at it, but in no way does it stop me from living my life.” Certainly didn’t stop me from making a mess of it.
Her lips are pressed into a tight line. And I can’t help but wonder if she’s physically restraining herself from making some smart remark about me being good at making a rich man happy if I put my mind to it.
“Darling, you haven’t been in a serious relationship since your marriage ended, and I don’t need to remind you how hard dating is after a woman turns thirty.”
My mouth falls open. “My marriage didn’t end, Mom. My husband died. There’s a huge difference.”
She waves a dismissive hand at me as she takes another sip of her drink. “You know what I meant, Sloane. Honestly, do you always have to make me out to be some kind of monster who doesn’t appreciate what you’ve been through?”
“You don’t appreciate what I’ve been through. You constantly minimize my grief, just like you minimized my marriage because you never liked Eric. Once you realized he didn’t come with a trust fund or private-school education, you wrote him off.”
I’m shaking and my voice is shrill, but thankfully low, as I hurl the words at her. All of the things I’ve thought but never said because I didn’t think her view of the world could ever impact my relationships in any real way. But today I know that’s not true, and I’m pissed at her for all of it.
Not because I regret Eric—I could never do that—but because it had to have torn Dom apart to watch us together, to love me, and let someone else have me. I spent twenty-four hours thinking he loved someone else, but he lived that reality for twelve years. And it must have been hell for him.
A hell my mother crafted with her own selfish hands.
One of those hands wrap around my forearm as she leans toward me. “Lower your voice.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I snatch my arm away from her. “The last thing I want to do is embarrass you by making a scene in public.”
“You’re an adult, Sloane. The only person you’ll be embarrassing is yourself.”
“I don’t give a damn what these people think of me, but you do. And you’ve always cared more about perception than anything else.”
Annoyance flashes in her eyes as she looks around the room to make sure no one is watching us argue. “Do you have a specific grievance you want to air out with me, or are you just ruining brunch for no good reason?”
“Actually, I do have an issue I want to talk to you about.” I cross my legs and angle my body toward her. “The day after I moved onto campus for freshman year, you came to visit me. Do you remember?”
“Finding you in your bed drooling and hungover from a night of underage drinking? Yes, I remember it.”
“Do you also remember taking a note from my desk and never mentioning it to me?”
Her brows lift, and she takes a short sip of her drink before she answers. “That was so long ago, Sloane. I can’t recall every single detail of the day.”
“Either you remember the day or you don’t.”
“Fine. I might have seen a note on your desk with the name and number of a young man scribbled on it asking you to call him in the morning.”
I chew the inside of my cheek to keep myself from exploding on her. I can’t believe it’s true. “What did you do with it?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue, Sloane. It was twelve years ago.”
“Mom.”
Another flash of annoyance, this one born solely from being pushed to tell the truth for once in her miserable life.
She picks an invisible bit of lint off of her dress.
“I put it in the trash where it belonged. Any man you met while you were dressed like a slut and behaving like some around-the-way girl wasn’t worthy of being associated with the Carson name. ”
My heart pounds, and I struggle for a response as I absorb this new layer of truth. “Why are you making it sound like you did me some kind of favor? You went through my things and made a choice for me based on what you wanted, not what I needed!”
“What you needed, little girl, was someone to save you from yourself. You think you know everything, Sloane, and you always have, but I know more about this world than you ever will. Maybe if you’d let me make more choices for you, you wouldn’t be a thirty-year-old widow who works on Saturdays.”
Several seconds tick by as I stare at her, wondering, not for the first time, what I ever did to make her hate me so much. Mothers are supposed to be kind, loving, and supportive of their children, but mine has only ever been this.
Throughout my entire life, she’s taken a sick pleasure in hurting me, in reminding me nothing I did was good enough for her, and I’ve always laid down and taken it. Allowing her to mistreat me because of a biological connection she’s never valued or protected.
And I’m over all of it.
“I’m done, Mom.” I grab my purse and slide out of my seat. “With this toxic relationship, your snide little comments about my marriage and my choices, all of it. And I’m done with you.”
“Another dramatic exit.” She scoffs. “You’re not going to guilt me into apologizing by storming out of here, Sloane. I stand by all the things I’ve said and done. One day when you’re a mother, and you find yourself making the same choices as me, you’ll understand.”
The last sentence sends me over the edge, and I’m in her face in the space of a heartbeat. My teeth are clenched, and I feel like a wild animal as I sneer at her.
“You are not a mother. You’re a self-centered narcissist who cares more about status and perception than you’ve ever cared about me. I don’t expect you to apologize, because I know you wouldn’t mean it. And for the record, if I ever have a child, I’ll never be the kind of mother you were to me.”
For the first time in my life, I believe it. And my heart aches for the version of myself that doubted it for so long. For what that doubt cost me and Eric.
“Lauren! Sloane!” a voice says from somewhere over my shoulder, and I turn around to see my mother’s friend Ella Hamilton sauntering over to us. “How nice to see you two together!”
My mother’s smile is fraught with tension as she stands and embraces Ella. “Yes, we’re so glad Sloane could join us for brunch, but she was just leaving.”
“Oh, that’s unfortunate.” Ella gives me a fake smile. “I guess you won’t mind if I steal your mother away for a moment then?”
“Not at all.”
We all know stealing someone away for a moment is just code for saving them from an unpleasant conversation, but I don’t care, because I’ve said everything I need to say to my mother.
Our conversation has answered some vital questions for me about what happened the day after I met Dom.
Now I feel like I have an important piece of the puzzle, but I still don’t have all the facts.
And I know there’s only one way to get them.