Chapter 32 Energy Vampire #2
“Who do you think the public is going to believe? A single mother with three different fathers who lives with her parents who threw her kids in the car to shake her sister and her boyfriend down or a guy who is loved in this community, and his family is well known for the people they employ, the businesses they grow, and the money they donate?”
“Just a few days,” Sandy said. “That’s it. Let us stay a few days.”
“No.”
“How about in a hotel with a pool so I can get some sun and the kids can swim? I’ve got a few hundred dollars on me to pay for food.”
She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms. “No. You’re getting one night so you can sleep before you hit the road. I’ll give you money for food tonight and gas and that is it. I don’t care whether or not you need it, but it’s all you’re getting.”
“I can’t believe you can be this cold to your own flesh and blood.”
“Cold?” she said, throwing her hands up.
“Do you know what cold is? Cold is telling your sister who is sick in the hospital and not sure if she’s going to die that no one would ever want her because of her illness.
Cold is saying that you don’t care that I should eat healthy because you want ice cream and chips and donuts and Mom is too damn tired to fight you and you get your way, leaving me to eat it too because nothing else was available, knowing I shouldn’t have it. ”
“You’re making a big deal about words,” Sandy said. “What you’re doing is actions.”
“Words have consequences,” she yelled. “You made my life hell. I left to get away from you. I don’t even want to be around you when I visit, but I bite my tongue and do it to see Mom and Dad. They know.”
“You never wanted to come home. Don’t give me that shit.”
“Where would I stay?” she asked. “You took my room for your kids. You talk about being on the streets. There you go. If I want to visit, it’s Grandma’s or a hotel.”
“You want everyone to feel sorry for you. If you had died one of those times you were in the hospital, life would be simpler. Then I wouldn’t have had to hear all the time that I should be more like you.”
She was going to vomit over those words.
Being selfish and mean was one thing.
Sandy was just cruel.
“I don’t know who tells you that, but it sure the hell isn’t me.”
“Mom,” Sandy snapped. “Ever since you learned how to cook and exercised, then went to college and graduated, Mom has been throwing it in my face that it’s not too late to change.
It’s all about how well your life turned out and now I have to hear it all the time.
You’ll never be as good as Saylor. Do you know what it’s like to hear that? ”
It was news to her. “It’s the first I’m hearing it and it’s not my problem. I’m not changing my stance. This is it. End of the road. Call me all the names you want, but I’m done. Nothing you can say or do to me is going to hurt.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Sandy said, stomping her foot. Her voice was rising. She could see the screaming fit coming on soon that would sound like someone was being murdered in the house.
That was all she needed the neighbors to hear.
Her phone vibrated at the same time another was ringing.
Sandy pulled hers out of her back pocket and silenced it. Saylor picked hers up and saw her grandmother calling and answered.
“Is it bad?” her grandmother asked.
“Like a cyclone ready to hit.”
“Your father is here. Your sister just sent him to voicemail. He said tell her to answer it now. Then take cover.”
“What?”
“Do as I said,” her grandmother said.
Sandy’s phone rang again. “Dad is trying to call you. You need to answer it.”
Sandy rolled her eyes. “What, Dad?” her sister snapped into the phone.
Her grandmother put the phone on speaker and she could hear her father talking to her sister from that end, then Sandy’s response in front of her.
“If you aren’t home by tomorrow, I will pack all your possessions and leave them on the front porch. You’re on your own.”
“What!” Sandy screamed. “You can’t throw me out.”
“I can and I will,” her father said. “I’ve had enough. Grow the fuck up. Get your ass home.”
Her sister crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I can’t believe you’d let your grandchildren be on the street.”
“Oh, they won’t be homeless,” her father said. “But you will be. Don’t test me.”
Her father hung up after that and she heard her grandmother tell her father, “It was the right thing to do.”
“I should have done it sooner,” her father said. “Let me talk to Saylor.”
“Hi, Dad,” she said. Sandy whipped her head toward Saylor. The tears were falling out of her sister’s eyes, but she didn’t care. She’d seen those fake tears enough in her life.
“I’m sorry, Saylor. Sorry for so much, but really sorry this happened.”
“So am I. It needed to be done. I had a lot of things to say to her I never did before.”
“Good for you. We’ll keep Sandy away from you, but your mother and I would like to meet your boyfriend sometime.”
“She’ll stay away because nothing she says or does will ever hurt me again.
I appreciate the support, but I made my stance clear and I mean it.
I’d like you to meet Rowan too,” she said.
She moved over to the glass doors and saw the kids laughing at Logan’s antics, Rowan bouncing up and down with Dutton in his hands and the baby throwing his arms up to do it again.
“He’s a great guy.” She hung up with her father and turned toward Sandy.
“Where am I supposed to go now that you got everyone to turn against me?” Sandy snarled.
“You did everything to yourself like you always have,” she said quietly.
She didn’t want to feel guilty over this, but Sandy was family.
Aileen was wrong, there was no love for her sister and she didn’t know if she could ever find it after this.
“Rowan already secured the hotel. I’m texting you the information now. ”
“It better be a nice one with a pool.”
The tip of her tongue came out to say something, then she pursed her lips, shook her head and pulled cash out of her pocket.
Not letting her sister hurt her anymore also meant not engaging or being baited.
“Five hundred dollars. More than you need for the night here and gas home. Consider it the last you’ll get.” She opened the glass doors and called down to Rowan and waved him up. She couldn’t look at her sister again. Maybe there’d be a time, but that time wasn’t now.
Her sister took the money and stuffed it in her pocket.
“You’ve always been a bitch that had to get her way.”
It wasn’t worth responding to that. The only time Saylor got her way was when she paved it herself.
Rowan came in with the kids, she showed them the bathroom, gave them hugs, then watched as they pulled away ten minutes later. Logan followed to make sure they showed up at the hotel.
“How are you feeling about everything?”
“Drained,” she said. Her body felt more wrecked than it had when she’d had that low blood sugar surfing.
“Can I ask what happened? I didn’t expect her to leave like that. I thought for sure I’d be carrying her out of here kicking and screaming.”
She laughed. “You might have been if my grandmother hadn’t told my parents what was going on.
I think I finally got through to her she’d crossed the line.
But it was nice to have support. My father called and told her that if she wasn’t home by tomorrow, he would pack her possessions and leave them on the porch. ”
“They were going to kick her and the kids out?”
“Not the kids. Just her.”
“Wow,” he said. “Do you think he actually would?”
“Yes,” she said. “Because, looking back, my father has been hands off most of our lives, but when he had to step in and put his foot down, everyone fell in line. He meant business and Sandy knows it.”
Rowan pulled her into his arms. “I’m glad they stood behind you this time.”
“Me too. I never expected it, but it’s a nice feeling.”
“I’ll always have your back, Saylor. I hope you know that.”
She laughed. “I do. I knew it when you got me my supplies at the airport. And when you filled this house with treatments for me. When you carried me out of the water when I stumbled. Then when you heard what I said weeks ago about not shying away from controversy and called me today. Like I told Sandy, words have consequences, but actions say more.”
He kissed her forehead. “And you’ve put me in my place to not back down. Life is messy and has to be dealt with. I can’t put my head in the sand anymore, even though there is plenty of it surrounding me.”
“Look at the two of us growing. I always wanted to run and this time I planted my feet and it feels so good.”
He picked her up in his arms. “But you said you were drained. I need to be the hero and carry you to bed.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’ve been my hero since the first day I met you. Can I confess something to you?”
“Please do,” he said, moving to the couch and sitting her on his lap rather than bringing her upstairs. She didn’t think he really would.
“I knew I was in love with you the minute you talked about Damon and how you understood what I was going through, but I was terrified of letting myself go.”
“Because you were afraid of being hurt. You’ve been hurt so much in life. Never worry about that with me.”
“You’ll hurt me, Rowan, because people in love do that without meaning to. But I’m not worried because I know you’ll make it better.”
“We’ll make it better together because we’re a communicating team!”
“Now you’re being silly,” she said.
“And you like me that way.”
“I love you that way!”