Page 115 of Dirty Like Dylan

“Do you know what happened to her?” she asked.

“Nothing happened. She sent a letter about three years later saying she was sorry for leaving, but no return address. No phone number. She had no family left and the friends we asked said they didn’t know where she was. My dad was pretty bitter. I wanted to pay someone to find her for a while, but he wouldn’t, and I couldn’t afford to on my own as a kid. And by the time I was an adult, I guess I’d grown bitter, too.”

“You didn’t look for her?”

“She didn’t look for me.”

Amber went silent. When I glanced at her, she was staring at me.

“Hey, it’s not like I’d be hard to find. I’m pretty hard to miss, right?” I indicated my bare upper body, all the tattoos.

“You don’t have to make jokes, Ashley,” she said, gently. “I get it. At least your dad comes around when he wants something, right?”

Wow. Nailed it.

The truth was, I’d always been pissed at my mom because she didn’t want anything from me—even my money. At least my dad pretended to give a shit. Made an effort at remembering I existed, when it served him.

How did this girl get me so damn well?

Maybe she was right. Maybe we were alike.

“Tell me about your parents,” I said, needing out of this line of conversation before I ended up saying too much sad, stupid shit.

Amber shrugged and sipped her beer. “Nothing much to tell.”

I stared at her for a long moment, waiting for more. But she just drank her beer and stared back at me.

I pulled my knees up, resting my forearms on them. I took a swig of my beer and considered how hard to push her on this.

“I seem to remember a conversation we had recently,” I told her. “Everything out in the open, right?”

She blinked at me. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

She licked her lips and looked off for a moment. Then she took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring a bit, and looked into my eyes. “Can I ask you something first, then, Ashley?”

“Sure.”

“There’s really nothing going on between you and Dylan?” she asked, holding my gaze. “Other than sharing women?”

“No,” I said, my heart suddenly beating too hard. “There’s nothing going on.”

It was true.

It was also a lie.

The whole truth was that there was a whole shit-ton going on—in my mind. But I lied, looking her right in the eyes. The same way I’d done to Dylan, a thousand times.

She nodded, seeming to believe me. Then she sighed.

“Okay, then… My parents. My mom still lives here. Liv sees her more than I do, because I’m away traveling so much, but also because she handles her better. Mom’s become pretty… eccentric over the years. Living alone. Living with her delusions.”

“Delusions about…?”

“About the way things are. Between her and our dad.” She sighed again and glanced around, kinda like she was looking for a way out. No chance, unless she wanted to dive overboard and swim for shore. Instead, she went on. “He left her, long ago. Liv and I were still kids. We still saw him after the divorce, sometimes, even after he moved to Toronto, but they never got back together like my mom always seemed to think they would.” She picked at the label on her beer bottle. “They were in love. Like really in love. And their relationship was crazy. It was explosive and unstable. Bordering on violent.”

“He hit her?”

---