Page 144 of Never In My Wildest Dreams

“Hey, sweetheart.” She answered on the third ring. “How’s the wedding going? How’s sunny St. Lucia?”

Fuck the pleasantries. “Mom, when I was in the hospital, did you talk to Jaime?”

“Well, hello, to you, too.” She stuttered out a laugh. “Honey, we’ve already talked about this. I told you I’d forgotten about it until I talked to Jaime in your apartment.”

“You said he’d visited, but you never said you told security to keep my friends away.”

“Are you blaming me for keeping away the boys who nearly killed my son? I don’t think you understand how many hours it took for a doctor to come out and talk to us and tell us the extent of your injuries. Do you understand how traumatic that was?”

“Okay, but what about later when they asked if they could visit, and you told them I didn’t want anything to do with them? You told them to stay away from me. That was six months later.”

“Booker, you were inphysical therapy. Do you remember how grueling that year was? You think I wanted you back with those awful boys?”

“Mom, that’s not the point. I asked you why my friends hadn’t contacted me.” He’d been on the verge of tears. His voice had cracked. Shehadto have seen how upset he’d been.

“You did. I remember that.”

“And you lied. You said, ‘I guess they’ve moved on.’ You said, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’”

His mom let out a breath. “I know that sounds like a terrible thing to do, but that accident cost a year of your life. You were applying to colleges.” Her tone grew more insistent. “You were just getting your life back on track. We didn’t want you pulled into their circle again. We knew if they came out to see you, you’d have been rappelling off the Empire State Building. And don’t try and tell me you wouldn’t, because that’s exactly the kind of thing you boys did with each other. You didn’t go out for coffee. You car-surfed.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make.”

“You were eighteen and living under our roof. You bet it was our choice.”

He didn’t agree, but there was no point in arguing the point. “And we didn’t do stupid things.”

“Snowboarding off-trail through the trees isn’t stupid? Look, we moved to that little town thinking it would be a safe place to raise you. And it turned out to be a nightmare because you chose a reckless group of friends, and we lost control over you.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. The reason we became good friends was because weweren’treckless. Think about it. We didn’t get hurt until that night. And that wasn’t because of stupidity. That was turbulence. No one can control that or even factor it into a jump.”

“You have no idea what it’s like to wait for your child to come home at night, knowing the kinds of things you boys were doing. It wasn’t just skateboarding down our block. No, you guys took it to a whole other level by terrorizing the town. What did you call it?”

“Parkour.”

“On askateboard.” Her tone got heated. “You didn’t just dirt bike—that would’ve been fine. You trespassed onto other people’s property and tore up their land. How many calls did we get from the police? Honest to God, Booker, the older you got, the more risks you took. You wait till you have kids before you judge me, and then, you tell me how it feels to know they’re jumping off acliffwith no parachute.”

An image hit of Stevie leaping, and his body clenched so tightly he saw spots in his vision. Electric fear jolted him. The thought of her riding a skateboard down the handrails of Town Hall had his pulse skyrocketing.

How many times had they fallen before they’d gotten it right?

“I willneverforget when you tried toice skateon the Snake River,” she said. “One of your friends got hypothermia. You were lucky none of you lost a limb or died. You have no idea what it was like for me.”

“You’re right. I don’t. But I don’t like lies. I don’t want you or anyone to manipulate the story of my life.”

“I understand that.” She calmed down. “I do. I just hope you understand why I did it.”

“I get that you wanted to protect me, but I don’t accept the lying. It makes me not trust you. And it’s the reason we don’t have much of a relationship right now.”

His mom was quiet for so long, he had to check his phone to see if the call had dropped. “I know you’re upset about the adoption papers, and I’m sorry.” She sounded like she might cry. “I don’t know how to fix it. I can only hope, if you ever have kids, you’ll come to understand our choices.”

He supposed it was time to tell her.

But before he could, she said, “You were everything to your father, and he didn’t want to do anything that would hurt the bond between you. We thought if you knew you weren’t his biological child, you’d question his love, and he didn’t want that. He wanted you to feel every minute of every day that you were his son and that we were a family. Your dad’s highest value was giving you the best childhood.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, you understand?” she asked. “Or okay, I don’t want to hear your excuses anymore?”

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