Page 5 of Endgame

“At least you’ll have your car,” she offered with a scrunch of her perfectly positioned nose. “Can’t you be happy about that?”

“Damn straight I’ll have my car.” I tightened my hold on the steering wheel. I had thrown a fit when Gabe tried to insist on us flying.

There was no way in hell I was leaving my car behind. I cherished my 1963 Mercury Comet convertible. She was my baby and the one thing on earth I loved above everything else.

It had been left to me by my mother’s father in his will. It was the only gift I remembered getting from him and I inherited it on my sixteenth birthday. It was an off-white color with a red interior and she drove like a dream, too. Really solid and sweet on the road…

“I need you to try and make this work,” Mom said then, breaking through my daydream. “Mercy, you’ll be eighteen in a few months. This time next year, you’ll be heading off to college somewhere, and where will that leave me?”

“You’re not supposed to ask me that,” I muttered. “It’s not my job to take care of you, Mom.”So stop making me feel so bad for wanting a better life than this.

“I love Gabe.”

I snorted. “You’ve known him for a grand total of four months.” I remembered it like it was yesterday; Mom bringing that fancy suited man into our one bed apartment last May. I’d been trying to study for finals. Of course, my plans had gone to shit the minute they slipped into Mom’s bedroom. I got my first ever C because of their unbearably loud sex noises.Inconsiderate assholes.

“Don’t you think two people can fall in love in that time span?”

“I think you can fall inlust,” I argued. “Love though?” I shook my head. “I hate to break it to you, Mom, but it doesn’t exist.”

“Always so cynical.”

“Real,” I corrected. “I’m sorry if I don’t buy into the whole hearts and flowers bullshit we’re all spoon-fed from birth, but I know damn well that if a knight in white armor’s gonna ride in and change my life then that knight will be me.”

“Mercedes,” Mom sighed.

“You put too much faith in the male species, mother,” I argued further. “You’ve got a brain in your head. Use it. Empower yourself.”

“I like who I am,” Mom countered. “I like being attended to.”

Attended to?

Was she for freaking real?

“Ugh. Whatever, fine. Go chase after that true love bullshit you’ve been telling yourself is real all your life. Maybe you’ll find it at the end of a rainbow with a pot of gold and fix all of our problems.”

“I told you. Money’s not an issue anymore.”

“For you, mom,” I glared. “It’s not an issue foryou.”

“Gabe has offered to pay your education in whatever college you want to attend.”

“How generous.” My tone was laced with sarcasm. “Come on, Mom. You know better than that. A rich man doesn’t give something for nothing.”

“Gabe does.”

“We’ll see,” I muttered.

How anyone had let this woman-child be responsible for a baby was beyond me, but she’d managed to keep me alive this long, I figured what was another nine months?

My future was almost secured. I had one more year of high school, and if myStep-Daddywanted to foot the bill for my college education, then I sure as hell wasn’t going to say no.

They could consider it a severance pay, because once I got finished with high school, I wouldnotbe coming back to Florida.

That was for sure.

Rourke

“HEY MOMMA,” I muttered as I hunched down beside the marble headstone that marked the final resting place of my mother. I didn’t come here as much as I used to. It hurt too fucking much. When I was younger, I would ride my bike out here most days, but now? Now, I came when shit was hitting the fan at home. “It’s that time of the year again.”

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