Page 62 of The Good Guy on My Porch

“That’s insane,” he said. “What if something had happened? What if the house had caught on fire?”

I shrugged. “She was at home the whole time, so I guess she figured she’d keep me safe. She kept me in there for the entire weekend. I had a bucket to pee in and she slid food under the door. I pretended to be sorry, but I was freaking the fuck out. I was worried she’d keep me in there forever. On Monday, she let me out to go to school and she went to work. As soon as I got to school, I left. I ran all the way back to the house, packed a bag, and walked to the other side of town to the university where my aunt worked. I didn’t want to risk my mother finding me and dragging me home, so I didn’t go to Aunt Melly’s house. I waited outside her office and, when she got there, I told her everything that had happened. She wanted to call the police, but I wouldn’t let her. My mother wasn’t a criminal, she was sad and she was overprotective and…”

“It was more than that,” he said. He spoke calmly, but there was rage in his expression.

“She was scared, and she was ill. I moved in with my aunt and refused to go home. I was terrified of being locked up again. My mother wasn’t happy, but she didn’t argue too hard. Aunt Melly told her if she pitched a fuss we’d get the authorities involved and they wouldn’t look too kindly on my mother locking me in my room for forty-eight hours.” I sighed. “We didn’t have any proof, but it was enough of a threat for my mother. She visited me every weekend at my aunt’s house and I called her every day, twice a day. I felt guilty for leaving her alone, but I just couldn’t…I wouldn’t be locked away like a fragile china doll.”

“You were right to stay with your aunt,” he said, squeezing my hand. “What your mother did was wrong.”

I’d never told the entire story to anyone but my aunt before. Sure, I’d told college friends and ex-boyfriends about my mother’s illness, but I hadn’t told them everything. Oscar’s approval of my actions meant more to me than I could say. I’d felt guilty, like a bad daughter for so long…Still, I hadn’t told him the worst. “We went on like that for a few years and everything seemed to be working out fine. I was even considering going back to Mom’s. She’d been going to work every day and she’d stopped asking me to stay home from school every time it rained. We thought she was improving. And then, I was invited to go on a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach my junior year. I never should have told Mom about it, but I thought she was better…She begged me not to go, was sure I’d never come home again. She was so adamant that I was going to die on that trip that it started to get to me. I had nightmares and was considering not going, but Aunt Melly put her foot down and insisted that I go and that I stop talking to my mother until I got back. I shouldn’t have…But I was seventeen and I wanted to see a new place. All my friends were going and I…I chose myself over my mother. I was selfish.”

“You weren’t selfish. You were young, and you had every right—”

“You don’t know the whole story.” I swallowed hard. I never talked about this, not even to Aunt Melly. “When I got home from the trip, Mom didn’t answer my calls. Aunt Melly and I went to the house and we found her on the couch, almost dead from dehydration and malnutrition. When I left, she fell apart. She’d stopped eating, stopped drinking water. She nearly died because I was only thinking about what I wanted.”

He took both my hands in his and looked into my eyes. “Your mother almost died because she chose not to eat. That had nothing to do with you, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

God, I wanted so badly to believe his words, but I couldn’t. “She was sick, she couldn’t help herself, and I left her all alone.”

“You went on a trip and you had fun. She’s an adult and she’d been taking care of herself for years without your help. What happened to her was her choice.”

He didn’t understand. I didn’t blame him, it was hard to understand unless you saw it for yourself. “We took her to the hospital. It turned out She’d been lying to us for months. She’d stopped going to work, stopped going anywhere. She hadn’t been paying any of her bills and the house was in foreclosure. Luckily, she had enough money from my father’s life insurance to cover her hospital bills and to pay for some therapy, but she didn’t like the therapy and she hated the drugs. She refused to continue treatment, so my aunt put her up in an apartment. Once I started making my own money, I took over the rental payments and her expenses.”

“And you have to call her five times a day and will never leave town because you need to take care of her?” His words were clipped, and he was holding my hands too tight. He didn’t understand.

“It’s not a hardship. She needs me, and I want to do what I can to keep her healthy.”

“Even if you have to lie to everyone who cares about you to do it?”

“She doesn’t want anyone to know she’s sick.” I sighed and pulled my hands from his. “I’m sorry I lied to you and, if you don’t ever want to see me again—”

His lips were on mine before I could finish speaking, his hands in my hair, pulling me to him. It was like he’d been curled up tight, waiting, and once released there was no holding him back. I melted into him, forgetting everything, pushing aside the worried voice in the back of my head that reminded me I hadn’t told him everything, hadn’t told him the worst. It was okay, I promised myself. I could have fun with Oscar without getting too close. I needed him, and he wanted me. It wouldn’t hurt to have some fun. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled myself forward until I was straddling his waist.

He deepened the kiss, but didn’t move his hands from my hair, didn’t try to cop a feel or take things farther. He kissed me like we had all night to enjoy and taste each other. The kiss was amazing, but it was making me want things, mostly because I knew I wouldn’t have forever with him. I lowered my hands and slid them under the hem of his shirt, running my fingers over his firm, muscled body. He groaned into my mouth and I felt him grow harder beneath me. I tugged on his shirt, trying to lift it over his head, but he just kept kissing me. He kissed me so well, that I forgot for a moment why I was pulling on his shirt. Only a few moments passed before I remembered I wanted more.

I pulled again on the shirt and he stopped kissing me and smiled. “What’s your hurry?”

“I’m not a patient person.”

He smirked. “You act like you’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“Nope,” I said, fighting a smile. “Not at all. Not even a little bit. But now that we’ve started…” I leaned in to get back to kissing and the alarm on my phone beeped. “Shit.” I tried to climb off his lap.

“What’s that?” He trapped me in tight against him with his strong arms. I wanted so badly to forget all about that alarm and get back to kissing him, but I knew there’d be consequences. There were always consequences.

“It’s to remind me to call my mom. She gets really upset if she doesn’t hear from me.”

Still he didn’t let me go. “When you say really upset, what do you mean?”

“She’ll call my aunt, who’s in Italy, and then she’ll start mourning me. She’ll curl up wherever she is and just cry. She won’t eat or drink and she’ll make herself physically ill.”

He let me go, but he didn’t look happy. I didn’t blame him. Nothing about my mother’s illness was fun.

“It’ll just take a few minutes.” I grabbed my phone and headed for the porch.

“Stay,” he said. “You can make the call here.”

“It’s tedious. You don’t want to hear—”

---