Page 16 of Redemption
“What would you like me to say? Hello, Mother Dearest, how may I, your lowly son, be of assistance?”
The sigh that escapes her is long and exasperated. I can hear the eye roll from here.
“Oh, where did I go wrong?”
“It was probably that time Dad dropped me on my head.”
“Oh, hush. That did not happen.”
“It could have,” I whisper under my breath.
My dad, while my hero, isn’t known for his athletic capability. He can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time.
“I heard that. Now, to the reason I’m calling. I feel like I never hear from my own son. How has your day been?”
When she asks, her voice is laced with sugar, but I can hear the deception underneath. It’s her superpower. She pulls you in with the honey in her voice and then traps you in the conversation she really wants to have, just like now.
She spoke to me yesterday. She talks to me every day becauseIcall her every day. If I didn’t, she would send out a swat team to find me.
“Do you want to know about all of it or just the part making its way around town right now?
I hear whispering on the other line and fight the urge to hang up. She must have me on speaker with my dad sitting right beside her. Nothing shocks me anymore when it comes to their snooping. They do it out of love—mostly. I usually humor them, but this situation with MJ is not one of those times.
They don’t know the whole story, and they never will. The only three people in this world who do are MJ, Campbell, and me. Some stories aren’t meant to be shared.
The line goes silent, waiting for me to give them a real answer.
“It was fine.”
“Hayes,” my mother scolds, “we outgrew your short-sentence answers after your teenage years.”
I push off the grass to start walking back toward my house. I ran over five miles, and it will be dark soon enough. I’ll jog most of it on the way back and make it back before it gets dangerous, but my muscles are too tight right now. I need to walk a little to stretch them out.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I grumble. “It was a regular work day.”
She huffs and lets the silence fester for a moment longer.
“Hayes, I know you’ve struggled the past six years. You’re justified in that. But you can’t keep letting it rule your life. I think you should go to therapy.”
The thought of talking to someone about what happened has me freezing in place.
“No, Mom. I’m not. I’m fine. I’m sorry you worry about me, but you don’t have to.”
“Darling boy, I’m your mother. I will always worry about you, and I worry things will only get worse now that MJ is back in town. I don’t know what happened between you two that caused the rift. You used to be such good friends, but after—that night, you both lost your way. You should have leaned on one another. Youneedeach other.”
I kick at a stray rock on the pavement, trying not to take my frustration out on her. “I’m going to assume you already know what happened today. That should prove that we don’t need to be anywhere around each other. Things change, Mom.”
She laughs, a deep belly laugh before she responds, “I think you need to look at today’s events through a new lens. From what I hear, sparks were flying.”
This right here is why I didn’t want to talk about it. When rumors start in this town, there are always parts that didn’t happen that slip into the gossip. The only sparks between MJand me were the flames she was throwing out of her eyes as she glared at me, hoping I might burn on the spot.
“Maybe it’s time you get your hearing checked then because you heard wrong.”
“Fine, be stubborn, but think about the therapist, okay?”
“Yeah, Mom, I’ll think about it.”
“Good. Now that that’s settled let’s talk about why I really called.”
