Page 62 of Beautiful Lies
I darted into the restroom to clean up, thinking that it was probably the first time in years that Connor had had sex when he was sober. When I turned from the sink, he was standing in the doorway, my clothes in his arms. “Hi,” I said, giving him a little wave.
Connor laughed. “Hi. Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Sushi?”
My smile grew wide. “We can go to our little place.” It was a tiny hole in the wall, but the sushi was amazing. When Connor first started working here, we used to go all the time and sit at the counter, watching the sushi chefs prepare our food. I got dressed while Connor cleaned his station.
Connor slung an arm around my shoulder as we walked to the sushi place, only three blocks from here. I couldn’t wipe the stupid-ass grin off my face. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. My phone was ringing, and I dug it out of my bag, checking the screen. I groaned when I saw it was my mother. “It’s like she knows I’m with you,” I said without thinking. “I mean…” Shit.
He squeezed my shoulder. “It’s okay. Just answer.”
I tossed my phone back in my bag. I was still pissed off at her after her confession at the hair salon. How dare she?
By the time we’d reached the sushi place, my mom had called twice already, and my phone rang again. I sighed and pressed the answer button, holding up one finger to Connor to indicate that I only needed a minute. He nodded, and we stopped outside the restaurant before going in. “Hey Mom, I’m busy right now. I’ll call you back tom—”
“Honey…it’s your father.”
16
Connor
Lars Christensen was a decent man. Humble. Quiet. Hardworking. He works as a plasterer. The summer I was eighteen, apprenticing for Jared, he gave me a few painting jobs to help me earn extra cash. I thought it would earn me some points with Ava’s mother. Turned out Lars had never told her about it. One day he forgot his lunch and she turned up on the job. I was working for him that day and he never called me for another job again. I didn’t bother asking why. I knew Ava’s mom called the shots in their relationship. I also knew she hated me. She’d never made a secret of it. She hated me for “corrupting” her daughter. She hated me for “disrespecting” my father. She didn’t like my tattoos or my surly attitude, my bad manners, my motorcycle, my prospects for the future which in her eyes, were a big fat zero. In short, she didn’t like anything about me, and she didn’t want me anywhere near her daughter.
Yet, here I was, escorting Ava into the hospital, my arm around her shoulder, her arm around my waist. She needed my support and I needed to be here for her. I needed to make up for all the times I hadn’t been there for her in the past. The night Jake Masters came into Trinity Bar and made her feel like she was fourteen again. Helpless and vulnerable. My twentieth birthday. She’d baked cupcakes for me. Wrapped the presents she bought for me and wrote me a card. When I showed up at her dorm the next day, she threw the cupcakes and presents out the window.
“Sometimes I wish I’d never met you,” she said.
I promised her up and down that it would never happen again. I promised her I’d give up drugs. Promises, promises, promises, all of them empty. She slammed the door in my face, and I rescued the presents, unwrapping them later when I got home—Copic markers and a new St. Jude medal to replace the one I’d lost. When you lose a medal of the patron saint of lost causes, you know you’re screwed.
Her mom was sitting in the waiting area, her handbag on her lap, her head in her hands. She looked small and fragile, nothing like the powerhouse who had screamed at me and threatened me to stay away from Ava.
“Mom?” Ava said.
I released Ava and she knelt in front of her mom, taking her hands in hers. “Mom…”
Her mom raised her head and caressed Ava’s face with her hand. She loved her daughter, I didn’t doubt that for a minute, but her love wasn’t unconditional. “If anything happens to him, I don’t know how I’d go on,” her mom said.
Her words hit me in the gut. They’d been married longer than I’d been on this Earth, and even though they were very different, and they shouldn’t work, they had built a life together, raised two children together. Supported each other through good times and bad. Would Ava and I ever have a love like that?
“Is he … how is he?” Ava asked. “What happened?”
Her mom let out a ragged breath. “He was complaining of muscle aches. And you know your father … he’s so stoic. He never complains. I told him he was working too hard and to stretch out on the sofa and relax. A little while later, I went to check on him and he was … clutching his chest. I could tell he was in pain. I called 911. The paramedics got there just in time. They hooked him up to all the machines and the IV and…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “They rushed him in for an angioplasty … and now we have to wait—”
“Mom,” Lana called. I looked over my shoulder. Lana’s eyes were streaming with tears as she rushed to her mom’s side. Her mom let go of Ava and leaned into Lana. “I’m here now. Everything is going to be okay.”
“Such a good girl,” her mom said, patting Lana’s hand. “You’ve never given me a day of trouble.”
Ava stood, her shoulders sagging. It was always like this. Lana was manipulative and cunning. She had always fought for her mother’s affections like it was a contest to be won. When Ava stopped being the perfect daughter, Lana was quick to judge and point the finger. And Ava’s mom, even in a crisis, felt the need to remind Ava just how much she’d failed as a daughter.
I moved closer to Ava and took her hand in mine, giving it a little squeeze. She looked up at me with her big gray eyes and I wished I could take away the hurt. Make everything better for her. The best I could do was be here for her, let her know I was on her side.
Her mom looked up, noticing me for the first time. Her eyes narrowed into slits before her gaze swung to Ava. “What is he doing here?” she asked, her voice cold and hard.
“He drove me to the hospital.”
Her mom pressed her lips in a flat line and crossed her arms, her chin held high. “Ask him to leave.”
