Page 147 of Late Nights & Love Lines
When she meets my eyes, she huffs. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. She wasn’t supposed to recognize me.”
“You’re her goddamn mother,” I sneer. “How would she not recognize you?”
“We both know I never earned that title. Parenthood is like preschool where everyone gets a trophy.” Her lip curls in disgust. “I wanted to see them, but I never planned for any of them to get close enough to recognize me. And when I saw her, saw how happy she was, I was—I was embarrassed knowing I’d hurt her. I didn’t want to cause her any more pain than I had to, so I sent her away.”
“What happened to you?” This is not the woman I married. I don’t even recognize this person.
“This is what happens when you live a loveless life, Sebastian. My parents never loved me and passed the tradition on to me.Then you, well, we were a good match on paper, but your heart was never in it, and neither was mine.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? My father was a horrible human, who tried to raise me to be just as terrible, but I chose to be different.”
“Do you want a medal?” Her words drip with condescension.
What the fuck am I even doing here.
“What’s your goal here, Mya? I refuse to allow you to keep hurting them, and when they see you and you turn your back, that fucking hurts them.”
She slaps her hand to the table, but she’s so weak it hardly makes a noise. “I said that was an accident. She wasn’t supposed to see me. She should have been focused on her friends. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” She sighs, and it appears to take all her energy to keep herself upright.
“How long do you have?” I ask, waiting for a morsel of grief or regret to seep into my consciousness, but it never does.
She shrugs. “I’m going back to Boston tonight. I’ll be gone in a month or so.”
“You’re not going to say goodbye to your children?”
Mya shakes her head. If evil had a picture, she’d be it.
“This is your only chance, Mya.” I clench my teeth together to keep my volume from escalating. “Come and talk to your children or don’t come back at all. I mean it. If you go back to Boston, don’t come back here, don’t call, don’t text. If you continue to play these games at their expense, I’ll make the rest of your days a living hell.”
I toss a fifty on the table to pay for the drinks I’d ordered and stand, but she grasps my wrist with more strength than I’d thought she had. “Take care of them,” she whispers without looking up.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what nightmare is playing in your head, Mya. But if there’s even an ounce of love in you, leave and don’t come back.”
“They may hate you for that request someday.”
She’s always playing goddamn games.
“That’s a risk I’ll have to take. If warning you away from them keeps their childhoods happy and safe, then I’ll take their wrath as adults when they’re able to fully comprehend the actions of a mother who couldn’t love anyone but herself.”
She nods, and I snap my wrist away from her.
“This will protect you from my father. Consider it a parting gift of goodwill, and take care of our children.” Reaching into her bag, she pulls out an envelope and hands it to me. I take it without looking, then walk out of the bar.
It takes all my willpower not to push the limits of my Tesla to get home as quickly as possible.
36
YOU CAN’T FUCK AROUND WITH DESTINY
ROWAN
“He’ll be here,” I whisper over Seren’s head. We’re both peeking out from behind the stage in the pavilion at camp—it’s become the unofficial gathering place for locals since the summer programs ended.
She tilts her face up to search my eyes.
“He’ll be here,” I repeat. And even though my pulse is thumping erratically in my ears, I don’t cross my fingers or wish on stars.
Sebastian promised he would be here, so he will.
