Page 39 of Guitars and Mistakes
“So what is it, Rivers? You come home to make good? Come back to get to know us, finally? Your dad’s not here. Been dead for years. But your brother and I are here. We’re ready to move out of this shit hole. Fine time for you to show up.”
She took a drag of her cigarette and reached over to pour herself a glass of whiskey on the side table, and suddenly Iwasthree again, watching her get drunk at night and forget to make dinner. Knowing that I’d have to climb into the cupboard and look for anything that hadn’t gone bad.
Knowing that she didn’t care enough to take care of me.
Back then, I hadn’t had any value to her, which was why she’d dumped me. Now, the only value I had was money. Fuck, I was surprised she hadn’t tried to find me years ago, just to ask me to give her some of the cash I’d been earning since I was twelve and figured out I had to take care of myself. Maybe she had, and she’d been blocked by my lawyer or Taylor or the record company itself.
Maybe she just hadn’t bothered, and Lila looking for her had given her the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
One thing was for sure: She hadn’t changed. She was still the same trash she’d always been, living in squalid conditions that no human being should have lived in. She’d never tried to improve herself or her situation and she certainly hadn’t come looking for me.
I really doubted she’d ever even bothered to think about me once she dropped me off.
Lila had been wrong. I didn’t know if my mom had lied to her or if Lila herself had just been hoping for the best, but this wasn’t it. I glanced over at the girl and saw that she looked just as horrified and broken as I felt, and my heart broke for her again. This was so far beyond her ability to understand. She was from a happy, full life in Nashville where she and her sisters had formed a band and played Blondie for their parents. Where she’d had enough money that she could practically adopt her best friend, and where she’d probably never been hungry or scared or cold or anything else.
She didn’t know what it was like to grow up in a world where your mother didn’t care whether you lived or died. And seeing it now, seeing how I’d grown up, had to be ripping her to shreds.
I was betting she didn’t feel so great about her plan now, either.
Her eyes met mine, full of unshed tears and sorrow, and then she spun and left, muttering something about needing to make a call. I turned back to my mom, my mind reeling at everything that had happened in the last ten minutes, and when Richard—my little brother—pushed past me, I didn’t try to stop him.
I didn’t have the energy to deal with him, too. I needed to figure out what to do about my mother, now that she knew I knew her whereabouts. Needed to figure out how to stop her from making any trouble. Then I’d get my friends the hell out of here and back to solid ground.
I opened my mouth to try to talk to her, try to say anything that might sound like I didn’t hate her guts...
And then I heard Lila screaming.
LILA
Icouldn’t believe this was happening.
And I mean any of it. I couldn’t believe I’d actually talked Rivers into coning out with us today and then talked him into going into his mother’s trailer. I was also finding it impossible to wrap my head around how badly it had gone. She wasn’t at all the person I’d thought she was, and she hadn’t even tried to apologize to him or make things right. She hadn’t even fucking hugged him.
Instead, she’d sneered at him and started asking for money.
None of which was important right now, as I was currently backed up against the side of a shed with Rivers’ little brother—Richard?—standing way too close to me and wearing something that looked a whole lot like his mother’s sneer.
On a face that looked way too much like Rivers’.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, trying to fend off what felt like eight different hands.
He reached for my face with a hand I hadn’t even seen coming, grabbed my chin, and banged my head back against the metal of the shed. “Stop fussing, girl!” he drawled. “I’d say what I’m doing is pretty obvious. I saw you looking at me in the trailer. And I could see exactly what you wanted.”
“What?” I gasped, trying to yank my chin away from his hand and get out from between him and the shed. “What are you talking about?”
“Couldn’t have hid it if you tried,” he said, moving forward and pressing his body against mine. “I can spot girls like you a mile away. Girls who look all good but want to act all bad.”
Oh my God, I was going to throw up.
“You have no idea what I’m like!” I snapped, jerking to the side.
Unfortunately, he was way too strong for me. He might have been skinnier than Rivers but he was just as tall, and that put him at least a foot taller than me. I didn’t have a prayer of getting away from him, and that realization made me feel even more panicked. What the fuck was even going on here? I’d barely looked at this guy in the trailer. I’d been too busy staring at Rivers’ mom, trying to figure out what game she was playing. How did this guy come to the conclusion that I’d not only been staring at him but also wanted him to make a move on me?
And where did he get off, thinking that making this sort of move was in any way appropriate? I’d come here with his brother, for God’s sake!
His brother who he’d never met. His brother who was a rich rock star while he...
I turned my eyes to him, trying to figure out whether there was anything I could use, here. But he looked insane, his eyes rolling around like he’d taken something that made him hyperactive. Was he on drugs? He had to be, though I’d never been around anyone when they were taking drugs so I didn’t really know. I’d never even known anyone who did drugs, I didn’t think. Those sorts of people just didn’t show up in my life. I was too sheltered, I realized suddenly.
