Page 145 of Between Never and Forever
“Oh shit,” I say, just as Ziggy takes off running.
I hear another grunt, then a bunch of giggles, and I slide into the foyer just in time to see Brynn on the floor with Ziggy on top of her. Levi is standing with his arms crossed, observing, and I laugh just before my eyes catch on the other person in the foyer.
My mom.
My laughter dies, sucked from me immediately, and my body goes rigid. I stare at her, and she stares back. I imagine the contrast in our faces must be comical. We look almost exactly alike, but my expression is shocked and hard. Hers is open and soft.
“Savannah,” she says quietly. Hopefully.
I swallow. I don’t speak. I feel everyone’s eyes on me, but the weight of Brynn’s is heavier than all of them combined. I glance at her and find her wide-eyed with concern. I force a smile.
“Hey, Boss.”
Levi’s hand comes down on Brynn’s shoulder, and he steers her out of the foyer without another word. Ziggy follows because she’s a traitor, but Red gives me a look that asks if he should stay or go. I consider it. I go back and forth, then I nod toward the kitchen, letting him know it’s okay to leave me here.
Once he’s gone, I look back at my mom.
“You look good,” she says with a timid smile. “You look beautiful. I’ve been following your career. You’re so talented, Savannah. I’m so pr—”
“Don’t. Don’t say that. I don’t want your approval. I don’t need it.”
My mom swallows hard and nods. “Of course.”
I look her over in the silence, pressing my toes hard against the wood floor to keep my balance. I feel unstable. I had a therapist in rehab tell me to use the 5-4-3-2-1 method whenever I started to feel like this. Like I was losing control. Five things I can see, four things I can touch, three things I can hear, two things I can smell, and one thing I can taste. I only get as far as seeing my mom’s face before I give up and decide to count my breaths until I get my bearings.
“You look good, too,” I say finally. “You look healthy.”
It’s honest. She does look good. I never, in my entire life, remember seeing her like this. She was always messed up and miserable. Using and being used.
“I’m three years sober.”
I nod. “I’m coming up on a year.”
I had been sober for a month before I checked myself in for my last rehab stint. Struggled through the European leg of our world tour. I just couldn’t do it after Jonah’s overdose. Every time I so much as looked at a substance, any powder or pill or bottle or needle, I saw him on that hotel room floor.
I spent eight weeks getting my head straight in the facility. Called Red and brought him on to be my personal security as soon as I got out. My old guy would get high with me all the time, and I couldn’t have that around me anymore. I tried to get back into performing after. I tried like hell to jump back in like nothing, to play our American shows with as much enthusiasm. But I couldn’t.
I was tired and jaded and on the verge of breaking, and the label never gave us down time. We’re not people to them. We’re money-making machines.
As I survey my mom, I can’t help but wonder what her reason was. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t enough for her to try and get clean. So, what did it?
“Why?” I ask. “Why three years ago, after I was gone, and not when I was here and needed you? What was more important than me?”
“Nothing has ever been more important to me than you.”
I almost believe her. I scoff and shake my head.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. If that was true, you wouldn’t have waited so long to get clean.”
My mom closes her eyes and breathes deeply. I notice her hands shaking as she clasps them together.
“I have no excuse. I was a terrible mother, and I was weak. I let Terry control me. Let him do with me what he wanted, and I was too high to care what happened to myself. But I swear, Savannah, I did what I could to protect you. It wasn’t enough. I know that. But I always loved you. I always tried.”
She opens her eyes and looks at me with tears welling around her gray irises. Eyes just like mine. Weaknesses just like mine. Is she to blame? Are her parents? Where did it begin, this cycle of self-destruction? When does it finally end?
“I detoxed in the hospital after one of Terry’s friends...”
Her voice shakes and she closes her eyes again, clamping them this time as tears finally break past her lashes.
