Page 100 of Reverie

“Yeah, you’ve been gone a long time,” I say.

What do I want my relationship with my mother to look like?

I flex my hand, not surprised that I’ve cracked the skin of my knuckles.

“I realize I haven’t been exactly fair to you. I haven’t let you get a word in edgewise,” I say. Progress. This is progress.

We’re silent again.

“I don’t want you to think I’m making an excuse for my absence, Hunter. But I’d like to explain why I stayed away.”

Tension wraps around my spine. Am I ready for this? At all?

I nod, dragging my eyes to look at her. She rubs her top lip with the back of her thumbnail.

“Okay, so here it goes.” She takes a deep breath. “When I regained consciousness after the acid attack, it took me severalmonths just to remember who I was. Dr. Whitney said it was a trauma response rather than any type of neurological damage, but I don’t know.”

I bite my lip, listening to her words. I want to keep her gaze while she speaks, but I can’t. I stare off into the darkness instead.

The way she looked before they dragged her away will haunt my memories forever. Her raw skin, mottled and bursting….

“That’s understandable,” I mumble.

“After that, I was so filled with rage and anger and grief because I didn’t want to be alive. Not like this,” she says, pointing toward her face.

I take a moment to examine her. The skin on her right side is taut in some places and saggy in others. The long, straight scars crisscrossing her flesh appear to be surgical—tissue grafts and donations pieced together to repair the damage. Her prosthetic eye is different from the one she wore the first time I saw her outside Misha’s front door.

I couldn’t look away from her on that day, but I’ve been trying my best to avoid looking at her since.

I allow myself to face her now.

She’s able to use both hands and her legs, but the gnarled skin stretches tight over her affected limbs. I notice she extends her right leg out in front of her, but her other leg remains bent.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, nodding to her leg. She grimaces and rubs her knee.

“Just my knee. They broke the kneecap, so it took some time to heal. And when it did, it always had a bit of a twinge.”

She leans closer to me slightly. “Plus, I’m getting old, Hunter.”

She lets out a soft laugh, and I feel the side of my face turn up. A smile.

We fall into silence again, and she’s the one to break it.

“I have so many sins to atone for,” she says, her voice strained as she looks at me.

I jerk at the word “atone.” It’s the same word Winter used when describing how I should reach August.

My mission was to atone for the wrong I’d done to him. It started with an apology, doing better every day, and never making the same hurtful choice again.

My mother’s eyes bore into me as if she’s trying to stare into my soul and find the little boy who she left behind.

“Hunter, I amsorry,” she says, her voice wobbling. The words burn as they land in my chest. I try to face her, but the sight of her tears guts me.

I shake my head and look away.

“When?” she asks. “How many times?”

My back straightens as the nausea comes back.