Page 96 of One More Chapter

“You said your mom was too busy to spend Thanksgiving with you…”

I trail off, leaving the rest in her hands. She deflates, like she’s been waiting for someone to ask so she could talk about it. I wonder just how much she keeps bottled up inside.

“Yeah, she’s… She has some new boy toy that she followed out to Vegas. She said I could join them, but I didn’t feel like trekking to the other side of the country to watch her love someone more than me.”

If this is what it looks like to let it all out, I fear for what the insides of her scarred up heart look like. I don’t even hesitate before sliding my arm beneath her side and tugging her to me.

“All she’s ever wanted in this life has been money.”

She shakes her head, plants her wandering hands on my chest, and draws her little patterns there while she talks.

“She said my dad ran before she could catch him, and I’m beginning to wonder if her type all along was guys with deep pockets. My brother Connor was lucky his dad was on a business trip in the same place twice. He saw my mom on a barstool—four months pregnant, might I add—and once he found out my brother was his, he stopped at nothing to get full custody of his son. Took him years, and one call to the police, but in the end, she sawnoneof his money, and that was okay with me.”

“What do you mean ‘one call to the police?’”

“Don’t you remember? You were there.”

This is the first she’s looked me in the eye. The pain in her eyes runs so deep, I can’t even see the bottom.

“We were fifteen. It was the last time I saw you before…” She shakes her head. “Anyway, she took Connor when she wasn’tsupposed to have him. He wouldn’t stop crying, and when he threatened to call his dad, she took his phone with her to the bar. Said she was going to ‘find us a new dad,’ which meant she was probably out of money.

“She came back drunk, and started coming at him. I stepped in to protect him. Shouted at her. Told her to just let Connor go back to his dad. And she told me, ‘That’ll happen when his daddy pays me what I’m owed.’ I understood then. It’s like my rose colored glasses disintegrated. I took Connor to my room, locked the door, and called the cops to turn her in. I was so mad. I wasso mad at her,Ant. She used us for money, like the price we had to pay for a nine month pregnancy was getting her up the ladder somewhere.”

I’m so glad I’m holding onto her right now, or I’d have nothing to anchor the shaking of my body, the absolute terror I want to reign on her mother, the way my body has already rewired itself to be her protector. She shakes her head, eyeing the space between us as she continues.

“Anyway. That was the final nail in the coffin for that custody battle. But when they took her to jail for the night and asked if I had someone to call, I called your mom. She came and got me, stopped for ice cream on the way…”

It all clicks.

Penelope came to the house on the Cape with us for a few weeks. I was a teenager and didn’t really wonder or care as to why. It was the summer of finding girls on the beach and stealing wine coolers from my parents’ booze fridge in the garage. But one night, Mom came back with a red headed firecracker and ice cream for everyone. She made me give Penelope the remote, and we had to watch some chick flick. I remember being annoyed, but also knew to shut my trap—not just because Mom had told me so, but because the look in her eyes that she was trying to hide behind her mane of red hair told me to treat her gently.

“P, I’m so?—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry.Please. I’ve had enough sorries in my life. Between the two of us, I could be done with them.”

My heart clenches. I know I’ve said it to her, and in the back of my mind I know it hasn’t beennearlyenough, but I tamp them all down.

“Anyway. That’s why I didn’t go see her for Thanksgiving. Why I haven’t seen her since two Christmases ago—when she invited me to Florida to see if I could spare her the money since my books were doing so well.”

I shift, tilting her chin up to look at me.

“She didwhat?”

Pen’s smile smirks, but her eyes are wells of sorrow.

“Yeah. I thought she invited me along to reconcile or some bullshit, butnope.” She pops the ‘p’ and shakes her head. “Dear old Margie’s latest schmuck dumped her, and she needed some extra cash. I think your mom invited her to Florida to talk some sense into her, but once I was there, her only game was to sink her claws into my hard earned success.”

“That’s why you wanted to disappear so often.”

“Yes.”

I remember seeing Penelope Barker for the first time in years on that vacation, and being equally as shocked to see her both a hollow shell and a lit stick of dynamite all at once. In a pit with my own failed relationship and down on myself, I’d followed every stray invitation she’d extended. We went on walks along the beach and boat rides to nowhere and back. Her walls were fortified, but began to melt with each and every trip we took away from the resort.

Away from her mother.

But if she was using that time to get away from her mom…

“It’s why I was so heartbroken when you ditched me,” she says, stronger than the other times we’ve talked about us. “I wasat my lowest point. I’d told my mom about my books because I had some warped sense that maybe she’d finally be proud of me; maybe this time, we could have a real relationship, some grown up girl bonding or some stupid shit. And then, I found you. And you made me feel like I could take on the world. You made me feel like none of that mattered, because all of the things you said to me made me believe in myself formeagain.”