Page 67 of Unlikely to Stay
She took her goggles off her face and sat down on the floor.Taking a long swallow from the bottle of water at her feet, she sighed.“Not really.Once my dad left…she just…drifted away.”
“Drifted away?”
“Into herself…her thoughts.I don’t really know.I had to start looking out for myselfandher, I guess.”
“Meaning what?”
Colleen puffed out a breath at her hair falling in her eyes.“I don’t know.She quit…caring.I guess that’s a good way of saying it.”
“About life?”
“About everything.Life…me.”
Brant hated the look of sadness that passed over her face.“I had to start paying the bills because she’d forget to pay them.Blow out her incense and candles at night so our house wouldn’t burn down.Buy myself food because our cabinets would be empty.I also had to make sure to go on all her trips with her, just to make sure she didn’t do something stupid.”
“Trips?”
“She would take these dumb trips to the middle of nowhere…to these…hostels.To spend time withfriends,” Colleen finger-quoted the word friends.“She mainly went to get high.I would follow her to make sure she didn’t do something dumb and wind up dead.”
“You say that like she’d done something like that before.”
Colleen took a deep breath.“When…when I was little…before we moved to Parker, we lived in Maryland.My parents would throw these elaborate parties where they would drink and get high with their friends.I didn’t know it at the time, but sometimes they would exchange partners…swinging, I guess.They were really into free love and all that stuff.”
Brant tried to show no emotion on his face but it was hard to listen to.He never would have guessed it by looking at her, but it seemed like her upbringing wasn’t too different than his own.
“One night, their friend, Angie, hadn’t just gotten high.She took a bunch of pills, too.They found her on the floor of the bathroom.They took her to the hospital but it was too late.She died.”
“Oh, Freckles.”
“Yeah.After that, we left Maryland and wound up in Parker.When my dad left a few years later, she just…she just disappeared.Not literally, but figuratively.”
Brant ached from the story she just told.He could picture a little Colleen…what she went through.What she saw.
“Angie is why I hate hospitals.I know she died because she took all the pills and combined it with acid and liquor and who knows what else.But shediedin the hospital.People who were trained to save people didn’t save her.”
“Freckles, you have to know that it wasn’t their fault.”
Brant’s heart broke a little at the look on her face.It worsened when a tear slipped down her cheek.
“Like I said, I know that.But every time I walk into a hospital, intoanysort of medical building, I freak out.”
“That’s understandable.”
“I’m so terrified that something like what happened to Angie is going to happen to my mom.Yes, she’s selfish.Yes, she drives me insane, and part of me wonders if I really even like her.But she’s my mom, ya know?”
Sadly, Brant did know.Part of him would always care about his birth mom, no matter what she did.Regardless of what he felt, she brought him into the world.He couldn’t hate her all the way.Not really.
“I know,” he replied.“I really do.Now, come here.”Brant pulled Colleen into his arms, breathing in the smell of raspberries and vanilla that was distinctlyher.“I’m so sorry you went through that.I’m sorry about your mom.But you have to realize the things she does are her own choices.You aren’t responsible for her.”
CC placed her head against his chest and sighed.She felt so good in his arms, like she was meant to be there.He placed his chin on top of her head and sighed, too.She felt like heaven.
“I’m sorry to get all deep and stuff when we have only been on one date,” she said.“You must think I’m a mess.”
Brant pulled her chin up so she was looking in his eyes.“I don’t think you’re a mess.I think you’re resilient.We have a lot more in common that you thought, huh, Freckles?”
She finally nodded.“It seems we do.”
Brant kissed her on top of the head.“It’s about time you finally realized it.”