by Nicole Thorn
Aster cut him off before he could finish or I could answer. “Or, I could get a place with her.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Really? You wanna live together? We haven’t even slept together yet. Oh, and we’ve barely been dating, but whatever.”
He smiled. “It’s insane to move in this soon after meeting someone. Like, really insane. Maybe even stupid. To the point where I would openly mock anyone doing the same.” Quickly, he backpaddled. “Not that I don’t want to live with you. Obviously I do, and we literally live together at this point. I just would be crazy to not point out how irresponsible it is to be thinking about moving in with someone this soon. Even though we live together.”
Micha put a hand on his shoulder. “Quit while you’re nowhere near ahead.”
Aster took a breath. “What I meant to say was, I think it would be safest for Callie if I was living with her. Not that Micha isn’t capable, but I’m a demigod. Also . . . we’re dating.”
I took my twitchy fella’s hand, moving closer to his side. “I understand what you meant, so don’t worry. For what it’s worth, I also think it’s a little bit crazy to move in this soon. I wouldn’t think it was a good idea if not for the very big and obvious threats that keep following me home. This is the third attack at my house in only a couple weeks, and my parents could have been caught up in it. They would have no way of defending themselves. I chose this life for myself, but they didn’t. It wouldn’t be fair of me to put them in danger.”
I couldn’t imagine it would be easy to convince my parents to let their seventeen-year-old move in with her boyfriend of a few days. I couldn’t even say for sure they would care about the logical side to my argument. My parents wanted to believe that they could protect me, or that I could stop the dangers if I chose to. They would always come at me as long as I remained the Oracle, and that was a title I’d vowed to take on until death.
I considered trying to get a god to help me out. If I had some all-powerful being tell my mom and dad that I had to move out, could they really fight them on it? I couldn’t get Zeus or anything like that, but Apollo might have been willing to help me. He was pretty much like my adoptive uncle at this point . . . Ignoring the fact that I was dating his son. I could only hope that he would be fine with us moving in together, no matter how soon it was.
“Are we sure about this?” I asked. “I can find a place all by myself if I have to. Your dad would probably get me a house or something if I asked him. I bet he would even set up some kind of protection for me.”
Aster shook his head. “No, I think I should go with you. I want to go with you.”
My heart fluttered at how confident he sounded right then. Aster wanted to be with me, and that meant doing something that was almost for sure a bad idea. He would be able to keep me safe, as well as stay by my side, even when I got annoying.
“Guess I’ll stay in my apartment then,” Micha sighed. “All alone. With no one but the rats to chat with. But that’s fine. I’m glad you both have someone. Must be nice.”
I snorted at him. “Does it bother you that Aster and I are getting a place? We don’t even know how long you’re going to live here. Artemis put you on assignment once. Do you believe she wouldn’t do it again?”
He shrugged. “There are a lot of Hunters left. I’m not the only one she can hire on for a job, and I feel like she might want me to stick around. You’re her brother’s Oracle, and she would want you safe almost as much as he does. Also, if you die, it would really screw up her fight with Aphrodite.”
I attempted not being upset about that, as well as being used in a game between two gods. They did that sort of thing all the time for fun, which I found cruel. I couldn’t say that this time it didn’t work out perfect for me though. I got Aster, and I didn’t think there would have been any better match for me in the whole world.
“Good,” Aster said. “That means one more person around to protect her. If Artemis decides that she wants you to stay close, then maybe we can try to find something for all of us.”
“We should share a room though,” I said to Aster. “Even if we aren’t sleeping together yet, I’d like to be able to get cuddles at night.”
He grinned to himself. “I agree with you on that.”
“Oh, and we can get a dog,” Micha said. “Or a cat. Or a Pegasus. Can we get a Pegasus? I’ll feed him and take him for walks all the time.”
Aster didn’t answer, but he sighed and hung his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
I’ve Said it Before, But Parents . . . Suck
Aster
“I FEEL LIKE this is unnecessary,” Callie said, her arms crossed over her chest while she glowered at me. She stood in front of the stairs, preventing me from going down the rest of them. Well, preventing me in name only. I could have easily lifted her over my shoulder with one hand and kept walking, while carrying a statue with the other hand. But I thought that doing that to my girlfriend could be considered rude, and I didn’t want to be rude to her. I loved her.
“All of my stuff is there,” I said. “While I love the four shirts that I brought with me, I’m starting to feel judged for my kittens in space one. Let me get one of the others, so that we can all pretend I’m an actual man.”
Callie didn’t budge. “First of all, I love your kittens in space shirt. You could wear that every single day, and I’d still want to go down on you.”
I coughed while Micha started laughing from the living room.
“Shut up,” I called.
“I can’t! This is the one time a cat has ever done something for someone else!”
I sighed, shifting around on the stairs. I looked back at Callie. “Well, thank you for not judging me for my bad choice in clothing, but I assure you that you’re the only one. I went to check the mail yesterday and ran into the mail-lady for the second time this week in that shirt, and she stared at me like I was a freak.”
“Well, she sounds judgmental and if you want new clothing, then I will buy you some. You live here now.”
“I’m not arguing that point.”
“Then why are you trying to go back to your apartment, where that evil bitch is?” Callie said, glowering at me. I understood she disliked my mother, but for the first time, I started to understand that she truly hated Mom. Not just hated, but wanted me to never see her again. It felt kind of weird. On one hand, she cared about me that much and what a bright feeling, to know that someone loved you. On the other hand, I couldn’t just walk away from my mother because Callie preferred it that way. I had to at least talk with her.
“I’m not going to make your parents buy me new clothes,” I said. “Besides, what about all my other things. Like my books, my art, my truck.” I missed the last thing most of all. That truck had been such a good truck. It never broke down, and it had run so smoothly that I could forget about everything while behind the wheel. And if I left it to my mother, she would allow the truck to fall into disrepair and die a slow, agonized death in the parking space.
Callie kept her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot. “I can get you new books, you can make new art, and I’m sure Apollo could be bribed into getting you an even better car, that would make you forget about the truck.”
“Callie . . . ”
“I don’t want you to go back,” she said. “Your mother is going to be mean to you and then you’re going to be sad.”
I sighed and sat down on the stairs. After a moment, Callie came to join me. She shifted around so that the two of us sat hip to hip, and I took her hand. She wrapped her fingers around mine, squeezing as tightly as she dared. I liked the feel of her small hands wrapped around my larger ones. I liked to feel of her pressed against my side. And I liked that she wanted to keep me safe from something that couldn’t hurt me more than I had already been hurt.
“You know that I have to go,” I said, looking over at her. “I can’t just walk away from her.”
“Why not?”
“Because she
’s my mother, and even if she didn’t do a good job at being my mother, she still deserves to know that I’m all right.”
“I’m not sure that I agree with that,” Callie said.
I understood where she came from. I actually agreed that just because someone had a child, didn’t mean they had a right to that child or to know what happened when the child left. Being a parent didn’t give a person the right to stick around in the kid’s life. Not if they had been bad parents, who did nothing but hurt and abandon their children.
But my mother hadn’t abandoned me, and every time she hurt me, it had been for the purpose of keeping me alive. I knew Callie would argue that that didn’t make it better, and maybe it didn’t . . . but I needed to believe that made it better or my brain wouldn’t be able to take it.
I needed to believe that one person in my life that had always been there actually cared about me, because until very recently, I didn’t have anyone else. And now I just had Callie and maybe Micha. I couldn’t actually tell if the guy gave two craps about me or not, and I supposed it didn’t matter in the long run. Artemis would probably pull him from this assignment soon anyway.
It all boiled down to the simple fact that I needed to think that my mother loved me, or I didn’t know what to think of my childhood anymore.
“I need to go,” I finally said. “I’ll just pick up a few things, bring them back here, and everything will be fine. You can jump on me the second I’m through that door, and then you can force me to lay on the couch with you while you watch all those cartoons that you like so much.”
Callie pouted. “Do you think that I won’t?”
“I hope that you do,” I said, nudging her.
Her eyes narrowed. “And it won’t be those cartoons. Romcoms. We’re going to watch romcoms until you can’t handle it anymore.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Please,” I said. “Pin me to the couch. It’ll be such torture to have my girlfriend all over me for hours on end. How will I survive it?”
“Are you sassing me?”
“I would never. I don’t have the self-esteem to sass.”
She frowned, and I thought that maybe I should have saved that joke for another time, when I wasn’t trying to visit the woman that had created this self-esteem issue in the first place. Callie sighed again, standing up. She walked down a couple of steps, then turned around so that she could lean in and kiss me without the awkward angle. “All right, go. But I want you to text me when you get there. I know that I can’t send Micha off with you, but I still want to know that you’re all right.”
“I will text you when I get there, when I leave, and when I’m five minutes out, so that you can pick whatever movie you wish to torture me with.”
“Thank you,” she said, and kissed me again.
Callie went off to talk with Micha and I left the house. Since I wanted to bring my truck back, I thought taking a cab to the apartment would be the best way to go.
When it pulled up outside, I tipped the driver handsomely, I got out of the car, then stood in front of the apartment, second guessing myself. I did want some of my things with me, even if most of them spent a long time in the truck. I also wanted to tell my mother that I wouldn’t be coming back to live with her.
But I didn’t want to deal with the fallout from that conversation.
She hadn’t even texted me in days, which usually indicated a kind of fury unmatched by anyone else.
I kind of wished that I’d brought Callie with me.
She’d punch my mother in the face, though.
Shaking all of those thoughts off, I sucked up what little courage I had, and went inside. At first, I thought that Mom had left, and I could gather my things in peace. That dream died the second I closed the apartment door.
Mom’s bedroom door flew open, and she stood there, practically vibrating with anger. She didn’t explode, though. Instead, she wandered into the living room with carefully controlled steps, each one making me more nervous than the last one had. “There you are,” she said, setting her hand on her hip. “I was starting to think that I’d never see you again. Where have you been, Aster?”
“At Callie’s,” I said, sounding braver than I felt.
“Callie’s,” Mom said, pacing around the living room. “That’s the little redhead, right? The one that looks at me like I’m a monster?”
I shifted around. “She doesn’t do that, but yes, her.”
Mom laughed. “Oh, she does do that. She thinks so little of me. No wonder you like her. You finally found someone that’s willing to overlook all your flaws and act like you’re something special.”
I winced. “I’m sorry that I didn’t call you sooner, Mom.”
“Oh, you think that’s why I’m upset?” she asked. “You know, it was, at first. I was so angry that you could take off and act like everything I’ve done for you doesn’t even matter, but then the anger started to abate, and you wanna know what I found?”
I didn’t say anything, too busy bracing myself for whatever painful thing she would throw at me next.
“I found that my life is better when you aren’t in it,” Mom spat, glaring at me like I had done something wrong. “Do you know what the last eighteen years of my life have been like? I would wake up every day, convinced that something terrible would happen to my poor, useless son. I would wake up, afraid that I’d find you dead in your bed. I’d go to check on you, and you’d be fine, but that fear wouldn’t go away. I’d just keep worrying. Then you’d take off with your father, and I didn’t even understand worry until that started to happen.”
“Mom—”
She let out a bitter laugh. “I pictured so many terrible things happening to you, each worse than the last. I pictured you dead in so many different ways, and I wanted you to come home. Then you took off the first chance that you could get, and I shouldn’t have been surprised or upset. You’ve made it clear that you think I’m nothing to worry about.
“And you wanna know something? I like it when you’re gone.”
There it was. The hurtful words that slashed right through whatever armor I’d managed to build up against this woman over the last eighteen years. The hurtful words that pounded through my head like a hammer.
She nodded. “Yeah, I like it when you’re not here, because I don’t have to worry anymore. I don’t have to spend my nights wondering if you’re dead, because you didn’t care enough to be there for me, so why should I care? I don’t have to do anything for you anymore. I don’t have to put a roof over your head, feed you, get you those stupid art supplies you like so much. I didn’t have to do any of it, and that was such a weight off my shoulders.”
“Well, I’m happy that I could do that for you,” I said, my voice empty. The words had hurt, just like they were supposed to, but I had finally gotten to the point that the hurt didn’t really register. Just one more bruise amongst thousands.
“Yeah, you did that for me,” Mom said. “If not for you and your father, I could have had a normal life, with good, human children that didn’t drain me dry of everything in my soul. Instead I got stuck with an ungrateful brat of a son that only comes home when he wants to, and never talks to me. You are the biggest disappointment that you could be, and it’s like you don’t even care.”
I went numb at that point, which allowed me to say something I never would have otherwise said. “Why should I?”
“Excuse me?” Mom screeched, finally losing her temper.
“Why should I care?” I asked. “Look at what awaits me when I do come home, look at what you’ve provided.” I gestured to the apartment around us. “We wouldn’t even have this if not for Apollo interfering.”
Her back straightened as if someone had glued a steel rod to her spine.
“You should care because of everything that I’ve done for you!” she hissed at me, taking a step forward. “You should care because I’m your mother!”
I nodded. “I do care
that you’re my mother. That’s why I’m here right now, instead of abandoning all my stuff and never coming back.”
“What are you yammering on about?”
I glanced away from her for a second before shoring up my courage again. It felt even more feeble than it had before. “I’m going to live with Callie,” I said. “She can’t stay with her parents anymore, and instead of making her move in with a stranger, I thought that I’d get an apartment with her.”
There hadn’t been even a second where I thought this would go over well. Hard to think something like that with the mother that I had. But my heart stuttered when Mom let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, is that what you’re going to do? You’re going to go off and live with some random girl that you’ve known a few weeks?”
“Yeah,” I said.
She gave another laugh. “No.”
“What?”
“No,” Mom said. “Okay, you’ve had your fun, you’ve made me angry, but this is beyond stupid. Even for you, this is a new level of stupid that I hadn’t expected. I know that you have issues with making the right choices, but that doesn’t mean you have to actively ruin your life either.”
“I wasn’t asking for permission.”
“Too bad, because the answer is no.”
Exhaustion started to work its way into my bones. “Mom—”
“No,” she shouted, throwing her hand to the side and knocking over a lamp. It hit the floor with a hard thud, but didn’t quite break. “We’re not talking about this. The answer is no, you are not going anywhere with that girl. I won’t let you. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Mom—” I tried again, but she just kept talking.
“I’ve literally given up everything for you! I left my family behind, because I needed to make sure that they never found out about you. I left my job, my friends, my dreams. Do you think this is what I wanted? To live in a crappy apartment, after moving every few years to get away from your father? Do you think I wanted to spend all my days trying to fix you, after you had already proven to be such a waste of time and space? Do you think this is anything like I pictured my life? No! But I did all of that, and I’m not going to let you go off and ruin everything that I’ve done!”
