Ruthless Love

by Bloom, Penelope

  I sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you any of this. But now…”

  “Wait. You’ve known this since that night, haven’t you? Even in the hospital?”

  I nodded.

  Anger flashed across her face. She pushed her chair toward me and gave me a shove, which just made her roll backwards. Her face was still scrunched up in fury as she pushed herself back to me again and tried to give me another shove. I caught her hands this time, pulling her halfway out of her chair and on top of me so I could wrap her in a hug. She still tried to hit me a few times, but I let her do it, tiring herself out until the anger turned to sobs. “Why would you keep that from me?” Her voice was muffled by my shoulder.

  “You already lost your dad. I didn’t want to take your mom away, too,” I said quietly. “You were one of the only good things that ever happened to me. I’ve broken a lot of things in my life, but I didn’t want to add you to the list. I wanted to do the right thing, for once.”

  She squeezed tighter, her tears warm as they soaked through my shirt and settled against my skin.

  41

  Kennedy

  I headed home from Tristan’s about thirty minutes before my mom was due back. Tristan walked with me, but our plan was for him to wait upstairs when I confronted my mom. As much as it hurt to admit, he was right. If she was capable of drugging him and lying to me all these years, I really didn’t know her like I thought I did. I needed to be careful, but she was still my mom. I wanted to be the one who talked to her about this—to give her a chance to explain.

  Tristan waited in my room, promising he’d come help me if my mom decided to do something crazy.

  She walked in and set her things down, blowing out her usual, “what a long day,” sigh. But I thought she looked more tense. Had they already called her about the tests I’d had done?

  “Mom,” I said.

  She didn’t look at me right away. Her hands were still on her keys and her eyes were down.

  “Am I really sick?”

  She stayed quiet for so long I wasn’t sure she’d heard me.

  “You know what’s sick?” She asked in an eerily quiet voice. “Out there.” She jabbed a finger outside. “I tried to protect you from all of that.”

  “This isn’t a life,” I said, waving my hand around the house. “Being trapped at home all the time or in my bed. Having no friends. Just existing for the sake of existing? That’s what you wanted for me?”

  “When I was your age, they made a fool of me. These boys, they teased me until I thought I’d rather be dead. Every day was hell. I knew if I ever had a girl of my own, I’d protect her from that, no matter what it took.” She finally looked up at me, standing straighter and meeting my eyes. “And I’m not going to apologize for what I did.”

  Anger mingled with pity inside me. “You drugged Tristan, didn’t you?”

  “He was just like those boys who bullied me when I was young. Cocky. Arrogant. He was a snake, Kennedy. Boys like that will use you up. They just want to conquer you, like climbing some kind of mountain. Except they get to move on as conquerors and all you get is to be the thing that got conquered. That’s what he was going to do to you if I didn’t stop him.”

  All I could do was stare at her, feeling like the woman I’d known and loved my whole life was transforming before my eyes. I’d heard people say there comes a time when kids realize their parents are mortals—just flawed humans like the rest of us. In that moment, I realized I’d never reached that point until now. But I finally saw my mom for what she was. Protective. Jealous. Broken. She had been hoarding me like some precious treasure—some relic of what she thought she could have been if things were different. Keeping me away from the things that had ruined her childhood was her form of therapy.

  “You need help.” My voice sounded surprisingly soft and emotionless.

  “Excuse me? How dare you talk to me like that?”

  “How dare I? How fucking dare you? You fed me lies. You made me take pills that could have done permanent damage to my body. You made me live with all this,” I said, slamming my palm against my chair. “And for what? Because you were too scared to do what a real parent does and teach me to be better? Because you didn’t trust me to be stronger than you were?” I pulled out my purse that still had the pill bottles I’d taken to give the doctor samples. I dumped them all out on the floor with a rattling clatter. “These aren’t going to make me sick anymore. But thinking about what you did? That makes me feel so fucking sick I want to vomit.”

  My mom fell to her knees and covered her face. I’d never seen her cry, and I didn’t relish being the one that brought it on. I hardened myself to the moment, all the same. She deserved to feel pain for what she’d done. She deserved to pay a price. Distantly, I knew my anger would probably cool with time—that I’d want to try to work with her to heal the wound we were tearing open. But right now, she needed to understand the cost of what she’d done.

  I saw a police cruiser drive up to the house from the window. It didn’t have its sirens on, and the officers who got out didn’t look like they were in a hurry. That was good. I didn’t want my mom to be scared when they took her.

  She went without a fight, letting them cuff her and take her into the back of the car. The female officer stayed behind on the porch to talk to me, and Tristan—who had come down from my room when the police arrived.

  “Is she going to go to jail?” I asked.

  “Some of her crimes were very serious. Stealing prescription medicine from the pharmacies where she worked is a federal offense. And what she did to you.” The woman looked like she wanted to say more, but she seemed to stop herself. “It may depend on your testimony and her lawyers. But in a case like this, she could end up in psychiatric care instead of prison.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You’re eighteen, so legally, you can maintain the residence of this house. I’d need to look into the laws about how your mother’s funds could be used to pay for the mortgage, but—”

  “I’ll worry about all that later,” I said. “Thank you.”

  The officer nodded, heading to the car and driving away.

  It was surreal seeing my mom go in the back of a police car. It was even stranger to know our life as we knew it was done.

  “I should get back home,” Tristan said. “With that out of the way, I’m probably the last person you want hanging around right now.”

  I wanted to tell him to stay, but I couldn’t make the words come. He was already down the porch and far enough that I’d have to yell before I realized it. I didn’t want him to go. I wasn’t sure if that made me an idiot, given everything he’d said and done to me—not just this summer but ever since the hospital.

  I didn’t care, though. He had made mistakes and he didn’t always say the perfect thing, but he made me stronger. I liked to think I helped him, too. Those times with him had been some of the only moments in my life I hadn’t felt like I was just an obligation to someone. I’d actually seen him changing for the better. He had been happier, and I had been part of that.

  “Tristan!” I shouted.

  He stopped, turning to look at me.

  “Would you mind coming to check on me tomorrow?”

  He gave a little salute, then kept walking to his house. Unless I was imagining it, he seemed to be walking happier, somehow.

  I smiled to myself. I could understand why Tristan had done the things he did. The more time I had to process, the more I could see that he was just trying to protect me. The only thing that still didn’t sit well was how that is exactly what my mom had been trying to do, too.

  I didn’t know how things between Tristan and I were going to go. I just knew I wasn’t ready to give up on him. Not yet.

  42

  Tristan

  I let myself in Kennedy’s window that night. She was fast asleep, and her covers were up to her neck. I smiled down at her. She looked so painfully pure and perfect sleeping there. I had another moment of doubt. How could I even think
I deserved a chance again with someone like her?

  She was good down to her core, and I was pretty sure my core was shriveled and black.

  Then again, she made me feel like I was capable of something else. With her, I’d started to learn to do the right thing occasionally. To choose someone else before myself.

  I thought about waking her up, but settled on fixing the covers, which had lifted so one of her feet was sticking out. I kissed her forehead, then let myself back out of her window as quietly as I could.

  The next morning, I came in through her window again. She half screamed when I landed with a thud on her carpet.

  “Jesus,” she said, lifting a towel to cover herself. Apparently, she had just gotten out of the shower. She was also walking, already, even though she looked somewhat unsteady on her feet. “When I told you to check on me, I meant by knocking on the door like a normal person.”

  “Force of habit,” I said. I took off my shoes and got on her bed, spreading my legs out and threading my fingers behind my head.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” she said with a sideways grin. Kennedy dug through a dresser and pulled out a handful of clothes, then disappeared into the bathroom.

  I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I was still a guy. No matter how dramatic, sad, or confusing things had become, there was one thing I could rely on: my dick was a simple-minded tool. It didn’t care about anything except the fact that Kennedy was probably naked behind that door. Thankfully, my dick didn’t rule me, so I could get a hard-on without doing something stupid like trying to make a pass at her—especially not now.

  Her mom just got carted off and Kennedy was going to be dealing with legal battles in the near future. She was living alone in a house she probably wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep or afford. Her life had been completely upended. The last thing she needed was—

  There was a thump from the bathroom.

  I rushed to my feet, yanking the door open. Kennedy was just in her underwear, but I hardly noticed. She was groggily rubbing her shoulder.

  “What happened?” I asked, carefully helping her to stand.

  “Maybe I ditched the chair a little early?” She said. “Honestly, I feel kind of…” she blinked a few times, then crouched in front of the toilet and threw up.

  I held her hair back until she seemed to have thoroughly emptied her stomach. I wetted a rag, then helped clean her mouth off before carrying her to the bed. I set her down and pulled the covers up for her.

  She looked pale, too. When I put my hand to her forehead, she was burning up.

  “I felt mostly fine this morning. Maybe my shower was too hot.”

  “You just quit like twenty medications cold turkey. You’re probably going through withdrawal from some of them already.”

  “Oh,” she said faintly. “Should I stay home from school?”

  “I’ll call a doctor and get them to make a house call. And yes, dumbass. You need to stay home.”

  “Mean,” she said, smiling faintly.

  I grinned.

  A doctor came and saw her around noon. He confirmed my suspicions. He said she was going to probably be in for a rough few days while her body got through the withdrawal stage but suggested she could wean herself off instead of quitting outright.

  Kennedy had firmly opposed that idea. She wanted to be done with the pills and refused to take another one of them. I didn’t blame her and promised the doctor I’d keep a close eye on her and let him know if her fever got any worse or if new symptoms came.

  The next two days were the worst. She threw up anything she ate and could barely keep water down, which meant I’d had to call the doctor again. I took her to the ER after the call and got them to put her on fluids. Once they saw the state she was in, they suggested she simply stay at the hospital, but Kennedy wanted to be back home.

  They let me take her back the following morning.

  By the third day, she was still clearly miserable, but she was able to talk, which was an improvement.

  “Any news on my mom?” She asked when I showed up a little after sunrise. I hadn’t been to school in days, but that felt like a lost cause at this point, anyway, so I wasn’t particularly worried. Chances were, I’d end up homeless and kicked out of school in the next couple weeks. I could worry about it now, or I could just let things play out and deal with it when it came.

  I decided to make sure I took care of what was important, which was currently propped up in bed and watching me through red-rimmed eyes.

  “She has a lawyer now,” I said. “They are going to plead some form of insanity, most likely. And from the people I talked to, it sounds like you have some power to decide which way it goes. Maybe you can help land her in psychiatric treatment, if that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” Kennedy said. “What she did was horrible—to both of us. But she’s all I have. The thought of her in prison is just—”

  I nodded. She didn’t need to explain it to me. For all the hatred I harbored toward my parents, I didn’t doubt I’d surprise myself with a capacity for forgiveness if they ever showed a hint of wanting it. The difference was that my folks were happy to keep me in exile and keep me cut off from my sister. I was pretty sure they never gave her any of my letters, and they had changed her phone number almost immediately after they moved. It was easier not to think about it.

  “Do we need to worry about your father?” I asked. “You mentioned you guys have been trying to stay away from him, right? What if this trial catches his attention?”

  Kennedy sagged. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I mean, maybe?”

  “Do you know anything about him? If I had some information, I could maybe try to find where he is. It’d be easier to keep an eye out for him if we knew more.”

  “Martin Stills,” she said. “My mom never really told me much more than that. I mean, I know I was born in Tennessee, too. If that helps.”

  “It might,” I said. “Kennedy… I don’t know the best way to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out.”

  “Okay,” she said carefully.

  “I was a nightmare to you. This summer. The last few weeks. I’m not going to pretend a few good deeds here and there erase all that. So I want you to know I don’t have any expectation about all this. Helping you out, I mean. Once you’re better, I’ll get back out of your life.” The words spilled out of me, and I hated that I knew I was telling the truth. I really would. Even if walking away from Kennedy again would feel like torture. Even if the idea of her moving on down the line and finding some other guy made me want to break something.

  “If you’re asking me for permission to leave when this is done, you’re not going to get it. Like it or not, I want you around. I don’t care if that makes me stupid.”

  “It probably does make you stupid, for the record,” I said.

  She swatted at me. “Asshole.”

  “Guilty.”

  43

  Kennedy

  It was nearly a week after I stopped my medicine before I was well enough to go back to school. Tristan was at my house every day of it, bringing me food and taking care of whatever I needed. It felt like when I’d been sick before and he’d snuck me takeout through the window every time, except this had a different note to it.

  I didn’t think either of us quite knew how to proceed. He still seemed to blame himself for everything that happened. It was like he was too mad at himself to let things between us creep back to where they had been.

  I still felt a slight, lingering resistance in my own heart. I’d given it to him and felt how much it hurt to have it broken. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, but I wasn’t completely ready to dive back down that path again.

  So we just kept moving forward, painfully close, but with an invisible barrier that kept us from crossing that border again.

  I made it through first period without really thinking about how strange it all was. But by second period, my mind was wandering. I wondered what my mom was doing.
I’d been contacted and told I had the option to go visit her, but I wasn’t ready for that, yet. I needed more time. Knowing that I was going home to an empty house made me feel strangely weightless, like this was all part of a dream.

  Marne nudged me in the side. “Are you in a self-pity mode, or would a joke be appropriate?”

  Rumor had spread like wildfire, and the entire school knew everything before I’d come back.

  “Dealer’s choice,” I said.

  Marne wiggled her eyebrows. “I was just thinking it’s probably a good thing your mom didn’t also want a boy. I bet she would’ve fed you penis enhancement pills until—”

  “Okay. Changed my mind,” I said. “Let’s go with self-pity.”

  “So sad,” Marne said, shifting her tone so suddenly it made me laugh. “I’m so terribly sorry for everything that has happened to you.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “So the rumor mill was pretty explicit with the whole mom thing. But I haven’t heard about Tristan. Are you two still enemies?”

  “We’re—I’m not sure what the correct label is. Confused friends, maybe?”

  “Confused friends. Like friends who want to bump uglies, but don’t?”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “It’s not all about sex, Marne.”

  “When your nether regions are as unexplored as the Arctic circle, yes. Yes, it is.”

  I felt my lips tremble with the threat of a smile. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh at that.”

  “Dealer’s choice,” she said.

  Feeling particularly brave, I decided to go sit with Tristan, Cassian, Gage, and Logan at lunch. I squished myself in beside Tristan, having to sit close enough that our thighs were touching. It wasn’t exactly the easiest position to talk to him from, but I thought squeezing in next to Cassian, who was across from us, would’ve sent the wrong message.