“I know the two of you have your dirty sex parties, but I’d hardly say that’s something you’d want to build a relationship on top of,” she says. “What my daughter needs is someone who’s going to be able to support her financially, aid her in her career, and stick around when things get tough. I think that’s not you, is it?”
“How do you know? That sounds a lot like me to me.”
“Very cute,” Kate’s mom says, though I think that might be sarcasm. “I know your type. You think that Kathryn’s going to make a nice notch on your bedpost, but my daughter is so much more than you will ever know.”
“That is not how I see her,” I retort.
“Whatever,” she says, waving me off. “It occurs to me that we’re in a bit of a forbidden fruit situation here, though. The more I tell the two of you to stop seeing each other, the more you’re going to want to, and I can’t have that. What I need you to do is to prove me wrong. I need you to be the grownup, and I need you to end the relationship.”
“You don’t know me,” I tell her. “I care about your daughter a great deal, and I’m not just going to abandon her because you got the wrong impression of me.”
“I don’t care what reason you give, but you are going to start leaving my daughter alone, and I’ll tell you why,” she says. “If you really do care about her so much, it might interest you to know that she’s starting to fall behind on her schoolwork. Her work here at the hospital has even been suffering, too. This is her life. You don’t get to come in and tear everything up and not have some responsibility.”
“I’ve never told Kate to drop out of school or not go to work,” I tell her, but even I know it’s not going to be of any use.
“It’s your presence that’s the problem,” Kate’s mom says. “As long as you’re around, you’re always going to be a distraction. In spite of everything, I think there’s a decent guy in you somewhere. You can’t tell me that you would rather she give up her dreams to be with you, can you?”
“I’ve never said that,” I tell her. “If being a doctor is what Kate wants to do, she’s got my full-”
“Do you have children?”
“What?”
“It’s not really a thinking question,” she says. “Do you have kids, yes or no?”
“No,” I answer.
“Then how can you possibly begin to understand what I’m talking about? When you have children, they become more important than everything. It’s not convenient. It just happens.”
Someone’s going for mother of the year.
“When I see someone like you coming into my daughter’s life and even managing to convince her that hanging out with you, doing whatever it is the two of you do together, I just want to grab you by the shoulders and shake you hard,” she says. “Kathryn has the potential to be a world-class physician and a-”
“Do you ever bother talking to your daughter?” I interrupt. “All of this pressure you’re putting on her to be you when she grows up: she hates it.”
“You’ve got some tone for a young man trying to convince his girlfriend’s mother to sign off on the relationship,” she says.
“You were never going to sign off on the relationship. You’re talking about how you only want what’s best for Kate, but you don’t even know what’s best for her. You don’t listen to her. Next time the two of you are alone in a room, ask her if she really wants to be a doctor. I bet you’re going to be pretty surprised at the answer.”
“I know what she’ll say now,” Kate’s mom responds. “She’ll say that Mr. Felony is her dreamboat and nothing else matters. She will destroy her life for you if you don’t get out of it.”
I’m about to jump right back in, but there’s something about that last sentence that catches me off-guard. It would almost be a compliment if it weren’t such a serious warning.
“I’m sure you’re a decent guy and everything, but you’re not going to remain one of those very long if you don’t start looking after the people you care about,” she says.
I don’t know what to say.
She’s wrong. I know she’s wrong, but what do I say to that?
“I doubt you think I’m all that decent,” I tell her. “I’m just surprised you haven’t called the cops on me again yet.”
“You can form whatever opinion you may of me, but I will not stand idly by and let you take our daughter from the path toward a successful future,” she says.
“Even if it makes her miserable every step of the way?”
“Yes.”
I’m waiting for an explanation or some kind of follow-up, but it doesn’t come.
“You’re trying to make her miserable?”
Kate’s mom shakes her head. “I’m trying not to make things any more difficult than they already are,” she says. “I’ve been through medical school. I know the pressures involved. It’s going to be miserable to one degree or another for a while to come, but that doesn’t mean the goal at the end is any less worth it. If anything, I think you may find it’s more worth it as a result.”
“Do you love it?”
“What?”
“What you do,” I say, “being a doctor: do you love it?”
A suggestion of a smile greets Kate’s mom’s lips, but it’s gone a moment later. “Yes,” she says. “It is my calling.”
“Okay,” I answer. “That’s great for you, but Kate doesn’t love it. She doesn’t even like it. She’s not even all that interested in-”
“Do you know what Kathryn’s first word was?” Kate’s mom interrupts.
I furrow my brow. “No,” I answer.
“It was ‘appendix,’” she answers. “Sure, there was a dropped A, but ‘pendix is still close enough, wouldn’t you say?”
“That tells me she was around a lot of medical talk growing up,” I tell her. “That makes sense, seeing as how you and her father are both in the field.”
“Do you know what her high school project was about?”
“I’m not talking about her past, I’m talking about her present and her future,” I say.
Kate’s mom is shaking her head. “You know all the right words, but they’re not yours, are they?” she asks. “If you don’t know someone’s past, how can you have any idea what their future’s going to look like?”
“I know Kate,” I tell her. “I know that what you’re doing hurts her more than she’s ever going to tell you.”
“Oh, Kathryn tells me plenty,” Kate’s mom answers.
“Not enough,” I add. “Also, she prefers ‘Kate’.”
She crosses her arms. “Do you really think I’m unaware that I’m the bad guy to Kathryn?” she asks. “Do you really think I don’t know if she were to come in here right now and make a choice regarding who she’d like to live with that I’d probably be on the losing side of the conversation? Why do you think I’m talking to you?”
“My guess is that-” I wasn’t really expecting to get through the answer.
“I’m trying to help you see reason and do what’s best for Kathryn, no matter what that may mean for you,” she says.
“That’s what I’m trying to do-” I start.
“But it’s not what’s happening,” she retorts. “What’s happening is she’s off at recess with you while everything she’s spent her life building is crumbling down around her. She doesn’t see it. I’m here talking to you because I’m not stupid. She’s not going to listen to me right now. She will eventually, make no mistake about that. Right now, though, you’re the one she’s going to listen to and I need you to do the right thing for my daughter.”
“Don’t you think it’s her call-” I start.
“Eli,” Kate’s mom interrupts. “She is my daughter. You can do the right thing or not, but if you think I’m going to just give up and let her follow your life instead of her own, you’re out of your grease-brained senses.”
I try one last time to get through, saying, “I’m not telling you to-”
“Leave her alone,
” Kate’s mom interrupts. “If you care about her life and her future at all, you’ll walk out of this room and you won’t stop to talk to her on your way out. If you care about her, you will leave.”
There’s not much to say after that.
Chapter Thirteen
Eight Days’ Turnaround
Kate
Eli won’t talk to me.
After I found out that Mom had convinced the head of security to let her know if Eli came by the hospital, I tried to get him out of there. I don’t know what happened, Mom certainly won’t tell me, but I can only guess that he didn’t make it out of there in time.
At first, he was responding to text messages—only a word or two at a time, but they were still responses. Now there’s nothing.
He’s trying to drop the relationship. I need to know why.
First, though, I’ve got to get out of this hospital.
There’s no way to know for sure whether my mom said anything to security about me leaving early, but with Eli absent, the rest of my life sort of filled back up and I’m tired of waiting.
I meet up with Paz at the ER Nurse’s station.
“Hey, you’ve been kinda quiet the last few days. Everything all right?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I just want to know what’s going on, but mom’s been watching me close. Every time I leave the house, she asks where I’m going, and I know she’s got my dad keeping track of when I leave and come back. I feel like a prisoner in my own life.”
“That sucks,” Paz says, looking over some paperwork.
“Yeah,” I say, deflated. “That sucks.”
She looks up at me. “Oh, sorry,” she says. “What are we talking about?”
“I need to get out of here,” I tell her. “I need to get out without my mother ever knowing. Got any brilliant ideas for me?”
She just shakes her head. “They’ve got us running so understaffed down here, it’s a wonder the hospital’s still standing.”
“Does that mean you’ll help me or not?”
“What it means is I got patients,” Paz tells me.
“What did you and Eli talk about when he was leaving the hospital last week?”
Paz picks up a file and starts leafing through it, saying, “How am I supposed to remember something like that?”
“Because you remember everything,” I tell her, hoping a sort-of compliment is going to be enough to melt the wall of silence.
It doesn’t.
“Listen,” she says, “I don’t know what’s going on, and it’s none of my business. What I can tell you is that that mom of yours ain’t just watching out for him.”
I was afraid of that. “She’s keeping an eye on me?”
“I don’t know if she’s keeping an eye on you or not, but I know I’m not jumping in the middle of a family thing,” Paz says. “People lose an eye doing that.”
“She’s gotten to you, too, then?”
“Call it what you want,” she says. “I can’t help you.”
I’d like to move out of my house now, please.
She leans toward me, saying, “Not for nothing, but I hear the guy on the cameras right now loves his coffee breaks—takes one at the bottom of every hour. You wanna get outta here without your mom finding out, that’d be my bet.” She leans back and shakes her head. Then, in a much louder voice, she says, “Wish I could help you. I gotta get back to work.”
Paz walks off and I look at the clock.
It’s 2:20. I only have ten minutes before the guard is supposed to be off taking his coffee break.
The next ten minutes seem like ten days.
Finally, at exactly 2:33, I make my move. Okay, it’s less of a move and more me just finding the nearest exit and trying not to be seen by too many people on my way out of the hospital.
As I’m getting into my car, I try calling Eli again for good measure, but he’s still not picking up.
The difficult thing about the drive is keeping my speed within the limit.
I get to the shop and instead of parking out in the lot, I pull up to one of the bay doors. Eli comes around the corner, sees my car, and then turns around, but that’s not going to fly with me.
Leaving my car door open, I get out of the car and follow Eli into the shop. “We’ve got to talk about this sometime.”
“I’m not off for another couple hours,” he says, heading toward his workbench. “If you want, you can come back and we can talk then.”
I stomp my foot hard against the concrete of the carless shop, sending a hot wave of pain up my leg. “We can talk now,” I tell Eli.
He stops, turns around.
“What is going on?” I ask. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
“You know, Kate,” he says, “I think you and I are just too different. You’re really into intellectual stuff, and I’m more a work-with-my-hands kind of guy. It’s not right of me to hold you back.”
“Oh, hi, Mom,” I say, waving at Eli. “You look different with the stubble.”
Eli scoffs and shakes his head. “She’s right, though, isn’t she? Before you met me, you had a very different life planned out, and I can’t be the reason you give all that up.”
“Is that what she told you?” I ask.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“If you’re so convinced of that, why do you keep saying the words as a question? If that’s how you feel, why don’t you just tell me?”
“Okay,” he says, “honestly, do you think that I’ve been a positive force in your life? I’m not just talking about the sex or the driving—I mean, has there been anything about our relationship that’s helped your life move forward instead of pushing it back?”
“More than you even know,” I tell him. “Do you really think I’m just in this because I like fast cars?”
He doesn’t answer.
“It’s not about the cars or the racing. It’s not even about the sex, though at least there, we’re getting a little closer to the ballpark,” I tell him. “What it’s about is that I like you. I feel freer when I’m with you, and I’m not ready to give that up just because Mom’s got a problem with it. I’m not a teenager anymore. If you think she’s right, though, maybe it is best if we don’t see each other again.”
“That’s not fair,” he says. “I didn’t ask for her to trick me into meeting her in that room.”
I knew she’d talked to him, but only because that was the only thing that would fit. “What room?” I ask.
“In the hospital,” he says. “When I was on my way out the last time I saw you, I ran into your friend and she told me to head up to the third floor. She said that someone wanted to talk to me. I thought she meant you.”
“Mom was waiting for you,” I observe.
“Yeah,” he says with a sigh. “I may not agree with everything she said, but Kate, she had some good points.”
It’s no longer a want: I need to move out of that house and it needs to happen soon.
“Like what?” I ask, but before he can answer, my patience runs out. “She thinks anything I do that she hasn’t specifically told me to do is a mistake,” I start. “For my mom, there is only one path through life, and it just so happens to be the one that both she and my dad took.”
“Do you want to be a doctor?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I’ve been trying to be one for so long I guess I never really stopped to figure that part out. What I do know, though, is that I don’t want this relationship to end. Of course, if I’m going to end up dating my mother, maybe you’re both right and this is a huge mistake.”
He chuckles.
“What are we going to do?” I ask. “She’s not going to let up. We both know that. I’m not willing to back down, either, but there’s got to be a better way to do it.”
“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” Eli says, “but if something’s making you miserable, doesn’t it make sense to find out why?”
“Absolutely,” I tell him. “I was mi
serable when you just abandoned me without a word, so I came here to find out why.”
“Look, I don’t want to ruin your life,” he says. “I want to help, but it doesn’t seem like I’m doing a very good job of it.”
“Do you really think I’d let you ruin my life? Do you really think I’d give that kind of power to anyone?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but I know exactly what he’s going to say.
“My parents lord over me because they’re insecure and they’re my parents,” I say. “I didn’t give them that power, and I can tell you right now, they’re not going to have it very much longer.”
“What do you mean?”
I want to move out of my parents’ house, but there are a couple of problems. If I move out, the parents stop paying for school, for my car, for everything. Not having a job that pays is going to make bills and rent a lot more difficult to cover.
There’s another obvious option, but Eli and I are way too early in this to even talk about moving in together.
“I just want to get out of there,” I tell him. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet, but I’ve got to move out of that house and get into my own place. I’m never going to be able to think straight, much less figure out what I actually do want to do with my life if I can’t get out from under them.”
“You know,” he says, “a guy I know has been looking to sublet his apartment to someone. If you want, I can look into it for you.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “I don’t have any money, though. I’m going to have to get another job first.”
“Don’t quit your job yet,” Eli says. “I’ve got to see if I can get a hold of him. It’s been a little while since we talked.”
“But the two of you are friends, right?” I ask. “Do you think he might consider something like that?”
“I’m sure he could use the money,” Eli says. “More than that, I’m sure he could use a warm body in the place so the landlord doesn’t try to rent it out from under him.”
“Where is he anyway?”
Eli hesitates.
“He’s in jail, isn’t he?” I ask.
“You might say he’s looking for a longer-term lease if you know what I’m saying,” Eli tells me. I’m not sure how I could misunderstand. “Don’t worry about rent. We’ll figure that out soon enough. I do want to tell you, though, the apartment’s nice enough, but the neighborhood’s a little rough. Is that a deal-breaker?”
Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) Page 14
