"This thing with Sawyer… It goes really deep. There might not be an outcome that makes anyone happy. Just remember that Sawyer's not…he hasn't had it easy. I don't know that this situation is healable." Rajesh gently tugs the flyer out of my hand, his thumb brushing over my fingers. But I can't look at him because I'm fucking losing it. I want to reach across the counter and shake the entire story out of him. His words are crushing the hope that was floating under the fear regarding my mom's involvement. The hope that said maybe if I can get this whole thing cleared up, Sawyer and I can be together for real. Rajesh squeezes my hand before sliding his own away. "If it helps, I'm team Quinn all the way."
"Thanks." I turn without another word because I have to get out to my car before I break down.
By the time I make it to my parents' house, my breakdown is over. I'm composed.
I'm composed, and I'm furious.
My blood is ice cold and so is the expression I greet my mother with. She's in the second-level sitting room, dressed in a pantsuit with freaking pearls. My father's reading a book in a lounger across the room. He glances up when I enter, smiling. "Hey, sugar."
But my eyes are all for my mother. "What is the deal with you and Sawyer?"
She clears her throat, studying her nails before meeting my gaze. "If you aren't here to apologize for your abysmal behavior last night, then perhaps you should simply go."
"Girls, what's going on?" My dad's face is puzzled, and it looks genuine, but…
"Do you know, too?" I demand.
"Know what?" He glances from me to my mother and back again.
"Jack, why don't you go… I don't know. Sneak one of your cigarettes," my mom says, waving a hand toward the door. "Let Quinn and me have some girl time."
Girl time. The phrase sounds gross coming from her. "What she means, Dad," I say, "is that she fucked up and doesn't want you to know about it."
"Language!" She shakes her head.
"Yeah, that's what's upsetting."
"What's upsetting," she says, "is that your father isn't denying his filthy habit."
I look at him, pleading. It's the perfect time for him to grow a backbone. The perfect time to call out my mom on her shit. But he gives me a chagrined look—and then keeps his head down as he shuffles from the room.
Again, if I didn't share her same narrow nose and his sharp chin, I would never believe I came from either of them.
I turn toward my mom, still sitting calm as can be, and change my tactic. I let my eyes dip in concern and keep my tone light, friendly. "Mom. I need you to explain what's going on." I sit slowly down on the lounge my father vacated. "Tell me what happened with Sawyer, please, so I can try to understand."
She taps a finger against her lap, not buying it. I lean forward and add, practically choking on the words, "So I can stop wanting Sawyer in my life. Tell me your side of things."
"I'm to presume he's already given you his?"
"I just… I want to make things right between us. I want us to be on the same side." I'm lying so hard I feel disgusted with myself, but I must be growing more convincing because she leans back, a grateful smile crossing her lips.
"It does make me feel better that you'd come to me before believing anything that boy's told you." She says that boy like she's eaten something sour, and for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I actually want to hit my mom. Not only in defense of Sawyer, but also because she just confirmed she's had a hand in whatever secrets he's keeping.
I take a deep breath. Exhale it slowly. "What happened?"
"I told you, trash breeds trash."
Oh my God, I might strangle her. Another deep breath. "And what pushed you into that belief?"
"Oh, it's a universal fact, sweetie." She closes her mouth, pleased, like she's gotten some life lesson through to me.
"And…?" Not the nicest tone this time, but I'm about to snap.
"I told you he was no good, all those years ago, didn't I?" And, when I give as much of a nod as I can, she says, "His father stole from us."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
QUINN
BROCK STOLE FROM us.
I blink. "What?"
"We gave that man every advantage—more than he ever deserved—and he turned around and stole from the store."
"Like, groceries?" I ask, knowing already that's not it. But my mind's spinning, refusing to catch up with my mother's confession.
"Money. A lot of it."
"He wouldn't do that."
Brock would not do that.
He wouldn't.
But… If that's the case, why don't I detect bullshit in my mom's tone?
"This is why I never told you, sweetie. I knew it would hurt you."
She's not wrong. I'm in pain. My heart. My stomach. My mind. "I don't understand…" Then, maybe, I start to. Slowly. "He…didn't go to jail, did he? I would've heard about that." And I saw him the other day. And Sawyer…not that he would've told me, but I would've known if it was something like that.
My mom stays quiet.
"Mom. Tell me what I'm missing."
"No, he didn't go to jail. I told him he had two choices: leave town or I'd press charges." She leans back, her features somewhere between placid and smug.
"You're the reason they left?" Something sharp and hot flames through my veins, but I'm having trouble placing what it is. Anger? Check. Disappointment? Check. But there's something else, something I haven't grasped yet…
"He's lucky for my kindness." Her expression doesn't waver, no sign of remorse whatsoever.
"Your kindness?" I gape at her. Part of me knows she's right. The other part…refuses to acknowledge a single thing that would ever place me on her side in any situation.
"He embezzled from us. From you. Was I supposed to pat him on the back and tell him it didn't matter? That isn't how life works."
"Um, considering I was in love with his son? Yeah, back patting all around." I hear the words as they leave my mouth; I hear how crazy I sound. What Brock did was… I pause, waiting for it to truly sink in.
What he did was wrong.
God, it was so wrong. He was like family to me. But… I can't find the anger I should maybe feel for him. This is a circumstance of the heart, not of logic, and I can't stomach any of it. I can't make sense of what I'm learning. Not if it places Brock in a negative light and my mother as someone who was wronged. It doesn't add up.
It's like I need Brock's help figuring it out.
Because Brock was never too busy to help me with math homework. Brock was never too busy to play board games, or card games. Hell, he taught me how to play poker and then tied it into math lessons. Brock was never too busy to ask me about the things in life I cared about—like flowers, or art, or ice cream flavors—the way my mother was.
"Really, sweetie," she says, dryly. "You've been apart from the man for longer than you even knew him. What does it still matter now?"
What does it matter now?
I want to tear at my hair. How does she not get this?
"Are you a fucking robot? God, Mom. Years don't erase the fact that you love someone." I swallow against the ball of tears rising in my throat from all the memories. "He was always there for me. Brock was more of a parent to me than you've ever been."
"Quinn." She jolts as though I've slapped her and then stares at me, not even blinking, a soured shape returning to her mouth. "He broke the law. He worked his way up the ranks—higher than his lack of education could ever have allowed, which, for the record, I told your father was a mistake—and he swindled us for over a hundred thousand dollars."
"You still didn't… Wait. What?" I break off, rocked when what she's said makes its way through my mind. "A hundred thousand dollars?"
An image I hate flashes through my mind: Brock standing in a circle of piles and piles of cash. It leaves a biting sort of taste at the back of my throat.
But it doesn't makes sense.
It doesn't sound like something Brock would ever d
o.
"How did you know it was him? Not somebody else?"
She rolls her eyes. "We hired an investigator, obviously. She collected the evidence we needed to send him away for a long time."
"You investigated Brock?" It hurts, a lot, in my stomach for so many reasons. "You couldn't have talked to him about it? Or at least me?"
"Business decisions can be tough sometimes—"
"And what? It wasn't personal?" I spit. "That's such a bullshit excuse—it's always personal."
She brushes an invisible fleck of nothing from her pant leg, and when she meets my gaze again, her eyes flash. "Actually, it was personal. To me. To your father. To you. Brock took our trust and spit on it."
Brock's face plays on a reel in my mind again, this time, the way he was in the surf shop. Drunk, confused…ruined. My mom did this.
Or… Brock did this.
But he must've been desperate. Brock has a kind heart. He'd never steal that much money if he wasn't desperate for it.
"Why?" I ask. "Why did he do it? What did he need the money for?" Brock's never led an extravagant lifestyle. I just don't get it.
My mother sniffs, lifting her chin. "I don't know."
"You had him investigated. Of course you do."
"Only on our end. Proof that he took the money. I know how he took it. I know he took it in smaller sums over a six-month period." She pauses, maybe to let it sink in. But I'm not sure that'll ever happen. "However, I never uncovered the path the money took once it was out of our hands, so to speak."
"Right," I say, my tone flat. "Because you just wanted him gone. And, conveniently, Sawyer with him. That's it, isn't it? You let it drop as long as he left. As long as it tore me and Sawyer apart."
"I suppose if you want to look at it that way, yes."
Her lack of denial about pushing Sawyer out of my life falls between us like a wrecking ball dropping straight out of the sky, passing right by us and dragging me down, down, down to a place I may never get up from.
I know it's wrong, what Brock did. But…the way my mother handled it—the way both my parents did because, Jesus, my dad must've known, and this realization freaking kills me—what they did was wrong, too.
"As a person, as a mother, didn't you care about Brock's sons at all? They'd already lost their own mother to childbirth. Didn't you care that you were uprooting a family that had already been through so much?"
She doesn't even have the decency to look away. "I cared—I still care—about my daughter."
I can't be bothered to respond to her. I'm not even sure she knows what her words actually mean. Instead, I'm wracking my brain because I don't understand why Sawyer wouldn't have told me any of this. Maybe he was embarrassed? But…he still would've said goodbye, even if he didn't tell me about Brock. There's no reason for him not leaving a note, not calling me, not…something. What am I missing?
And then… I think I get it.
"Sawyer wasn't allowed to talk to me, was he?" I ask. "You took an already shitty situation and bent it to your advantage. You made it part of the deal."
She hesitates, her expression tightening… And then relaxing. "He was not to speak with you, see you, touch you. Nothing." Her tone is confident, self-righteous. "From that point forward, he was out of your life."
"How?" My voice cracks over the simple word. "How could you do that to me?"
"You have a bleeding heart, Quinn. If he'd said goodbye—what good would it have done, except make it even harder for you to get over him? You would have felt sorry for him, for his father." She shapes her expression into something resembling pity. Like it's pitiable that I'd show compassion to people I loved. "You're stronger for it now. For what you've been through."
"You thought it would be easier to let me break completely?"
"I was there for you. I made sure you healed."
"You lied to me." Here it is. The thing I couldn't place my finger on before. And this realization hurts more than anything else, that the most tender moments I ever received from her were under the guise of a lie. "You knew why Sawyer was gone, you knew why my heart was broken, and you could've made it easier. You could've told me."
"It would have made it worse."
"For you, maybe. No, definitely," I say. "But for me? At least I would've known. I wouldn't have spent months losing sleep just wondering why they left. Why he left."
"I'm not the villain, Quinn," she says. "What Brock did—"
"Do you know, the only reason I've attempted to maintain a relationship with you, the only thing that's kept me from giving up on you completely, is the kindness you showed me when my heart was broken." My voice cracks and I blink back tears. "But it wasn't kindness. I was in pain—because you caused it."
"Brock caused it."
"Brock did something horrible," I admit. "But you did something cruel."
"Another way to look at it might be that I cared too much about you to watch you waste your time with someone who wasn't worthy of it. I still do." Her eyes flash, solid with determination. She will never, ever let me be with Sawyer.
Well, fuck that.
"You don't care about me." I laugh at the absurdity of my realization. "You care about the version of a daughter you aspire to have. Which I'll never, ever be."
"You're better than that family, Quinn." She hesitates again. "I've known people like them, from that walk of life. They're…they can be awful."
"I'm not better than that family. I was in that family. God. Look at you. Money oozing out of your pores and you're the worst kind of awful."
"Don't talk to me about the worst kind of awful. I've protected you from that your entire life."
"You should've protected me from yourself, then. I can't believe I thought you genuinely cared about my heartbreak when Sawyer left, when the whole time you knew… I'm done with you. Done." There's not a trace of a lie in what I'm saying this time. Her admission cut any tie she had to tether me with.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Ridiculous is letting your daughter sob night after night after night without giving her the sort of closure you could've. Ridiculous is orchestrating things the way you did to ensure my heart broke in the first place. Ridiculous is… You know what? Forget it." I bite back anything else I was going to say. All that matters is that this is over. I'm finished with her, with both my parents.
"Surely we can get past this," she says, sounding unconcerned and making me rage even harder.
"We won't be getting past this now or ever. That's not how life works."
"Don't be so melodramatic." She bounces her foot, a sign of agitation. "What's done is done. Moving forward, we can work something out. What will it take?"
"What will what take?"
"A new car? A house—I'd gladly buy you something better than that shack you live in now since you refuse to live here. Or maybe something better for your last year of college?" Now her eyes are wide and earnest. "What will it take for you to let this go?'
"Let this go?" I stare at her, my jaw hanging practically against my chest. "You're kidding, right?"
"You accepted my apology when I offered you the Jeep a few years ago."
"Yeah. Five years ago. Because I busted you for not sending birthday party invitations to my friends you didn't think deserved them. Also? I was sixteen. What teenager wouldn't take a car for any reason at that point? But this? This doesn't even come close. There's not a single thing money can buy that will ever make me forgive you."
"We threw your sweet sixteen at the club, Quinn. Certain types of people aren't…welcome there."
"Oh my God." I can't—I literally can't—comprehend how we share DNA. "Poor people, you mean. My friends who didn't have Mc-fucking-Mansions."
"Sawyer was there. Gianna, too," she reminds me, like she deserves a prize for it.
"What happened in your past to make you so unbelievably vapid?"
"Vapid? If you only knew the things I've had to…" She trails off, breaking eye contact to study a row of
books—just for show, never been read—against the wall. "I want what's best for you. I always have. Your father and I worked extremely hard to get to where we are now, and I'd hope you'd be a little more grateful for what we've provided."
"Grandmother fell and sued to get you where you are," I spit back at her.
"Yes, your father and I took the money she gave us, but we worked hard every day for years to build our business." She actually has the audacity to look hurt. And, fine. Deep down I know what she's said is true.
"Well, thank you, for paying for my education and giving me my Jeep. Don't forget Grandma left me an inheritance, too, so I'll pay you back in full—right now, if you'd like."
"Family isn't a business transaction. It's a love transaction."
"What are you? A walking Hallmark card? Do you have a clue what love really is?" I'm so mad I'm literally seeing stars in my vision. "Because you're married to a man who's afraid of you—and your only daughter can't stand the sight of you."
"Quinn—"
"I know what love is. Not because of you—or, sadly, Dad—but because of Sawyer. He had my soul then, and even now it belongs to him."
She scoffs. "Letting someone own you isn't the same thing as love. Believe me."
"Funny, weren't you just trying to buy my love with another car or even, hell, a house? That's just another way of owning someone, isn't it?" I stand, my hands in fists at my sides. "And Sawyer owns my soul the way I own his. They're one and the same and you ensured we were apart for four years—even when you saw how shattered I was. Even when you knew how happy he made me." I turn toward the door, so furious I have to walk away now before I do something I'll regret.
"If you're leaving to go to him, I forbid it."
Just when I think she can't surprise me further—she always finds a way. I glance over my shoulder and laugh. "Forbid me? I'd like to see you try."
But then she says, "I still have the evidence I need to prosecute his father. Take one more step out that door and I'll use it all."
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Surf & Surrender Page 18
