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His head jerked at the endearment, and my heart spasmed because he seemed in pain.
“You went to school with my two little sisters.”
Annnnnnnnnnnd…
There it was.
I didn’t know about his sisters, but Javi had a good deal of pent up (and justified) hostility about the life he was forced to lead versus what his siblings had.
And maybe some of that leaked out on me.
I continued to talk softly when I asked, “What are their names?”
“Julia and Catherine Atherton.”
Julia and Cath were both younger than me. We weren’t friends, but I knew them, and they were sweet.
I didn’t tell Javi that, and not only because he was still speaking.
“His wife left him seeing as he cheated on her when she was in the third trimester of her pregnancy with my older brother. Real catch, that fuckin’ guy.”
He was.
Not.
Javi kept going.
“But she took him back and they kept on building their family. By the way, that bitch didn’t encourage her husband to look after his by-blow kid either.”
I kinda remembered Julia and Cath’s mom thinking her poo smelled of roses. I also kinda remembered it was weird they were so sweet when their mom waltzed around like someone should be rolling a red carpet out for every step.
Though, I’d never seen his/their dad.
“They’ve finally divorced,” Javi shared. “So it’s no surprise, now that she doesn’t have his balls in a vise and she’s not holding his infidelity over him to get her way, he’s blowing up my phone and ambushing me on my doorstep.”
“I hate he’s putting you through this, Javi.”
“I hate it too.”
“Um…how’s your mom now?” I asked hesitantly.
There was no hesitancy in his answer.
“Medicated. Void. Not there. She lives in her head, Harlow. Eventually, it took over. She was manic. She had hallucinations. She’d harm herself. The ma I’d sometimes have when I was a kid was all gone. The best they can do for her is fill her with pills and keep her peaceful. Honest to fuck, I don’t know, when she wakes up, if she even understands she lived the day before.”
Good God, that was so awful.
And seriously, I couldn’t hack this, not having to do it so far away.
“Can I come to you?” I requested.
“Do you wanna?” he asked like a dare.
His question had my head jerking.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Babe, I considered whoring myself so my ma could eat.”