Page 24

“What?” I pull back from the table and shake my head in shock.

This all just went from zero to a hundred in a couple sentences.

“I’m just...I’m just sick of watching people like her make other people feel small. I’m sick of feeling small, and I don’t really want to hear an excuse for why she does what she does because it’s not okay, even if you think it is.”

“Moira, I don’t...I don’t think...I—”

I start choking on my own words, looking back and forth between her and the blinking camera.

I can’t say this on film; it’s going to reveal way too much about me, but I can’t not say it either, not when she’s sitting there looking more pained than I’ve ever wanted to see her.

It takes seeing it to realize I’ve never wanted to see her hurt at all. Pissed off, sure. Defeated, yes—but not wounded, not like this.

I lunge for the camera and shut the recording off. She makes a sound that’s dangerously close to a sob and starts to get up from the table, but I lay my hand on top of hers, and she freezes.

Her fingers have gone cold from the night air.

“My mom is sick,” I blurt.

She squints at me.

“She’s just...she’s sick,” I continue, the words all coming out in a rush as my heart pounds so loud and fast in my ears I almost can’t hear myself. “She struggles...with a lot. She always has, and I’ve always...It’s just been the two of us for most of my life. Sometimes I feel like...like I’m the one mothering her.”

Even now, when I’m so out of control I can’t stop myself from speaking, the word depression won’t make its way past my lips.

My mom never wants to hear that word, never wants it attached to her, like she thinks it will hurt her less instead of hurting us both more when she ignores it.

“Oh, Kenzie.” Moira lowers herself back onto her seat and props her cheek against her free hand, her eyes locked on mine. Her other hand is still resting underneath my fingers.

“I know that sounds fucking ungrateful to say, but it’s how I feel sometimes.”

I’ve already said way, way too much, but I can’t stop now that I’ve started.

“Catherine was the first adult in my life to just...be there, you know? She wasn’t always the easiest person to please, but she took care of me. She made sure I got what I needed. I know she’s...I’m not trying to excuse her, and it’s terrible that she ever called you names, especially when you were an actual child, but...it’s like no matter how bad she gets, I can’t forget the good.”

A moment of silence falls, filled by the rattle of a breeze moving through the leaves in the trees dotting the park, which have started to shift from green to yellow and orange over the past couple weeks.

Blood is still rushing in my ears, and I clamp my jaw to hold back everything else that wants to burst out of me like a leaky pipe threatening to unleash a flood.

“Kenzie...” Moira’s voice is as soft as the breeze. “I...I had no idea.”

I can’t look at her face anymore, so instead I drop my eyes to the table, to where my hand is sheltering hers. Her fingers twitch under mine, and that small jolt of movement is all it takes to break the spell that’s fallen over me.

I pull my hand away and press both my arms to my sides, interlacing my fingers in my lap and squeezing my palms together so tight my muscles ache. Regret singes my skin, panic clawing at my lungs.

I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have lost control.

“Of course you didn’t. I don’t tell people about that.” My voice comes out thick, and I take a moment to gather myself, to stare at my whitening knuckles and do what Catherine always tells me to do.

Rise above.

I lift my head to look at Moira, tilting my chin up a little farther than necessary and narrowing my eyes. This time when I speak, I force some ice into my tone.

“So if I hear about this from anyone else, I’ll know it was you.”

Her forehead creases for a moment before an indignant scoff bursts out of her as her mouth drops open in disbelief.

“Seriously? You think I’m going to—”