Page 72 of A Vegas Crush Collection #3

silver & golden events

Reagan

I realize I have no keys. I think I may have left them in my locker when I was trying to make a fast getaway from the casino, so that gives me some level of relief, but I still have to trudge down to the office to ask the building manager to let me into my own apartment.

I know I need to eat something more, but I’m so, so exhausted.

It’s all I can do to grab a box of crackers from the counter before I collapse onto my couch.

And I can’t eat anyway. The threat of a desperate cry is lodged in my throat, my chest gone tight, because I am a big jerk.

I’m a big jerk who just hurt a man I care deeply about.

In time, the ugly cry does come, and it gives me a spurt of angry, frustrated energy.

I rage around my apartment, crying and screaming and talking to myself.

I was on my way to tell him my feelings.

I was going to tell him I wanted more. And here he is, telling me he wants it too, and I’m pushing him away.

He’s not wrong. No matter how I frame it, this is on me. I’m the one giving up something good.

But I can’t go back. I can’t grovel and tell him I was wrong and that I very much do need his help. I’m going to figure this out for myself. I will think this through and come up with a plan. I should go back to Mikhail only when I’m clear and free to be normal, to live a normal life.

He deserves better. I want to be better than this for him. And for myself. Because I can’t live like this anymore. Living in fear has fucked me up and made life into a daily trauma. But most of all, I hate that I’m leaving Mikhail hanging when he’s done so much for me. Again.

There’s no other choice though.

I start throwing things into a duffel bag.

I pull on some halfway-decent clothing, make sure I’m presentable enough for public viewing, and head out, locking up with my spare key.

I book it to Tangiers, slipping in through the back door unnoticed, finding my wallet and keys in my locker as expected.

I definitely can’t face Raul right now. What if he’d listened to me?

Made sure I was protected? No, I can’t think about it anymore.

My time at Tangiers is done. That much I know.

My cell phone was lost somewhere in the kidnapping, but whatever.

I hail a cab out in front and instruct the driver to take me to the airport.

Ninety minutes later, I’m boarding a flight to Columbus, Ohio. I fall into a deep sleep as soon as the plane lifts off the ground.

I do not dream.

My mind is silent.

Like it just needs dark and quiet for a time to reset me back to a level of basic functioning.

When I get to Columbus, I’m ravenous, so I stop for my favorite pizza on the concourse before walking out to catch a cab to my mom’s, shoving hot pizza in my face as I walk.

I eat it all, still feeling hungry as we pull up to her house.

I wait outside for the longest time, wondering if I made a mistake in coming here.

What if she’s not doing well and her problems compound mine?

I take a deep breath in and let it out slowly before climbing the front stairs, knocking lightly on her door, artfully adorned with a wreath of eucalyptus leaves.

When she opens, her dark eyes go wide with surprise.

“Oh, my baby girl.” Seeing I'm about to lose it, she pulls me into a fierce hug—the kind only moms can give. She pulls me inside and takes my bag, tossing it in a corner and leading me to the kitchen table. I sit as she fusses, making tea and warming up food. As I look around, I finally allow myself to take a sigh of relief. The place is tidy. There’s nothing lavish sitting around. There are no signs of mania.

As I pick at a bowl of broccoli casserole, Mom asks if I’m okay.

“I need a place to lie low for a while. Is it okay if I stay here, Mamma?”

“Of course. I miss having you here. You can stay as long as you like, but you didn’t answer my question. Are you okay, Bug?”

I’ve been avoiding her eyes, trying not to lose it, but I look up and see the concern there, and the waterworks start up all over again. I shake my head. “No, I’m not okay. But I need to rest before I can talk about it.”

She reaches out to take my hand across the table, and it takes me right back to that restaurant, with Mikhail holding my hand, not judging me as I told my story. My heart hurts so badly I want to claw it out of my chest. Why do I have to mess up good things?

I eat a little bit of the casserole, at her insistence, and then head back to my old bedroom to crash. And crash, I do.

When I wake up, it’s the next morning, and I’ve slept for something like eighteen hours. The smell of coffee, bacon, and eggs fills the kitchen as I shuffle out, still in the same clothes I was wearing yesterday.

My mom hugs me, her familiar scent and the weight of her body against mine, a huge comfort in my wretched state. “Whoo, girlie, you are ripe,” she says with a wave of her hand.

I’m sure. The last shower I had was at Mikhail’s, and I don’t even know how many hours or days ago that was because the calendar has escaped me at this point. “Sorry, I’ll go hop in the shower.”

She grabs my hand to hold me in place and gives me a squeeze. “I made some breakfast. Figured it would bring you out of your coma. Grab a bite and then you can get cleaned up.”

I nod and take a seat as she loads up a plate for me—a plate I aim to completely ravish since my appetite has finally returned.

“So, my darling, I don’t want to push, but I am curious what’s going on with you,” she says after I’ve eaten a good portion of my food.

I think for a moment. Where to start? Sometimes it’s best to just unload all at once. And for better or worse, I feel Mom is in a place mentally where she can handle the truth now. It’s time.

“Well, I was abducted on Tuesday. I was pistol-whipped and strangled, and pretty sure I was going to die.”

Mom’s mouth hangs open. Shuts with a tilt of her head.

Opens again. Shuts again. I take this as a sign to keep talking.

So, I tell her everything about Henri Sodorov, about the case of mistaken identity.

I tell her about how I borrowed a crap-ton of money from a guy I was dating just so I could stop stripping, only to find out it was Sodorov money.

I tell her how trapped I feel. I hated the casino, but I had to make these payments and still be able to live.

I tell her Sodorov is behind bars for now, but who knows what will happen down the line.

“How did you get into so much debt? Why would you need to borrow so much money?” she asks in confusion.

“Mamma, how do you think you still have possession of this house?”

She still looks confused.

“My junior year, you had a particularly rough patch. Do you remember?”

She frowns. “Only vaguely.”

“Yeah,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Well, the car was repossessed, and the house was about to foreclose. You lost your job and had no way to pay for any of it, in addition to racking up a bunch of credit card debt. I came home and got you into short-term treatment, back on your meds. I consolidated things. I made deals with creditors. But there were some things that needed to be paid right away and neither of us had it. I took a job at a strip club to make some fast cash, but it wasn’t fast enough.

I met a guy and we started seeing each other.

He offered to help, and I unwisely borrowed the money from him. Flash forward to now and here I am.”

I can see the whole array of emotions my mother processes as she takes in the info dump I just dropped on her.

She often doesn’t remember things she does when she’s in the throes of a manic episode.

I don’t expect her to remember, and I didn’t want her to know what I did.

Her mental health has been so volatile that this kind of thing could have really set her on a spiral at certain low points in her life.

But it’s time I give her my truth. I’m allowed to do that.

“All of this…is because of me?” she asks in a clipped voice.

“It’s a choice I made, Mamma. To help you. It’s not your fault.”

“But it is, though,” she says sadly. She makes a face like she’s swallowed something rancid.

“No,” I say firmly. “It’s not. You were not well, and I did the best I could to help. Taking that loan was my own stupid fault.”

My mom’s name is Audrey. My grandma named her after Audrey Hepburn.

She kind of looks like her namesake, I guess, with her pale skin and super short dark hair.

She’s always been slim and pretty, even when she’s crying or raging or having a mental breakdown.

And now, as she processes the reality of this thing I did for her, she loses it.

I mean, loses it. She sobs uncontrollably, her face splotchy and red.

I’ve never seen my mother look like this, like she’s really feeling a real and true emotion that isn’t tuned into paranoia or anxiety or some other mental health frequency.

I let her get it out. And then I go to her side, putting my arms around her, telling her that things are going to be okay. She keeps crying, saying she can’t believe someone would hurt her baby, that she hates what her struggles have done to me.

After a long time, when she’s back to calm, I tell her the most important part. “You know, I think that I’m a stronger person because of all of this.”

“Well, I’m sorry that I did this to you.”

“You didn’t do anything to me, Mamma. You’ve been sick and I love you. I wanted to help.”

“If I’d been med-compliant, maybe…”

We go back and forth like this for what seems like a very long time.

I let her process through all of it. The regrettable emotional salad that must be dealt with while just telling her again and again that it’s not her fault. That I love her. That she means the world to me, and I wouldn’t change my choices because it was the right thing to do—helping her.