Page 107 of Burning Daylight

“Your mother needs to sign off on the papers for the health insurance, unless Brooklynn can afford to wait until she’s eighteen and you think she’ll accept it from me.” He hikes his brows.

“I don’t want her to wait.”

I’m not sure he’ll be around by then, anyway, so that’s a risk.

“And your mother?”

My chest aches when I think about her. I’ve been avoiding her phone calls since I’ve been back, not even listening to her voicemails, because I’m angry with her. I’msofucking angry, and getting this space from her just makes me more upset.

But then there’s another part that recognizes it isn’t reallyher, is it? Drugs don’t make a person; they just hide them somewhere we can’t find.

“She needs rehab. I want—” I choke on the words, and I try again. “I want her to get better, to be mymomagain. But she won’t go willingly.”

“Son.” He sighs. “Some people are beyond help.”

My lips twist, emotion hitting me hard and heavy, and I refuse to accept that answer. I know I’ve thought about giving upon her, have tried a thousand times to get through to her with no success, but I can’t just leave her out for the wolves to snatch up and carry off.

“I need you to try.” The words are grit and grime as they cross my tongue. “I’maskingyou to try.”

My gaze is burning a hole through the ground, something thick sitting in the back of my throat and clogging my airways.

“Please,” I rasp.

“So, call her, then.”

“Who, Brooke?”

“No, your mother.”

I unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

I hate that he’s here, hate that all of my playing cards are scattered in front of him and he’s got me on strings like a puppeteer. I hate that he’s about to see how I’m treated by the woman who’s supposed to love me the most.

And more than anything, I hate that I care.

She answers on the first ring.

“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you.” My mother’s flat and void-of-any-human-emotion voice flows through the line.

“Sorry, things have been busy,” I reply.

“Don’t forget why you’re there,” she snaps.

I bristle. I’m annoyed that everyone in my life seems to have strings attached to me they can pull this way or that.

My father’s lips twist in displeasure. “I assure you, Heather, our son is in no way lacking in his loyalty to why he’s here,” he pipes up.

My heart stutters because I didn’t expect him to defend me, and the little boy inside of me who’s dreamed of having him for things like that preens.

The line grows silent. Deathly so. And then a whisper that’s so small and weak it’s as if it’s from another person entirely. “Marcus?”

It’s a thousand knives carving through my chest when she has more of a visceral reaction to hearing her ex-lover’s voice—who abandoned her—than her own child’s.

I swallow harshly, cracking my neck and leaning forward, glancing up to my dad. His eyes are on me, not on the phone.

When he doesn’t reply to her, I lick my lips and start talking again. “I haven’t forgotten, Ma. How’s Brooke?”