Page 19 of Burning Daylight

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” I say. “There’s nothing Icando.”

She swallows, lifting her chipped coffee mug to her lips before mumbling into it, “You could talk to your father.”

Sighing, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Not this again.”

“I’m just saying?—”

“He doesn’t give a fuck about us!” I snap, louder than I mean to.

Mom flinches like I’ve slapped her, but I don’t take it back. It’s ugly and rotted, but it’s the truth. She just doesn’t want to see it. She never has.

You’d think the guy has a magical dick with the way she’s still clinging to the fantasy of him after everything he’s done.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I say, quieter. “It’s just, what you’re asking me is—” I shake my head. “I don’t want to go to him. Not when he let us go—letyougo so easily. You might not give a shit about yourself, but I still do.”

Her eyes lift to mine, glossy and unreadable. “He had his reasons.”

I let out a dry laugh, but she keeps going, her voice defiant. “And you’re his only son. If you talk to him, he’ll?—”

“He’llwhat?” I interrupt. “Aren’t you tired of this conversation? We’ve been having it for years and it never changes.”

She doesn’t understand. Or maybe she does, and she just doesn’t care. Either way, she just looks at me with that pinched, too-tired expression. “Heowesyou.”

“I have no interest in being part of his fucked-up legacy or anything that comes along with it.” My voice slices through the air like a blade. “I haven’t even seen him in four years, and you want me to what, call him up and demand money to help his bastard child, ex-mistress, and the daughter who isn’t even his? The ones who are supposed to bedead?”

She frowns, her finger jabbing into my chest, the sharp edge of her nail dragging against my shirt. Her eyes narrow, and I brace for it, because I know whatever she’s about to say will hurt.

It’s the drugs,I remind myself.It’s not her.

“I want you to be a man for once in your life and do something to take care of us.”

My eyes sting, a flush of anger burning up my throat.

What does she think I’ve been doing this whole time?

Every scraped-together paycheck, every night I went without to make sure she and Brooklynn didn’t, every stupid,desperatething I’ve done just to keep the lights on, and the fridge full, and her from falling completely apart.

“What goodareyou, Roman?” she continues.

“Don’t call me that,” I spit, running a hand through my hair and gripping onto the roots.

She smiles sarcastically. “Well, that’s your real name, whether you like to admit it or not.”

“Not anymore.” I lean in, my voice low and cold. “The man you seem to worship made sure of it.”

Her pupils are blown out, wide and glassy. I stare into them, searching for any trace of the mom I used to know.

My heart thuds in an all too familiar rhythm. “You’re high.”

She sneers and jerks her face to the side. “My back hurts.”

I let out a breath, heavy and bitter, like it’s been trapped in my lungs for years.

“Every time you ask me to go to him,” I say quietly, “another piece of me dies.”

Somewhere deep inside me, I still want him to be something more. Something else.

A father.