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But I meant it. I’m not ready to fall asleep yet. I sit there reading for another hour and hope that, for tonight, at least, maybe he can get some decent rest. After I finally ease my way out of his bed and return to my own, I sit up reading for another twenty minutes to listen in case he has a nightmare.

Fuck it, I’ll sleep in bed with him if it means a chance for him to get some sleep and get a handle on his pain.

When I don’t hear the telltale sounds of a nightmare, I turn off my Kindle and the nightlight and listen in the darkness for a while longer before I finally allow myself to drift into dreams of serving Susa and earning the dimple smile from her.

Chapter Thirteen

There is a memory from my childhood indelibly etched in my brain. I was ten or eleven years old, and my mother and brand-new step-father, Austin, decided they would take me to a Saturday afternoon barbecue at the home of one of Austin’s co-workers. It was supposed to be a fairly important gathering, even though families were included. Something about two of the senior named partners expected to be in attendance, the possibility of new junior partners being identified from the day’s attendees—all the usual bullshit office politics.

Before we even left the house that morning, I received a long, stern lecture from my mother about not getting dirty, not making noise, not being rude, not being whiny, not running around, and definitely not to touchanything—all the warnings about actions on my part that would, no doubt, get me into serious-shit trouble with her on the back end of the afternoon, should I not heed her warnings.

I was no stranger to this lecture, so it left me feeling as it always did—like a failure, like I was dirt, like I wasn’t good enough.

Like maybe if I tried harderthistime, I would make Mom proud of me.

She doled out praise like she had to cut off a finger to generate it: rarely, with a lot of fuss about how hardshehad life, and that I was lucky to have been expelled fromherparticular womb to start with.

The implication always being that if I failed to show sufficient gratitude for my good fortune, it would not bode well for me with her.

I spent that afternoon in a state of abject terror, afraid to go play with the other kids, despite them inviting me to join them, out of fear of what my mom would say. Too afraid to ask her if I could go play because I was scared I’d interrupt her and embarrass her.

Afraid to do much more than nervously smile and nod my head when introduced to adults, limiting my vocabulary toyes please, no thank you, and it’s very nice to meet you sir, orma’am.

Or offering to refill Mom and Austin’s beverages and fetch them food.

That meant by the time the day ended, I was reasonably certain the other kids hated me, or at least thought I was a stuck-up, brown-nosing jerk, and the adults thought I was a darling child.

On our way home, my mother appeared to be in a good mood. She cheerfully chatted with Austin about how well things went, basically ignoring my presence in the backseat. Finally, she glanced back at me.

“You didn’t embarrass us today. You can stay up an extra hour tonight and watch TV.”

I was so stunned I nearly forgot to thank her. Fortunately, I stammered it out and sat there basking in the glow.

Yeah, Iknow. Tell me about it.

I mean, I knownow. I look back on that poor kid and cringe, feel…angry on his behalf.

I don’t even know what made her that way. She never spoke ill of her parents, and she was a completely different person around her older sister than she was with me as my mother.

As I grew older, the warnings and consequences changed.

More pointed warnings, although they did decrease in frequency.

The consequences, however…

I learned the hard way not to grow too attached to things. Those things were what she went after first. It was a lesson I had failed to heed, mistakenly thinking once I was over eighteen that she wouldn’t pull that bullshit any longer.

As I grew older, it took less effort on her part to keep me in line, because she knew she had me by the wallet.

She never beat me, never…I guess I can’t say she didn’t mistreat me, because she certainly did. My childhood was definitely abusive, when I look back with a harsh and honest eye.

But she never denied me food, always made sure I had nice clothes to wear, and that I always had everything I needed for school, be it supplies or tutoring or anything like that.

Appearances to keep up, you know. She couldn’t be seen having a son outfitted in anything less than top-end clothes or accessories.

Then again, those all played into her story that she was a stellar mother. To deny me any of those things would have reflected badly on her. Especially when she used to tell any- and everyone what a shiftless deadbeat my biological father was. How hard she’d had to work to support me when he cheated on her and left us. Before she met Austin, of course.

Looking back, it kills me that I literally felt ecstatic whenever I received the slightest recognition from her for exceeding her expectations. It drove me to sadly insane lengths to try to earn her praise.