Page 42 of Penance (Rising From the Ashes #2)

Lily

I n the years between sixteen and eighteen, my mom became a full-blown addict, and I got better at wearing a mask.

I’d given up trying to help her; instead, I’d just started trying to survive.

I’d gotten into a good college on a scholarship, but the money wasn’t enough to cover tuition and housing, so I still lived at home.

Some days, though, I might as well have been living alone.

There were weeks when my mother wouldn’t come home, and I was terrified that one day, someone would show up at my door to tell me she was dead.

It was during one of those weeks that my dad showed up in my life again.

I was coming home from classes on the day he drove in.

It had been several years since I had seen him last. He didn’t look anything like I remembered.

The carefree man I never got to know was replaced with a man who was steps away from death’s door.

Too much alcohol and too little care for life had left him fighting for his.

He was waiting for me on the front stoop, sitting on rotting wood that probably wouldn’t have held his weight had he not been so sick. I didn’t give him a second look as I walked past him up the stairs and to the front door.

“Lily,” he croaked, but I ignored him.

My hands shook violently as I tried to put the key in the lock because for all my masks, I hadn’t quite figured out how not to love yet.

“Lily,” he begged, and I snapped, spinning around to face him. Tears slipped down my face, and I hoped with everything I had that my mother wouldn’t choose that moment to come home because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that seeing him like that would be her end.

I felt it in my bones.

“Mom’s not here. You need to go.” I started to turn back to the door but stopped, looking him head-on, when I said, “Leave her alone. If you never do anything else for me, just leave her alone.”

I never wanted anything from my father except for that. I wanted him to leave my mom alone so she could finally be free.

I expected him to argue—to beg me not to send him away—but he didn’t.

He didn’t say a word as he stood, his movements slow from the sickness ravaging his body, and for a second, I felt bad for him.

But then I remembered that my mother hadn’t been home for days, and she could be dead from an overdose for all I knew, all because of him. It had all started with him.

He took two steps toward his van before he stopped and turned back around.

“I’m sorry, Lily. That’s all I came here to say. I’m sorry for all the ways I’ve hurt you and your mother over the years.”

But the words came too late because I didn’t have it in me to forgive him.

______________________

An hour after my dad left, my mom showed up again. It was like a perfect metaphor for their lives: always close but never close enough. I would have laughed at the irony, but nothing about it was funny when you lived it.

I was sitting on the front stoop, contemplating where it all went wrong for my mom, and always ending with the same answer. Love. That was the crux of it all. It was more addicting than any drugs and deadlier, too, and I promised myself that I’d never fall victim to it. Not like she had.

I’d just made myself that promise when a stranger pulled into the driveway with my mom in the passenger side. She giggled as she stumbled out of the car, not even noticing me until she nearly tripped on my feet.

Her hand flew to her chest, a startled gasp slipping past her lips before she started giggling again. “Oh, Lily. I didn’t even see you there.”

“I’ve been here the whole time, Mom.”

And I had. I’d been there through every heartbreak, every new drug, every bad moment. I’d been there through it all, but I was tired of being there.

“Well, come on,” she said, her eyes surprisingly clear for once. “No need to sit outside and get eaten up by bugs. Let’s go inside. Did you check the mail?”

I had. It was full of unpaid bills and a flier for a local church, neither of which did anything for me, so I’d thrown it away. But I didn’t want to talk about bugs or mail or anything else mundane.

My mom didn’t seem to notice my internal battle because she kept talking as she walked up the stairs, and when the screen door creaked open, I finally found my nerve.

“I’m leaving, Mom.”

The door slammed shut like a nail in a coffin. I didn’t know where I would go, but I couldn’t stay there anymore. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t be a victim of love, and to uphold that promise, I had to leave behind the only person I’d ever loved.

“Lily.” A note of desperation hung in my mother’s voice, but I wouldn’t give in, not this time.

I took my time standing up from the stoop, dusting off my clothes before I turned to face her, the last piece of my mask finally in place.

Tears streamed down her face, eyes bright as the summer sky. Even though the drugs had taken their toll, a ghost of her beauty remained. If I squinted hard enough, I could still see her, but I was tired of chasing a ghost.

I was just tired.

“He was never worth it, Mom. He was never worth any of this.”

She shook her head, her wild hair tumbling around her. Her hand was pressed to her mouth as if holding back a sob, and then she swallowed and said the one thing that ensured I would leave.

“You’ll understand one day, Lily. You’ll fall in love with a man, and you’ll understand.”

She was wrong, though, because I wouldn’t let myself fall in love.