Page 112 of Saving the Rain

I’m booking you into a rehab facility. The details are attached. I’m gonna send a car and a driver to pick you up tomorrow. It’s up to you whether you take this step for yourself, but this is the last thing I’m going to do.

I love you. I wish you the best of luck with getting clean. But I can’t keep picking up the broken pieces of your addiction.

A shaky exhale leaves my lungs as I press send straight away. The information that she needs is attached. With the help of my therapist,we had already put together a plan for what I would do if this very moment reared its ugly head again.

So here I stand, doing the hard, uncomfortable thing, and the relief I feel is immense.

What takes me by surprise is that she responds straight away. I didn’t expect an immediate reaction, if at all, in all honesty. If anything, I fully anticipated to discover tomorrow that she had disappeared, or turned down my offer, or never arrived at the facility.

God, no. Kayce, please understand it wasn’t your fault. I promise, I didn’t do anything with that money you sent, except to use every cent of it to pay back the debt.

Ezekiel gave the pills to me. He handed them to me, and I took them because I’m always too weak to say no. I’m not well, and you’ve given me an incredible gift, you have no idea.

I’ll go tomorrow. I will.

This is more than I deserve, and I wish I could hug you right now, Kayce. Those pills are my personal hell, and I never did enough to protect you when you were younger. Not like Raine did. I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you in your life.

The sight of his name is like a beacon. A burst of light that obliterates anything else. I hardly notice all the other lines of text my mom has written. What does she mean? My entire chest tightens as my fingers type a reply so fast I fumble over nearly all the letters.

What are you talking about? What did Raine do?

God. She takes forever to reply. I’m chewing my thumbnail, pacing up and down the kitchen with my phone in hand. Each time the screen dims, I tap to keep it awake, eyes fixated like a hawk on the space where a notification will drop down. Please.Please.Don’t let her wander off and not continue what she was saying.

All those cuts, the bruises. It was awful to see every time.

He was so determined to keep us safe that he used to provoke Ezekiel before he got to the house.

My heart is pumping so hard that it feels as if the entire thing climbs straight out of my chest. I’m growing more and more dizzy as I hit reply.

Mom. What the fuck are you talking about?

I need you to be straight with me. What did Raine do?

—

It seems impossible that such a good kid came from a terrible man.

I’m so sorry I ever married him, and that I stayed. Raine didn’t want us getting hurt, so he used to make sure he took the beatings. Made sure we would be left alone. Then, when he was old enough, once he was bigger than his father, he made sure to turn it back on Ezekiel. Threatened him to never touch either you or me again before he moved out.

God, it was so long ago now. He was only a teenager when it all happened. I remember it was sometime around when you fell and broke your wrist.

My body slumps down the front of the kitchen cabinets until I reach the cold floor. The back of my eyes sting as I struggle to read through my blurry vision.

All the times Raine came home a mess.

All those nights, his face was cut to shreds.

All the black eyes. Split lips. Bruised cheekbones.

I thought he’d been fighting other teenagers. This whole time, heled me to believe that he’d been some angry guy getting into scraps just for the hell of it.

When the truth is that he’d been using himself as a shield. He put his body on the line time and time again.

A wave of nausea threatens to consume me.

No wonder he didn’t want to stick around. He’s already sacrificed so much for me. Raine has been there to protect me in ways I didn’t even know or understand—doing it all in secret.

Maybe this is all I deserve, to follow in my dad’s footsteps and spend years up here in isolation. At least that way, I can’t hurt anyone anymore. I can’t hurt him further if I stay here and leave him alone.