Page 13 of The Deals We Make

But then, I took in what he was wearing. And the leather cut stating he was an Outlaw chilled me to the bone. Did he know what they did to me?

I force myself to refocus on the cameras on the lot, but I see he has one angled over my mom’s house. He’s been keeping an eye on her too, something I should have done but didn’t think to.

When I ran, I abandoned her and this place in the same way she had threatened to abandon me. Hurt before getting hurt. She blamed me for what happened, when Ti was the one who set everything in motion.

I don’t want to see evidence that he’s the good man I always thought he’d become, even though his cut says different.

“Jesus, Ti,” I mutter as I climb the stairs, dragging my two cases behind me. On the train, I changed into the only vaguely snow-ready pair of shoes I have with me: designer hiking boots that seem to have a love-hate relationship with the New Jersey weather. Still, they got me here from the train station, which means I arrived in the most untraceable way I could.

My feet are frozen. The hem of my trousers, wet. Snow from my mother’s unshovelled driveway seeps over the top of my boots. I slip as much as I lug and drag. By the time I get both bags onto the porch, I’m pissed all over again.

When I pulled up last night, I couldn’t imagine I’d be back here today. I’m not even sure what made me take the two-hour round trip to Asbury Park just to look at my old home.

The key is under the planter, like it always used to be.

Like I said, everything changes, and nothing changes.

I think back to the day Tiberius moved in next door. Their car pulled into the driveway, and his parents got out first. His two brothers and one sister followed. But Tiberius remained seated in the middle.

Nose in a book.

I yelled over the fence to ask him what he was reading, but he was so lost in the words, he didn’t even look up.

His older brother, Malik, smiled at me. “Don’t waste your time with him. He’s boring,” he shouted. From then on, Malik would always tease me in the way older brothers do. Playing pranks on me, yet defending me as fiercely as his brother.

The memory of walking to the car and climbing in with Ti makes me smile.

Childhood nostalgia.

Nothing more.

Except, a sense of sorrow fills me and wipes the soft smile from my face as I let myself into the house. Chemical-scented air fresheners assault my sinuses. They probably have titles like Forest Pines and Sea Breeze, but they make my head hurt. Lord knows I’ve sent Mom enough money over the years—the least she could do is buy some decent naturally scented candles if she won’t move into a nicer home with the cash.

But then, I take in the house. Things are piled on the stairs. I saythingsbecause there is everything from broken children’s toys to multipacks of soup, clutter and mess spread wide as far as the eye can see.

This isn’t just a bit of untidiness. It’s chaos that’s been a long-time brewing.

I unplug the air freshener I can see by the boot rack and make a mental note to remove every other crime against scented humanity I can find.

I’ll also put in an order to my fave candle store and see if they can rush a bulk delivery of them over. It’s not even a reasonablereaction; I don’t know why I think it. Scented candles are not the answer to this, but I feel so completely out of my depth that comfort shopping kicks in by default.

“Mom,” I shout. “It’s me. Calista.”

“Upstairs.” The word is thready. Hoarse.

I hang my coat on the hook, kick off my wet shoes, and trudge up the steps of the split level. The third floorboard creaks. I used to have to step over it when I snuck out at night to meet…

I need to stop thinking about him.

When I step into Mom’s bedroom, my first thought is that she looks like death. The second is that she’s aged dramatically. The third is that she’s almost hemmed into her bed by all the clutter in here. It’s impossible to decide what is clean laundry and what is not.

She takes a breath close to a wheeze. “I don’t need you or want you here.”

Sadly, her words have the exact same bite.

And there goes the echoing thought, yet again, that everything changes but nothing changes.

I don’t know why my parents kept trying to have a child. Ten childless years, so many losses along the way. Mom was forty when she had me. Forty-five when Dad had a heart attack and died as he walked me home from the park.