“You’re awake.” Her voice breaks through the night.
“Have been ever since you left.”
Ask her what’s wrong. Ask her where she went.
“Sorry.”
“Why? You want to get up, then you get up.”
“Ooookaay.” The bed dips as though she’s rolling away from me to get up. Need surges through me and I reach for her. Touch her soft fucking skin and pull her to me.
Tell her you want her. That you want to try. “You were making noises.”
“Strange dream.”
On instinct, I run a hand through her hair, lean forward, and press my lips to her forehead. “What was it?”
Before she has the chance to reply, my cell rings. A fist lodges itself in my stomach. They called at night when Mom tried to kill herself the last time. We didn’t find out about Dad until night too. All I can think of is my sister—of something having happened to her.
“Get it.” Bee gives me a light shove as I move away from her. A light comes on from her side of the room, right before I reach my pants and pull my cell out.
My skin tightens when I see my sister’s name light up the screen.
“What’s wrong?” I ask immediately.
Crying is my reply. Laney’s trying to speak but I can’t understand anything that’s coming out of her mouth.
“What the hell is wrong, Laney?”
“I got it, baby. Give me the phone,” Adrian says in the background before he’s on the phone. “It’s your mom, man… She’s gone.”
My hold on the phone tightens. I don’t know if I’m breathing. If my heart is fucking beating. She’s gone. Even without being told, I know she finally got her wish and her parting shot at Laney at the same time. “Tell Laney I’ll be right there. Don’t you fucking leave her alone and you tell her I’m coming, okay? I’ll be right there.”
Without another word, I hit END on the phone. I’m already shoving my legs into my pants.
“What is it? What happened?” Bee steps up to me.
“My mom’s dead.”
She gasps and I wonder if it’s because I lost my mom or because of the cold way I said it—detached with no feeling because I don’t know how in the hell to feel.
“Maddox, I’m so sorry. What happened?”
I shrug. “She did it somehow. What kind of mom would she be if she didn’t kill herself on my little sister’s birthday?”
Bee gives another gasp at that before she reaches out for me. I’m too angry at my mom and the situation to let myself be touched. My skin is tight with tension. I dodge her as I go for my shirt.
“I gotta go. I need to check on Laney.” My voice muffles slightly as I pull the shirt over my head and go for my shoes.
“Hey.” This time, I don’t move when she grabs my arm. “What about you?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She lets me pull away but then steps in front of me. “Let me go with you.”
And fuck if I don’t want that too. If I don’t need it. Someone there for me. Her there for me. “You don’t want to do that. It’s not going to be pretty.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Maddox. You know I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. Let me go with you.”
There are all sorts of reasons I should tell her no. I know Laney is going to want to go back home. There has to be shit to take care of and it’s not like I’ll let her do it alone. Bee shouldn’t have to close Masquerade. This isn’t her business and she doesn’t want ties, but fuck if none of that matters right now, because I need her. I want her, and minutes ago I tried to tell her that I wanted to be with her and didn’t know how. This time, my mouth won’t stay closed.
“Yes,” is all I say and then I pull her to me. She wraps her arms around me and for a minute, I pretend that we’re normal. That we’re like everyone else and we’re not playing this game where we pretend there’s nothing between us when there obviously is. When I want there to be.
“Let me get dressed real quick, okay?” She steps away before getting her clothes. I watch her and wish we could go back to the part where she was taking the clothes off instead of putting them on. I wish this night—no, our fucking lives—wasn’t so screwed up.
Bee grabs a bag out of her closet and puts some other clothes inside. She leaves for the bathroom, probably to grab whatever else she needs, and all I can think is she knows—she knows that we’re probably going to leave town and be gone for days, but she’s still coming.
When she’s all packed, we head for the door. I stop when I get there and look at her. My mom is dead… Thoughts fight to push their way to the surface but I shove them down. I can’t think about this. I just need to push through. That’s what I do. Close the fucking doors inside me and push through. It’s worked for years.
“Thank you.” I push her hair behind her ear because even though I can’t deal with the rest of it right now, I need her to know how much this means to me. “Thank you for coming.”
She blinks, biting her lip when she looks up at me—unsure in a way she isn’t usually. “It’s nothing.”
But both of us know it’s everything.
* * *
I’m so fucking nervous as I walk toward Laney’s apartment. Christ, I don’t know how to do this. Don’t know how to really be there for her. I’ve done a shitty job of it for years. I can’t stand seeing her upset. It makes me feel helpless.
“Are you okay?” Bee asks as we stand in the hallway.
Honesty finds its way out of my mouth. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m not like her. She’s wide open with everything she feels and this is going to kill her. I don’t know how to be there for her.”
Bee takes my hand, then goes to let go as if she’s not sure she should do it. Before she can, I tighten my grip on her.
“Don’t try to be there for her. Grieve with her.”
How screwed up will it be if the truth comes out there. That I don’t feel anything other than anger. That I don’t need to grieve after how my mom had treated us. “I’m fine.”
Bee looks toward the ground. “I’m always fine too… I’ve been fine for years. But we never really are, are we?”
It’s like I feel the walls inside me break down. Feel her break them down and find her way inside, into this place that I didn’t think was there. “I don’t know.”
She looks up at me, really looks at me, and I feel her eyes like she can see deep inside, and wonder if anyone has ever seen me the way she is right now. “Bee…” I take a step forward, reach my hand out to cup her cheek, but the door opens behind us.
“Maddy. She’s gone. She’s really gone.”
I turn to catch my sister as she wraps her arms around me. She cries enough for the both of us, her tears wetting my shirt. None fall from my eyes, though. I only hold her, be there for her, and wonder what it would be like to ever let go like this. Wonder what it would be like, to free myself from the past and help Bee through hers too.
Chapter Twenty-Five ~Bee~
Maddox is quiet the whole way to Stanley. It’s a few hours away, and the entire time I keep telling myself I should speak. That I should tell him it’s okay or ask him if he needs to talk but fear lodges the words in my windpipe. Even though I hate it, I can’t stop myself from wondering if I should be here right now. If it’s my place to tell him these things when he didn’t even want to hear it from his sister.
So instead I sit back and let him drive my car. Laney’s in the car in front of us with Adrian, Colt, and Cheyenne. They’re all so close in a way that’s so foreign to me—when one bleeds, they all seem to. When one of them needs something, they’re all there, and I can’t help but think about the fact that if I wasn’t sitting in this car with Maddox right now, he’d be on his motorcycle alone. They would have each other and he would have no one, and being that person to him fills this void inside me that I never realized was there. As hard as it is and as frightened as it makes me, I see his shattered soul through his eyes and I want to do this for him because even though he may not know it, Maddox has made me feel when I haven’t wanted to for so long. I owe him this.