Boyfriend Material (Hawthorne University, #2)(26)

I know what he means. I feel lonely in my bones.

“Sure. Maybe we can chat sometime.” I’m not going out to a deserted lake with some rando but talking through text is doable.

I rattle off my number as he enters it in his phone.

As he saunters away, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.

Fuzzy and warm.

Meeting a nice guy. Texting.

Eric. He’s the one who’s made me feel as if I can breathe again.

But those feelings are mixed with him ignoring me.

My phone dings.

My mother has finally responded: 3rd and Chestnut.

That’s on the other side of town, so I call an Uber and find her old Chevy parked half in a no-parking zone, the front tires scraping the curb. There’s a ticket under the windshield wiper. I pluck it out and realize it’s been there four days.

An accordion sunshade rests on the dashboard for privacy. A wall of her belongings in the back does the same.

Frustration gnaws at me. I hate that she lives in her car, and I’ve tried to get her to move in at the house. There’s a small room on the third floor. It’s old and dusty and doesn’t have a bathroom, but it’s a place to sleep. Taylor and Poppy were fine with it, but she refused.

She rolls down the window and stagnant air hits me, old food and unwashed clothes.

“Hey,” she says lightly as she rubs her eyes.

“What’s wrong? You sent me the text that said you needed help. Are you okay?”

She pats at her oily hair, tucking it behind her ears. You have to understand, my mother used to be a beautiful woman. Long, honey colored hair, pretty skin, a killer body.

She looks ancient now. “I’m okay now,” she says. “I haven’t felt good lately. My head hurts.”

“You have a headache?” I dig around in my purse for Tylenol and hand it over to her.

She takes it. “Your face is red.”

“Because I rushed over here from class. You didn’t text me all weekend, and I thought something happened to you.”

“My phone was dead, and I didn’t have the money to pay for minutes.”

My hands clench.

I can’t tell if she’s hungover or sick. “Is everything else okay?”

Her face contorts with confusion, then she nods in a distracted manner. “I was looking for that cardigan, the yellow one with rabbits on it? I think you borrowed it.”

I know the cardigan because she’s owned it since I was a kid. She used to wear it on winter mornings when she drank her coffee and cooked breakfast.

But I never borrow her clothes. And it’s too warm for a sweater.

“I don’t have it. Are you staying cool in the heat?”

She picks at the vinyl material on the door. “I think I’m getting a fever.”

“Let me see.” I feel her forehead and tell her it feels fine. I hold up the ticket. “You have to move the car.”

She grabs it, gives it a look, then tosses it over her shoulder. “Solved that problem.”

I sigh. “Why don’t we go somewhere and get breakfast?” I want to get a good meal in her.

“I’ve got somewhere to be.”

“Where?”

“Anita wants me to cut her hair.” Mom used to cut hair before she worked at the restaurant. She was never licensed, but she wasn’t bad at it.

But Anita?

Mom stays on her couch on and off. I’ve been to her house before. It’s covered in vodka bottles—and cats. About twenty of them. I shudder. Cats are cool, but not that many, plus the smell is horrible.

She shrugs. “Not sure I’ll make it out to her house. You got any money for gas? I’m on fumes.”

I pull out the stack of bills I’d put aside for groceries. “Yeah. Don’t spend this on alcohol. Okay? Get your gas and buy some food.”

She palms it. “I promise. Anita said she’d give me some cash for the haircut.”

I take her hand, gearing up for the most important thing I need to tell her. “Mom. Connor is all paid up. If you keep going back to him, then paying him off will start all over again—”

A long blink comes from her. “How did you pay him off?”

“A friend.”

She swallows, looking uncomfortable as she glances away from me. “I won’t. I mean, I’m trying. I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

She’s just as scared of him as I am.

She licks her lips. “It’s just vodka for now. It numbs things, you know.”

I sigh as I lean in. “Okay, but I can’t do this again with him. I won’t. If you rack up any more debts, and we can’t pay, he’ll hurt me. Maybe you.”

She climbs over the console into the front seat. “Just concentrate on your college classes. Get that degree, then you’ll be set. Don’t worry about me.”

“But I do.” My jaw clenches as she starts the car, gives me a wave, and drives off.

I hug myself, unease dancing down my spine.

Maybe I do need to walk away from all of it. Her.

Emotion clogs my throat and I look up at the sky to make it stop.

I can’t do that.

She isn’t a bad person.

I recall my thirteenth birthday when she surprised me with a road trip to the beach. She took off from work and planned the entire thing. Our car sputtered twenty hours to Gulf Shores, Florida. We stopped in every state and bought a magnet to remember it by. We rented a small house by the ocean, wore bikinis, and held hands as we splashed in the waves, laughing and shrieking. She helped me build a sandcastle shaped like a butterfly. She bought me ice-cream every day.