Stay with Me (Wait for You, #3)(135)

She moved her mouth, but I didn’t hear her.

“My entire life has been turned upside down. Again.”

Shaking her head, she looked around Jax’s living room as stringy, ratted strands of hair knocked off her gaunt, sallow cheeks. “I thought . . . I thought I could get the money back.”

“Yeah, by stealing heroin from Isaiah. Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” I was breathing heavy, my heart pounding with fury and a ripe kind of sadness. “You know, he was here. He said you can’t even be in this state. Do you know what that means, Mom?”

“I’m leaving,” she rasped, her gaze flickering away from me, over the walls. She was as twitchy as a cornered mouse. “I got some friends in New Mexico I’m hooking up with. I wanted to see you before I leave.”

She was leaving, like really leaving.

Okay.

Wow. That wigged me out more than I thought it would, which was stupid.

I figured this would have to happen. The only other option was her staying, which equaled certain death, Mack-style. I watched her move in a slow, random circle in front of me, digging at her arm with her dirty nails. I pressed my lips together, cutting off what would’ve been a sob.

“You’re high right now, aren’t you?”

She picked up her pace in the little circle she was making. “I’m not high. I just needed something, baby. Things aren’t good.”

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. So much anger rose inside me, eating away at me like a cancer. And it was a poison that had been inside me, pecking away since I was a little girl. That was nothing new, but as I opened my eyes and watched her scratching her arm as she trekked a path in the floor, I was suddenly too exhausted to hold on to the more razor-sharped edges of the anger. After tonight, I was never going to see my mom again. She would be gone. Over the last couple of years it was like she was dead, but now it would be even more real. Before, I knew she was here or at least in the general vicinity of here, but after tonight, I’d have no idea where she’d be. If she got hurt or something worse happened, there’d be no Jax or Clyde to call me. I’d never know. She would be seriously gone.

I sat down, exhaling.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

My gaze lifted and she was closer now, still pacing and still scratching at what were most likely track marks. I tensed up. “I know.”

She stopped, looking at me like a deer in front of a speeding semi, and then she started walking. Frowning, I twisted around and watched her make her way toward the dining room table I doubted Jax had ever made use of.

There were a couple of sheets of paper.

With trembling hands, Mom swept off the paper and she turned to me. She started forward, stopping a few feet behind the couch. “This is . . . yours.”

Brows knitting, I stood and came to her. “What is it?”

She wiped at her sweaty forehead with the back of one emaciated arm. Temperature was set to ice box in his house. “It’s your life back.”

I stared at her, having no idea what she could’ve meant by that. Then she extended her arm, holding the papers out to me. Preparing myself for anything, I took them and quickly glanced at them.

Then I really took a real long look at them.

The papers turned out to be only three sheets, and one was longer, folded, and as I unfolded it, my breath caught. “Mom . . .”

“It’s yours. The house,” she said, and as I glanced up, she was running both hands down the sides of her cheeks. “There was never a loan on it. I never took a loan out against it. I . . . I just left it alone.”

I hadn’t known that. I assumed there was a loan she was many months behind on and the place would be foreclosed on at any minute. The fact that she hadn’t used the house as a source of additional funds blew my mind. I looked down at the papers to make sure the words hadn’t changed. Nope. Still a deed. Still signed by Mom and some guy whose name I didn’t recognize.

“All you have to do is sign it, but it’s done.” She moved away from the table and then stopped. “The house is yours. Sell it. You’ll get at least a hundred grand for it.”

My hands shook and it felt like the floor moved under my feet. I couldn’t even process this. The house was mine—if this was legit—the house was mine. I could sell it, make back almost if not all of the money to pay off the debt. My life would be back where it was, but better, shinier, because I had so much more in my life now.

I looked up at her, the ball of emotion back again, but this time the size of a basketball in my chest. “Mom, I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t thank me. Whatever you do, don’t thank me.” She swallowed hard. “You and I both know I wouldn’t deserve it.”

My lower lip trembled. “Mom.”

“I love you, baby.” She took a step forward, got within arm’s distance of me, but then backed away quickly. “I know it doesn’t seem like that, but I do love you. I’ve always loved you. I always will.”

I closed my eyes as I inhaled shakily.

“You make me so proud,” she whispered.

My body rocked and my eyes shot open. She was standing there, staring at me as she slowly walked backward, away from me, and I knew I could hug her. It would be the last time I saw her in maybe forever. I should hug her. She was my mom and as much as I hated her at times, I loved her. I would always love her.