Whatever It Takes (Bad Reputation Duet #1)(21)

He doesn’t sound that awesome, but if he raised someone as cool as Loren Hale, then maybe he’s not entirely bad.

When he swallows, he asks, “Did you confront her about it?” Did I confront my mom about her abandoning you?

I just picture my mom turning her back on me, trying to bury this. I see her never chasing me upstairs. Never chasing me outside. I see her in a new horrible light that I can’t shake. It hurts…

“Yeah,” I say softly, “right then. I asked her about it, and it took some screaming for her to really tell me the truth.”

My voice nearly dies by the last word. I wipe my eyes beneath my glasses, hoping these tears won’t overflow.

He angles closer to me, kind of like he wants to comfort me but still wants to give me personal space. I’m not a touchy-feely person. My mom wasn’t ever that way, and I wonder—I wonder now if it was because of what happened when she was sixteen. Being kind of taken advantage of by Jonathan Hale… I mean, she didn’t say that she said no to him. So I have to assume it was consensual.

But is it consent if she was underage? And the product of this event… is right in front of me.

My stomach knots, the coffee not settling well with these thoughts.

Then Loren says, “I’m sorry you had to find out like that.”

My eyes sear now, tears welling as I realize full-force how much my mom kept him from seeing me. Loren wanted me to know about him.

“I ran away,” I suddenly say, my voice cracking and tears leaking with the words. I’m crying in front of one of the most famous people alive in the world, and I don’t even care anymore. I hate and resent her more than I ever wanted to, and it all hurts.

“You what?” His mouth drops a little, and concern overtakes the edge in his voice.

“I just…I was so mad.” My breath staggers between tears. “I told my mom that I was going to find you, and she couldn’t stop me. So…I hopped in my car and drove to Philadelphia.”

He pinches the bridges of his nose, his eyes tightening closed. “You’ve been here for an entire month? Does Emily know—”

“She knows.”

His reaction makes me feel like I made a mistake—and it’s tearing a hole through me. With my mug between my knees, I cover my face in my hands, embarrassed now and heartbroken all over again and full of combatant emotions that cut.

He stands, and I don’t have the heart to watch him walk around the break room. I just keep talking—trying to explain and justify why I’m here.

“She’s waiting for me to run out of money,” I clarify. “She doesn’t have any vacation days left to leave work, so she can’t come get me.” I sound like the villain. My hard-working mother is left at home while I’m off chasing a long-lost brother, leaving her to worry.

If she worried so much, she would’ve called. A hot tear rolls down my cheek.

Loren plops back on the couch with a box of tissues. That’s what he went to find? “How much money do you have left?” He hands me the box.

I take one tissue. “I’m not going back.” It hits me now. I don’t want to return home. My dad can’t look me in the eyes. I expect after this, my mom will have trouble too.

“Willow,” Loren says forcefully, “how much money?”

He’s worried. My stomach has all but curdled. “Enough for a couple more nights at the motel,” I lie.

His nose flares, upset. “I’ll pay for a hotel tonight and tomorrow, and I can get you a plane ticket back to Maine.”

Tears stream down my cheeks. “No, no,” I cry. “Please don’t make me go back. I just met you, and…” I hiccup and remove my glasses, wiping the fogged lenses with my striped blue and green shirt that peeks from my overalls.

I’ve never felt more alone or lost, and if I go home, these sentiments will only intensify. I can see it—all of it. An unbearable pressure mounts on my chest at this purposed future that may become real.

“Aren’t you in high school?” he asks.

I don’t speak, afraid that if I say yes, he’ll grab his computer and book me the next flight to Maine.

He’s more closed off towards me than before. He shakes his head a couple times. “Your mom is probably sick over this,” he says to me.

“Our mom,” I say, reminding him why I’m here to begin with. I set my glasses back on.

He’s scrutinizing me a little more, his eyes flitting over my features.

I wipe beneath my nose. “And I don’t care what she is.” She can be sick. She can be angry. I feel just as hurt as her over this, and I’m acknowledging my own feelings for the first time in my life instead of burying them to make room for everyone else’s.

He grimaces. “Willow—”

“She lied to me.” I point to my chest. He has to understand how much this hurts. Doesn’t he see? “I don’t want to be around her ever again.”

“How about I call Emily and see where her head is at?” His muscles seem to flex, and he scratches the back of his neck again. He offers me a single weak smile, but I realize that he’s nervous…to talk to her, his mom.

She didn’t want him. He should be so angry. He should hate her, shouldn’t he? How does someone become a bigger person that way, I wonder. How much time will it take because right now I feel like it’d be centuries before I grew a new pair of eyes, a new brain, and thought differently of my mom.