Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(112)

“How’s Simone?” I ask, putting a few inches between us so I can think.

His expression shutters, but not before I detect the pain and guilt there. “She’s recovering well, physically.”

Everything is tight. The hard slope of his shoulders. The corners of his mouth. The hands knotting at his sides. “There’s a three-day hold on . . .”

He clears his throat before he ejects the next words.

“Suicide attempts,” he says, his thick brows jerked into a frown. “There’s a psych eval and then . . . we’ll see. She, uh, apparently told Dr. Packer she’d like to move back to Cali and live with me. Since she’s only a month into the school year, it shouldn’t be too hard to enroll in her old school. Get back to her old routine.”

I go still, searching his face for clues. “And what about Bridget?”

“She’ll stay in New York to finish Baller Bae,” he says, a sardonic twist to his lips, “and then come back to San Diego. Since I’ll be on the road so much for the season, I asked my mom if she might be willing to move in with us and give Simone some stability.”

His every word only solidifies that my instincts were correct. And on some level, he’ll agree with me, but not at first. Not yet. I have to convince him.

“Kenan,” I say, forcing myself to look up and meet his eyes. “I think we need some time apart. A break.”

He doesn’t blink or even seem to breathe for a few seconds. I expect an explosion once my words have sunk in, but instead he meets my words with implacable calm. “No.”

One word lands with blunt force in the room, but there’s a subtle tightening where he touches me, on my arm, at my face, like he’s prepared to hold on if I try to pull away.

But I have to pull away. “Yes, Kenan, I—”

“I said no,” he cuts in. His mouth settles into a hard line. His face is a stone wall. His eyes, black diamonds, are sharp enough to cut through glass. “No break. No time apart.”

“You haven’t heard me out.”

“What the fuck could you possibly say to make me believe I shouldn’t be with you?” he demands, his voice finally gaining heat, volume.

“Simone not only needs you, Kenan, she needs you to be apart from me.” I pull out of his hands, turn my back on him. “Especially if she’ll be living with you. It doesn’t have to be forever. It can be—”

“Not only is it not forever,” he shouts behind me, “it’s not at all. This is ridiculous, Lotus.”

I whirl around to face him. I can get loud, too. I can get mad. Anger is easier to deal with than the ache even the thought of walking away from him brings.

“Your daughter tried to kill herself, Kenan.” I pound my chest. “At least in part because of me. Because of us. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Lo—”

“Me,” I slice in, our voices clashing like swords. “The girl whose mother chose another man, an awful man, over her.”

“If you would—”

“Me, who never felt first with my mother, who always wondered why she didn’t love me more than she loved him. I can’t do that to another little girl.”

“This is so completely different from your situation,” he fires back. “You think I’m not worried? You think I’m not broken after this? Simone almost . . .”

His voice withers and he exhales a quick breath. I can almost see the emotions roiling inside him, sloshing against his insides, close to spilling out.

“If she had died, a part of me would have, too,” he says, his voice subdued, despairing. “And we have a lot to fix, but us separating wouldn’t fix those things, and what you went through is not what she’s going through. You didn’t abuse anyone. Hurt anyone. What’d you do wrong? Love me? Want me?”

“I’m not saying it’s exactly the same. I’m saying I know how she feels.” I blink at burning tears. “Do you have any idea how many times I wanted to do what she did? To end my life if that would make the pain stop?”

“I’m so sorry, Lotus,” he groans, linking his hands on his head and looking up at the ceiling. “But you have to see this isn’t the same.”

“I’m not talking about the reality of what we’ve done, of our situation. I’m talking about how she sees it. How it feels to her, which is all that matters right now.”

The laser probe of his stare snaps back to my face. “And you think us breaking up will make everything better?”

“I think us taking a break,” I emphasize, “while she gets the help she needs could make her feel like she’s first with you, and that’s what she needs from you and Bridget. To feel like she’s your priority. Like you’d do anything for her, even stop seeing someone.”

“I don’t agree, and I’m not giving you up.” He takes my arm. “Why would you leave me now when I need you so much?”

There’s such dismay in his question, such an ache in his voice. It pricks my heart like a needle, passing through the beating muscle and piercing my soul. I love him with everything. My heart, my soul, my body, my mind. There is no part of me he hasn’t laid siege to. I’m an occupied city. Completely his.

And yet, I keep wondering if my mother felt so consumed by a man, even an evil man, that she couldn’t do the right thing. Couldn’t do the thing that needed to be done. Couldn’t let him go when she needed to, when she had to, but chose her own desires, right or wrong, over her child.