Hooked 4 (Hooked #4)(12)

“Molly! Wait!” he called to me. But I didn’t turn.

Finally he grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around. I blinked at him. His face looked so ruddy, upset. I pictured us on the beach: me in that tight, beautiful 80’s dress of my mother’s, he in his handsome, shining tux. “Don’t do this,” he cried to me.

But I couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice. I felt such anger, such resentment. “You paid my loan for me,” I finally said, my voice shaking.

He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Molly. I am. But I knew you needed it. Remember—remember your blackjack money? I used that. It wasn’t a big deal. That was your money, after all!”

I shook my head, blinking at him with such exasperation. “No. That was your money. It was your money that created it, and thusly that is your money.” I pointed at him, at his chest. At his heart. “You had absolutely no right to pay my loan back. I was going to work hard for that money. It was going to come from me.” I knew I was acting so prideful, but I didn’t care.

“Please. Let me explain—” Drew spouted. His eyes were nearly brimming with pain, with fear that he would never see me again.

“No. No, I won’t allow it. Just leave me the hell alone. I don’t need your charity.” I spun back around, removed my shoes and rushed through the cold, hard sand, all the way into the darkness. I ran until I was certain that Drew was out of sight. When I turned around, something like three hundred yards later, I peered into the darkness and discovered that I had done what I wanted in that moment: I had made him disappear.




CHAPTER SIX

I made it back home, finally, after a long night of walking toward the L in my heels and finding the right stop, even in my haze of anger and alcohol. I sat on the train feeling so silly in my beautiful dress. I felt something stick, collected from the seat, on my leg, and I allowed my head to fall back in exasperation. It seemed nothing was going right.

I collapsed into the chair at my kitchen table when I arrived home, throwing my heels into the corner and pouting toward my cat. He sauntered toward me, meowing. He leaped up on my lap and tapped his nose onto mine. “I know, I know, cat. I liked him, too.”

I removed the dress and walked naked through my apartment, feeling the dead weight of disappointment on my shoulders. I hadn’t fallen in love with anyone maybe ever, but this had been the closest time. I had felt like I could actually know him, maybe. I had felt like maybe I could change him, make him into a boyfriend—rather than a player. But I had been wrong, just as I’d been wrong so many, many times over the years.

I poured myself a glass of wine, feeling sad for myself. I sipped it, wondering what had happened after I’d left the nice restaurant. I wondered if Drew had allowed the food to rot on the table, if he’d run home as well. Back to his empty hotel. I wondered if he’d found another woman, a nobody to sleep with that night, even as I slept alone in my apartment.

As I sat there, feeling sorry for myself, I dove into many, countless other things—other things to feel sad about. I felt so many things at once, so certain I was that I was about to lose my home in Chicago. No matter what, there would be another bill. No matter what, there would be another * to walk all over me.

I had another glass of wine and felt my head spin around, over and over, as I listened to the beeping and traffic from the street. I dialed the number almost without thinking, and placed the phone against my temple.

Her voice on the other end of the line was strained, perhaps drunk, as well.

“Hello?”

I paused before I answered. I heard so many things in her hello. I heard panic; I heard sadness. I heard the image of the woman I would ultimately be unless I worked hard for a different life.

“Hello?” she tried again. She sounded like she’d been crying.

“Mom?” I whispered back. I hadn’t heard her voice in months.

“Molly,” my mother said. Her voice felt comfortable then. Like something I’d known my entire life. Like the way you know what pop tarts taste like before you taste them; like the way you know what your home smells like before you enter.

“How are you?” I tried. I wasn’t going to tell her I was going to fail in Chicago. I wasn’t ready to hear her disdain.

“I’m—I’m fine, darling. Just fine.” She sniffed, making me worried.

“Mom. What’s going on? You sound upset.”

“No, no. Honey. It’s just that me and Brett broke up, is all.” Brett had been her boyfriend of the previous two years. I had met him a few times, but I’d never liked him a great deal. A beer belly and a raucous laugh.

“When did this happen?”

“Two weeks ago. I know. It’s pathetic, me crying at home every night. I just feel like my life is over, you know? I mean. You probably can’t imagine. You’re up in Chicago, living the life of your dreams.” My mother sniffed. “You are okay, aren’t you honey? You don’t normally call this late.”

At the end of her sentence, I could almost hear her say the words: “You never even call at all.” But she didn’t. I could have used this against her as well. Neither of us dialed the phone. It was the way we worked. Too much had happened.

“You’re not pathetic, mom. I was just calling to say hi.” I felt all the strain, all the terror in my heart begin to dissipate as I spoke to her, listening to her voice. “Sometimes, I just have to hear my mother’s voice. Sometimes, that’s the only thing that I need.”