The Girls I've Been(86)

I left some of her behind in the bloody sand, banished pieces of her with a bottle of hair dye in a dingy motel, and he doesn’t know it and I won’t ever tell him, but Wes’s love helped me destroy whatever was left of her, because my mother’s daughter can’t be loved or known by anyone.

Natalie’s gone. Nora’s become real. Stranger, more secret things have happened, I guess. But it’s knowledge that is mine and mine alone, and I know the value of things that belong only to me.

I finally turn. Her breath catches, and I know why. I look so much like her, like this. Looking at me must be like staring at a photo of herself at seventeen, and looking at her is like I’m seeing the path I would’ve ended up on if I hadn’t fought my way out.

“You’re so grown up.”

Walking forward, I slide into the chair across from her. I can see the guard in the hall through the tiny window on the door. I wonder how long we have. I fold my hands in front of me, placing them on the table. I meet her gaze head-on, but I stay silent.

Her eyes track all over my face, and anyone else would think of it as a mother drinking their kid in after so long apart, but I know better. She’s searching for clues. For tells. For anything she can glean and use.

“I’ve been so worried. I thought maybe . . .”

“I was dead?”

“On the bad days,” she says, and oh, it sounds so sincere. Her fingers knit together, but I won’t let it affect me. I’m glass. A reflection. Everything bounces off me instead of getting inside. “I searched for you. The best I could, in here.”

“I’m sure you did.”

The little twitch of an eyebrow—they’re not as elegantly shaped in here, a little wilder, just like mine—lets me know I’m getting to her.

“I wondered if they put you in witness protection. Your sister’s been trying to find you, too. Is that where you’ve been? With the marshals? Did you finally get away?”

Relief bursts in my chest. The trap I laid with Duane worked. Lee’s cover is still safe for now. My mother doesn’t know how I got out. She still thinks it was the FBI and the marshals.

“I could’ve slipped my handlers from day one,” I say. “I didn’t bother until now.”

“What are you doing here, baby? Do you need help? Are you okay?”

Her eyes swim with tears that’ll never be shed, because the only motivation behind them is information, not emotion.

“You know why I’m here.”

I take my hands off the table and lean back in the chair, unblinking, staring her down. She breathes, in and out, so damn steady, but her eyes are roving my face again.

And then she leans back, too, the best she can, chained to the table. Those tears are gone in a blink, and the smile that curves around her lips?

That’s my mother.

“The wig’s good,” she tells me as her smirk deepens. “You cut your hair, I hear.”

She’s trying to unsettle me, so I let the silence drag. It’s the simplest trick in the book: Make the mark fill the silence. But it’s also the easiest when it comes to her, after this long. I know she has questions.

But I’m not willing to provide answers. They’ll just become weapons in her hands. Everything always does.

“You never divorced him.” It’s a statement. No, it’s not. I want it to be; I want to be that strong. But it comes out like the accusation it is.

“I love him,” she says, and truer words, I don’t think they’ve ever been spoken. Because goddamn, she really does, doesn’t she? It’s twisted and it’s broken—a fun-house mirror reflection of what I know love is. But what she feels, it’s real. It’s so real, she barreled forward into the gator’s mouth, knowing he might bite down. And when he did, she dragged me into the water with them. Chum for the taking.

“He was going to kill you.”

“But he didn’t,” she says, her voice softening. “It was a misunderstanding. Then you had to go and put yourself in the middle . . .”

“I put myself in front of the gun.”

Her lips press together, the lines around her mouth deepening. There’s no filler in here.

“You’re alive because of me,” I tell her. I want to say it one time. Have it acknowledged.

“I’m in here because of you,” she says, flipping it, making it cut, because it’s just as true.

I shrug, determined to be equally cruel. “I did what you told me to do, Abby. I was a viper.”

“You bit the wrong man, baby.”

“Because he’s your man?”

“Because you’re being foolish. You came here knowing full well that as soon as you walk out of this room, I’ll be letting him know you paid me a visit. I’ll give you a head start, baby, because I love you. But I have to tell him.”

I hang my head, staring at my feet. The feeling inside me isn’t resignation or hurt. It’s a kind of click that locks away any hope forever.

She doesn’t want her husband to kill me. But she also doesn’t want to be on his bad side.

Can’t have both, Abby.

“What are you doing here?” she asks again, and this time, the question is real, there’s true confusion behind it.

I lean forward, and my eyes are wet and my mouth is vulnerable when I finally look up again. Her eyebrows scrunch, that flash of anger gone, replaced by the concern that I know is almost real.