“I think I saw a mouse!” I blurt out the first, stupidest thing that goes through my head.
“I think I saw him too,” Cole says with a smile, standing up. “It went out the door. Hey, Jade, wanna come help me look for it?”
Another two weeks tick by, and I’m in love and happy, and it scares the shit out of me. I’m not used to it and fear begins to trickle into my gut. For the first time in my life, I allow myself to feel. I don’t want to lose this. My mom is coming back today and she’s not going to like what she’s going to see.
“I can’t believe we changed the locks,” I mutter, fingering the curtain of what is now our bedroom, looking out and trying to spot her car peeking from the main road.
“She needs to know we mean business,” Graham says simply, putting his shoes at the edge of the bed. He is getting ready for work.
“I’m scared.”
“I told you, Dolly, I’m not leaving you here to take the heat. We’re doing this together.”
I graduated from high school, alone. I didn’t want Graham to come to my graduation ceremony because I thought it’d be too weird after people had spotted us at the coffee shop, and he respected that. Graham and I have been looking for college courses for me in New York, but I was distracted by this moment, and now it’s finally happening.
“She’s here.” I hear myself saying all of a sudden when I see her red Mustang slicing through the landscape of our gorgeous neighborhood. “She’s coming.”
I run to the gate and open it for her, her remote won’t work anymore after we changed our whole security system, and mom parks in her spot next to Graham’s car.
She gets out of her car, without Julio, at least she had the decency to drop him off at home before she came here, and doesn’t even bother to take off her shades.
“Dahl, be a sweetheart and take out my suitcase while I go freshen up, huh?” she says. I follow her with my eyes, Graham by my side. He takes my hand in his, but she still doesn’t notice.
“Oh! Hi, Graham. Hey, did we get new credit cards in the mail? Some of my payments have been bouncing back recently.”
Yes. Because he cut you off, I want to scream.
“Annabelle,” Graham says when she tries to swing the front door open using her keys, but it gets stuck in the hole. “We need to talk.”
She swivels around, finally taking off her shades with a huff.
“Can I just fix myself a drink first? I’ve been on the road for hours.”
“No, you cannot,” he responds curtly. Like her boss. Which I guess he was a few years ago. “You need to leave.”
She throws her head back and cackles like a hyena. “What? Why would I do that?”
“Because your daughter and I are in love, and you’re no longer welcome in our house. Sure, you can stop by for coffee and spend time with Dolly, I respect that, even encourage it, but that’s it.”
My heart stops in my chest. He just said it. So blunt. So matter-of-fact. Love. That word. That word means everything to me and I didn’t even know that I needed love. I feel the tears tickling my eyeballs, but I don’t cry because it’s easier to hold back a sob when happiness is in your heart.
I see the moment my mom digests all this. Her face whitens and her mouth hangs open, almost comically. She slouches, looking like someone just told her Nana died, and balls her hands into fists.
“What the fuck? Dahlia, have you been fucking my husband behind my back?”
This makes me want to scream. He is not really her husband and she’s the one who’s been unfaithful for years. She only cares because she never stood a chance.
“Mother, you were never a real couple and you know it.”
“You ungrateful, little slut!” she screams, running toward me while waving her fists. Holy shit. I have two seconds to decide what I want to do and I don’t want to punch my mom in the face, so reluctantly, I move away and dodge her hand by an inch. She stumbles forward from the impact but doesn’t fall. When she twists to face me again, I notice her slur and the way her eyes are swimming in their sockets. Fucking drunk.
“Mom, I never meant to hurt you. But I knew you weren’t a real couple. I love him, Mother, I really do. And he promised to financially take care of you out of respect for me.”
“He is thirty-two! You are eighteen! Do you realize how sick that is?!”
Oh, come on! She had sex with men with a larger age gap and we all know that, because some of them were casual boyfriends who I’ve actually met.
“Mom,” I say gently. “He’s all that I have. All that I want. Please, for once, don’t be selfish and ruin this for me.”