Say You'll Remember Me(35)

I collapsed against my pillow and Xavier plopped down next to me in the dwindling puff.

I groaned and dragged a blanket over my body.

He started to laugh.

“Well, you were right,” I said. “We broke it. Ugh, we have no bed now,” I said, my butt hitting the ground.

He leaned over and snuggled up next to me and pulled me into a hug. “We can go to my hotel,” he said, nuzzling me. “I paid for it.”

He started kissing my face. Gentle pecks, like I was some delicate, precious thing. I closed my eyes and let him. I wanted to kiss him back, give him the affectionate little pecks. But when I tried, he turned into it and kissed me on the mouth instead. Two seconds later we were right back in it, right on the floor.

This man made me dissolve. I was cotton candy in his mouth.

This was bad. Bad, bad, bad. I needed this too much.

A small part of me hoped the chemistry would be terrible. Something to give me a reason to fall out of like.

There were no reasons. Only reasons to fall in love.

The kissing took on a serious tone and I was about to suggest that we didn’t really need a mattress with air in it to continue what we’d started, but something cut into the silence. A long, mournful keening.

I broke away. “Did you hear that?” I asked, out of breath.

He paused to listen.

“Is that a cat?” I asked.

“No. It sounds like a person…”

I froze.

“Oh my God, get up, get up!” I shouted.

I scrambled off my flat mattress and grabbed my clothes. I was dressed and out the door in thirty seconds with Xavier right behind me.

I followed the crying to the blackest part of the backyard and found Mom thrashing and tangled in the decrepit pi?ata hanging from the avocado tree.

“Mom, oh my God, what are you doing out here?!”

She was barefoot and in her pajamas.

She flailed against the tattered whatever it used to be and I grabbed her arms and tried to keep her from getting more entwined in the rope. “Mom, stop!”

“I got it,” Xavier said calmly, coming up next to me with some pruning shears. He cut her loose and she tumbled to the floor. Then she scrambled back to her feet and came at me swinging like I was trying to kill her. “You can’t take me! Kidnapper!”

“MOM!”

She didn’t recognize me. She had no idea who I was.

She plowed toward me, windmilling her arms and I managed to grab one wrist, but she pulled my earring off with the other hand.

She was completely hysterical. I had never seen terror in someone’s eyes until this moment. She was petrified, a cornered animal.

Xavier came up behind her and pinned her arms down in a bear hug. “Hey, shhhhhhhhhhhh. You’re okay, Lisa,” he said. “We got you, you’re out. Shhhhhhhh. It’s okay.”

She struggled against him for a few seconds, her wide eyes darting back and forth. Then I watched her power down.

She panted in his arms, her wild hair stuck to her wet cheeks, and he soothed her while I leaned forward on my knees gasping for breath.

What the fuck…

The light in Jeneva’s room flicked on and a window opened.

“Who’s out there?” she shouted.

“It’s me,” I called. “Mom got out.” My voice was shaky.

“Shit,” I heard her mutter. The window closed.

I pressed the back of my hand to my earlobe and came away with blood.

Xavier let Mom out of the bear hug and was holding her gently by the elbow. “We’re going to go inside now, okay?” he said softly. She nodded and let him lead her toward the house, still crying and trying to catch her breath. She was limping and when we got close enough to see in the floodlight, I saw her pajamas were torn and her knees were bleeding.

Jeneva burst from the back door. “Oh my God, Mom!”

My sister jogged down the steps and met them, taking Mom’s other elbow.

“How did she get out?” Jeneva said, walking Mom to the house.

We were all so good about locking the door and setting the alarm.

All of us except Tristan. My sister seemed to realize the answer to her question the same time I did, I saw it on her face.

I stomped to the outside basement entry, keyed the code into the lock, let myself in, and stormed to Tristan’s room.

“Hey!” I threw the door open.

He bolted up in bed. “What the—”

“You left the back door unlocked and Mom got out, you dipshit!”

He looked confused. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean Mom was in the yard, Tristan. She was out there sundowning, wailing like a ghost on the moors while you fucking slept on CBD gummies.” I grabbed a throw pillow from the floor and chucked it at him.

He knocked it out of the way. “I didn’t leave the fucking door unlocked.”

“Yes, you did. And the least you can do is own up to it.”

“I didn’t do it! I wasn’t even the last one up there!”

“Sure. Right. And thanks for poking a hole in my bed too, asshole. Why did you even come home? You’re just giving us one more person to take care of. Thanks for nothing.”

I watched the words hit him and I slammed the door.

I was furious.

The adrenaline was flooding my system now. I was starting to shake. My ear stung, there was blood on my shirt. By the time I got to the top of the steps, I was pinching tears from my eyes.