“Fair enough,” he said after a moment. “Well, my boy, the choice is yours. But if I were in your shoes, I know what mine would be.” There was the sound of papers shuffling before he continued. “You can take my offer, or you can continue putting yourself into debt to haphazardly patch up a hole in the boat without actually fixing the problem.”
I frowned.
“She needs rehab, Clay,” he said, his voice lower, more serious.
I closed my eyes against the tears that seared my eyes at his words, at the truth in them that I’d hoped to deny until my dying day. My next inhale was stiff and full of fire.
“I don’t expect you to know about this at your age. Hell, I don’t want you to know about it. I don’t want you to have to think about it — which is why I’m trying to…” He paused, like he caught himself rambling. “She’s a functioning addict, son, and she needs real help. I can get her that. We can get her that.”
I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me, no one could see me. But I had to non-verbally communicate to the fucking universe that I couldn’t do this.
“I know it’s not fair. I know it’s hard. You’re too young to have to make decisions like this. But trust me when I say this is just the start of hard choices that will line your life. And what you decide to do with this first one will define you as a man.”
I choked on something between a laugh and a cry for help.
“Don’t turn your back on your mom, Clay,” he continued, his words hitting their intended target as my chest cracked open. “I watched your father do it, and I can’t watch you do it, too. She needs you. And this is as easy as it’s going to get to help her while also being able to keep what you want.” He paused. “Football.”
I swallowed, eyes glossing over as I stared at the floor.
“She hasn’t cashed the check yet,” he said quietly. “I just want to remind you of that.”
Ice seared my veins. “So, you’re blackmailing me.”
“I’m making you a fair offer,” he countered. “One you should take.”
My nose flared.
After a long pause, Cory continued. “Think on it. I’ll give you the night. Oh, and let’s not tell Maliyah about this, okay? No need to involve the women we love in how the sausage gets made. We can handle it. Yes?”
I didn’t answer, but he took my silence as affirmation.
“That’s my boy. Alright, I need to run. We’ll talk in the morning.”
With that, the line went dead, and I collapsed into a heap, mind racing with everything that had just unfolded in the last hour.
And in that quiet dorm room, the weight of responsibility crushed me like a boulder.
He was right.
In so many ways, he was right.
I couldn’t turn my back on my mother, but I also knew there wasn’t much more I could do to help her. I wasn’t there to help her get clean the way I had many times in high school, nourishing her as she went through all the ugly stages of withdrawal before finally feeling more like herself.
And I didn’t have the financial means to help her, either.
I wasn’t pro yet. I didn’t have a job, didn’t have time to get a job. And without the help from my dad, taking out more loans was the only answer — if I could even get approved for them.
Panic seized my chest, but it was a muted stress, like I was already dying and someone just told me as if I didn’t already know. I felt eerily calm inside that overwhelm, as if I deserved this punishment, as if it was my own fault that Mom was an addict, that she was in the trouble she was in.
Even if I could convince myself it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t do that if I walked away from her now, if I turned my back on the opportunity to quite literally save her life.
I closed my eyes, heart squeezing so painfully I doubled over as the cost of this weighed in on me.
Giana.
It would be her on the other end of this fake relationship, now — one I would never be able to tell her about. Maliyah would never know it wasn’t real, either.
To her, to Giana, to everyone, it would be real — it would be me getting back together with my ex just like they thought I’d do all along.
Like I once thought I’d do.
Now, it made me sick to even think about.
I longed to have my own father there, to have him tell me what to do and actually be able to trust it. But he wasn’t a man I admired, a man I wanted to be like.
Cory was.
My head spun, heart cracking more and more with each devastating blow.