“I’m almost relieved she’s gone.” A lump rises in my throat. “No, more than almost. That’s terrible to say, I know that. But it’s like … now I can stop trying, you know? Trying and then feeling like shit when it doesn’t change.”
My whole life I made efforts to connect with her. To figure out why my mother didn’t seem to like me much. I’d never gotten an answer. Maybe now I can stop asking.
“It’s not terrible,” Evan says. “Some people make shit parents. It’s not our fault they don’t know how to love us.”
Except for Craig—Mom certainly knew how to love him. After five failed attempts, she’d finally gotten the recipe right with him. Her one perfect son she could pour a lifetime of mothering into. We might as well have been raised by two different people. He’s the only one of us walking around here with red, swollen eyes.
“Can I tell you something?” Evan says with a grin that makes me suspicious. “But you have to promise not to hit me.”
“Yeah, I can’t do that.”
He laughs to himself and licks his lips. An involuntary habit that always drove me crazy, because I know what that mouth is capable of.
“I missed you,” he confesses. “Am I an asshole if I’m sort of glad someone died?”
I punch him in the shoulder, to which he feigns injury. He doesn’t mean it. Not really. But in a weird way I appreciate the sentiment, if only because it gives me permission to smile for a second or two. To breathe.
I toy with the thin silver bracelet circling my wrist. Not quite meeting his eyes. “I missed you, too. A little.”
“A little?” He’s mocking me.
“Just a little.”
“Mm-hmm. So you thought about me, what, once, twice a day when you were gone?”
“More like once or twice total.”
He chuckles.
Truthfully, after I left the Bay I spent months doing my best to push away the thoughts of him when they insisted their way forward. Refusing the images that came when I closed my eyes at night or went on a date. Eventually it got easier. I’d almost managed to forget him. Almost.