Ryke and I slowly break apart, but he doesn’t look guilty, only angry at her appearance.
“What is this?” my mom asks sharply.
“Ryke came over to say goodbye,” I tell her, trying to shrug off the tension that builds with her presence. “I’m all packed, so Mikey should be here in a bit.” I didn’t think she’d stop by. I hugged my mom and dad yesterday at their house.
My mom scrutinizes Ryke’s bare chest. “Why is your shirt off?” she snaps.
“Because I took it off,” he says with narrowed eyes. He finds his T-shirt on my comforter and he pulls it over his head. But he makes no attempt to leave me alone with my mom, too worried about me to do so.
My mom walks over to my bed in her high heels. She fingers the pearls at her neck as she inspects the sheets, twisted like two people possibly fucked beneath them.
“I’m a bad sleeper,” I tell her truthfully, but it sounds like such a lie. “I’ve been tossing and turning at night.”
She ignores me, and her eyes set right on Ryke again. “If I ever find out that you’re with my daughter, I will personally look into your past history, and if you’ve had sex with her when she was underage, you’ll be in court so fast. Do you know what statutory rape is?”
Ryke has an irritated expression like no, I’m a fucking idiot.
“Mom,” I interject. “He didn’t do anything.”
Ryke doesn’t break my mother’s gaze. “You want to act like it’s a fucking age thing, that’s fine, Samantha. Go ahead and do that. I don’t give a fuck what you think of me.”
She inhales drastically, the bones in her neck protruding. “I’ve never been around someone so disrespectful in my life.” She purses her lips. “What did your mother teach you?”
“How to hate my father,” he says without missing a beat. “How to hate my half-brother. Those didn’t really come in handy, did they?”
My mom falters at that response.
“You think I’m the very fucking extension of my mom,” he continues, “but I haven’t spoken to Sara in over a year.” And still, he can’t shake the association. It’s genetically written all over him.
“What about your father?” she retorts. “Jonathan would love to talk to you, but you’ve ignored every phone call, every text—”
“He really told you that?”
She touches her pearls again. “He told my husband, and my husband told me.” I can see that happening. My dad is best friends with Jonathan after all.
“I’m not on speaking terms with my fucking father either. Let’s leave it at that.”
My mom lets out a vexed half-laugh. “He’s going through the hardest time in his life with these accusations against him. Do you know what your word would mean to the press?” Jonathan was accused of abusing Lo, and Ryke hasn’t brought it up to me at all. I’m not even sure if it’s true or not. Out of our group of six, I’m the last to receive any info, the little dot on the outside of the inner circle.
“You need to fucking stop,” Ryke says, truly getting pissed now. “Stay out of it.”
“All you have to do is tell the press that it’s a lie,” she says. “Jonathan’s name will be cleared—”
“You want me to protect that son of a bitch?” Ryke curses, his eyes blazing. “I’m done trying to wipe his reputation clean. He fucked it a long time ago, and it’s not my job to make sure he comes across as a fucking angel to the press.”
“What about Lo?” my mom asks. “He’s hurting from this lie just as much as Jonathan.” She lets out another hysteric laugh. “You’re just like your mother, willing to take down everyone in your wake just to hurt Jonathan. When are you going to stop?”
Ryke looks like he’s been slapped. It takes him a moment to collect himself. When he speaks, his voice is leveled and colder than usual. “I’m not actively trying to destroy my father. I’m trying to move on, and I want my brother to do the same. You want me to go defend Jonathan, but I fucking can’t. I won’t defend someone who may be guilty.”
“He’s not guilty.”
“I don’t fucking know that!” Ryke yells.
My mom scoffs. “You think that lowly of him? That he could do something that heinous to your own brother?”
“I’ve seen him grab Lo’s fucking neck with pure malice,” Ryke retorts. “He used to call me a pussy, and I won national track competitions, so can you even imagine what he called Lo, a kid who had nothing going for him?”