Unveiling Chaos Page 20

  “Who the fuck are you?” he barked. I flinched and took a step back. Shaking my head, I scolded myself as the guy who was most likely her supplier continued to glare. I knew she was still using. I knew—

  “Mark, stop.” My mom’s hand rested gently on his arm, and when his eyes swung to hers they softened considerably. Shifting his whole body toward her, he brought his hands up to cup her cheeks and started wiping her tears away.

  “You okay, Jules?” After a quick jerk of her head, Mark leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose before pulling back and wrapping an arm around her. They were both facing me now. His eyes were only slightly less murderous and my mom’s were only mildly pink instead of bright red.

  She cleared her throat as she squeezed the hand on her shoulder. “Mark, this is my daughter, Naomi.” His eyes widened and when he looked at me again, there was understanding and sorrow in his eyes. “And Naomi, this is my boyfriend, Mark. I’ve been seeing him for about a year.”

  Mark’s arm unwound from her neck and he held out his hand. “Sorry about before, I just… I don’t like seeing her upset.” He jerked his head in my mom’s direction as his hand hovered in the air. I hesitated for only a moment before I shook it.

  “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, you have every right to feel the way you do,” my mom interjected.

  Come. That was how I was going to finish that sentence, but my mother assumed I was apologizing for my words. I gave her a tight smile, not admitting it one way or another. We all stood around awkwardly for a minute or two before my mom clapped and threw on a bright smile. “Do you want to come in? I could make us some dinner? Or we could just talk, I have—”

  I held up my hands to halt her words. “I think I should probably leave.” My mom’s smile dropped but she tried so hard to look like she was fine. It was painful and honestly useless, like watching a candle trying to illuminate a large dark room. It flickered and fought to be seen, but ultimately it only provided enough light to show a little bit of what the dark was hiding. Only enough light to show the pain.

  “Of course. I understand.” Her voice was just as painful and I couldn’t stand there a second longer. “Maybe, we could—” she tried once more, but I was already walking backward.

  “I’ll call you. See ya.” I waved once before quickly bolting down the stairs. But I didn’t move fast enough. As I leapt off the last step, I heard the cries of a woman on the verge of breaking.

  And to my shame, I kept walking.

  I brought the pencil to the paper, making slow and even strokes as I sketched her hair fanning out from her face. My black-and-white portrait was almost complete, and I lost my breath every time I looked at it. Naomi was beautiful. In every form. Whether she was standing in front of me, staring back at me from a picture on my phone, or coming to life as I drew her, she was always beautiful. And she was mine.

  Interrupting my thoughts, three quick knocks sounded from the front door. I was halfway there when more knocks rattled the frame. Frowning, I picked up the pace. It was late Tuesday afternoon, one of my days off. Ellie was having lunch with an old friend, one of her few clean and sober friends that she had lost touch with when she started drinking, Grayson was working, and Naomi had class, so I had no clue who it could be.

  I had just opened the door when Naomi lifted her fist once more. She looked terrible. Nowhere near the bright, happy, smiling girl I’d left on my drawing table.

  “Are you okay? What happened?” I gently gripped her shoulders and appraised her for any physical harm. Naomi brought her hands up to rest on mine and gave them a squeeze.

  “Hi,” she responded softly. “I’m fine.” She tried to sound reassuring, but the catch in her voice pretty much did the opposite.

  “You don’t sound fine, sweetheart.”

  She nodded before shuffling forward and falling against my chest. I easily caught her, wrapping my arms around her and leading us into the apartment. I sat her down on the couch before backtracking to close and lock the door. When I rejoined her she was leaning back and her eyes were closed. Brushing some of her hair out of the way, I placed a soft kiss on her temple.

  “Talk to me,” I whispered in her ear. I felt her shudder before her eyes fluttered open and she focused on me.

  “I went to see my mom.”

  I froze. Even though the answer was obvious, given her state, I still asked, “How’d it go?”

  She shrugged. “When I talk to you or Derek or Alara, I think maybe I can forgive her. But when I got there, when I saw her… all the anger just rushed back. I’m not like you and Derek. I don’t know how to forget it all.” I could feel her frustration as she tried to explain everything she was feeling. Her hair tickled my chin as she turned her head and placed a soft kiss over my heart.

  “Maybe just start by getting to know her. You’ll never be able to see past the bad if you don’t allow yourself to see the good.” I paused. “Why do you suppose it’s different with Ellie?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have no problem talking to her. You came over to give her a job. You took her to her doctor’s appointment. Hell, you’re knitting her a baby blanket. Yeah, I saw that, sweetheart,” I finished as I affectionately squeezed her hip. “But my point is… you’re doing all these things for Ellie, acting like her addiction doesn’t exist. Like it has no bearing on who she is. Why can’t you do that with your mother?”

  She lifted her head and twisted so she was fully facing me. “It’s different. You don’t know the things my mom did. The way she let us down, the—”

  “You think Ellie’s never fucked up? You think she never disappointed me or pissed me off? You think she never stole from me? Or never put herself or me in physical danger because I had to go drag her off of whatever scumbag’s floor she was passed out on that week? You think—?”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “No, you don’t.” I softened my voice. “She’ll always be an addict. And, unfortunately, addiction is a family disease. It’s never going to go away just because you ignore it. And it’s never going to hurt less.”

  “How do you live with it?”

  I smiled and pulled her into my lap. “I look at all the ways Ellie makes my life better, not the single way she makes it difficult.”

  Naomi seemed exhausted as she nodded and rested her cheek against my chest.

  “Tell me something good,” I said after a couple of minutes.

  “Good?” she questioned as she lifted her head.

  “Yeah, sweetheart. Something positive you remember about your mom.”

  She paused and licked her lips as she thought it over. “When I was younger, before she started using heavily, she would throw these amazing birthday parties for me. Like completely crazy, over the top.” Naomi shrugged and a small smile graced her lips. “That’s just how she was, crazy and over the top.”

  “Like mother, like daughter.” My girlfriend’s eyes jumped to mine and widened slightly. She started shaking her head, wanting to deny it but unable to. “Tell me more,” I urged softly.

  And she did. She told me a lot of wonderful things about her mother. She told me about multiple “epic” birthday parties, she told me about her mom making her elaborate Halloween costumes, about the projects she helped her with, and all the thoughtful gifts she gave her. And despite knowing her struggles and seeing the pain on Naomi’s face whenever she talked about her mother’s addiction, I couldn’t help but be envious. How nice it must have been to have a mother, or any parent, care about you that much and take care of you with such attention. I didn’t say this to Naomi because I knew the response I’d get. But I would take it. I’d take her caring, dedicated, drug-addicted mother over my cold, heartless, clean mother any day.

  We’d moved around and were now lying on the couch, facing one another. My arms were wrapped tightly around her, and she was tracing her fingers from my shoulder to wrist.

  “One day,” she began softly, her eyes f
ocused on me. “My mom pulled me out of school earlier. At first, I panicked, thinking something was wrong. I think I was about twelve. I’d just started to understand what having an addiction meant. But that wasn’t why she was there.” I stayed quiet until she was ready to go on. “She wanted to have a mother-daughter day. We went ice skating, saw a movie, had lunch—I remembered feeling so large. I felt so grown-up and that entire day I followed everything she did. I ordered the same thing at lunch, I repeated everything she said, I wanted to be just like her. She was… she was my hero.” Naomi’s sad eyes were still locked on mine. Her heart was breaking, even if she couldn’t feel it yet. “I know what everyone thinks.”

  My brows furrowed. “What do they think?”

  “That I’m heartless. That I don’t care.”

  “I don’t think that, sweetheart.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “It’s a horrible thing. Not to be able to trust your own mother. It hurts… it hurts me to admit I don’t trust her. I wish I could, but how can I after everything?”

  “I understand that. But you’ll also never know the truth if you keep pushing her away. I’ll stand by you, whatever you decide, but I think it will do you good if you reach out to her. Don’t you want to stop being angry? Don’t you want it to stop hurting?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Try thinking about it this way… think of one thing you absolutely love having. One thing you don’t think you can live without.” She was already shaking her head and opening her mouth. “Please, just do it,” I interrupted before she could.

  “My friends.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “Could you give them up?”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “No, it’s not. Having friends isn’t harmful, it doesn’t cause you to steal, lie, cheat, hurt people—”

  “Exactly,” she said with a proud nod.

  I kissed her softly on the head. “But there’s also no one telling you to give them up.”

  “But she should give it up. You just said so. Having friends is not the same thing, it doesn’t hurt anybody. Hers does. There’s no positive thing she gets from it. End of story.” Naomi made a slashing movement through the air.

  “I agree.”

  She made a frustrated grunt. “Then why are we having this conversation?”

  “Because despite all that, you never told me you could give them up.” Frowning, she tried to speak again but I cut her off. “I’m not talking about shoulds and should nots anymore. I’m talking about the physical ability to give up something you love, and I’m asking you to imagine how hard it must be for your mom. That’s what I do with Ellie. And I’m not condoning it, not one damn bit. Do I get frustrated? Absolutely. I get angry, sad, scared, and everything in between. I feel everything you do. I just try to make my empathy matter more. At the end of the day, it has to.”

  Naomi worried her bottom lip. “And if she screws up again?”

  “Then you can rest assured that her body wasn’t taken over by aliens or robots, because she’s still human.”

  She gave me a light laugh but it quickly dropped into a look of fear. “I’m scared.”

  “Good.” I smiled and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “Then you’re still human, too.”

  …

  The next morning I left Naomi lying in bed and went to meet Grayson for breakfast. It shocked me to realize how we spent more time talking about random things than we did talking about Ellie. We had become friends, it wasn’t a lie anymore. And much to my dismay, apparently he and Ellie had as well.

  After we placed our orders, Grayson checked his phone, even though he had it sitting faceup on the table and no kind of signal had come through. He set it back down, carefully poking at it until it was even with everything else on his side of the table.

  “Grayson.”

  “Yes?” He looked straight into my eyes and, like usual, I had no idea what he was thinking. And I didn’t know if it was because he was a cop or because of who he was as a person, but he was the hardest damn person to read.

  “Does she know who you are? Why you’re in our lives?”

  “No,” he said evenly, not missing a beat.

  “So you’re lying to her?” Frustration bled through my words until it seemed to be a tangible thing sitting on the table between us. My intention had never been to deceive my sister.

  “No. I just didn’t disclose the initial nature of our relationship.” Grayson waved his hand between the two of us.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t see the necessity. I’m helping you keep an eye on her.” And that right there was one of the things I admired about Grayson: he didn’t pretend not to understand a question, he didn’t stall. He believed what he thought was right and he lived by it, he was proud to give answers because he didn’t live his life just for show. Everything he did, he stood behind. “Besides,” he continued. “Where’s the lie? You and I are friends, aren’t we?”

  I chuckled, because while he was right, what Grayson didn’t understand was that was a decisively male way of thinking. Ellie wouldn’t see it that way, and God only knew how Naomi would react in a similar situation. Girls had a way of fucking up simple things, of distorting them until they didn’t resemble any semblance of where the conversation started.

  “Yeah, we’re friends. But something tells me Ells won’t exactly see it that way.”

  He shrugged, and if I had just been paying attention to his body language, I might have assumed he didn’t really care one way or another. But his eyes told a different story. They looked a little unsure and scared, which seemed impossible, because even though I’d only known him for a short period of time, Grayson had always been confident.

  A ping from his phone drew both our eyes, and I watched as he carefully picked it up and opened the message. He smiled. It was small, but one of the only genuine ones I’d seen on his ever-serious face.

  “Is that my sister?” His smile fell as he quickly typed out a response and set the phone on the table once more, facedown this time.

  “Yes.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “Just… be careful.” I wasn’t worried about him making a move on her—he was far too upstanding for that. But I was concerned that he’d unintentionally led her on. And of course, that she’d find out the truth of how our relationship started, and be crushed. All my concerns and fears always came back to Ellie.

  He nodded, and I could tell by his gaze, he understood. And if anything, he looked just as concerned about it as I was. “We don’t speak often. But if you would like me to stop talking to her, I will.”

  I shook my head. “No, no. Don’t do that. She doesn’t have many friends as it is.” Grayson looked relieved, and my brotherly instincts were immediately set on edge. “But I can trust that friends is the only thing my pregnant sister will have… right?”

  “Of course.” His answer was smooth and unwavering, but still, I eyed him warily as our food arrived.

  “I’m serious, Grayson. My sister isn’t stable enough for a relationship.”

  His brows furrowed. “Your sister is a strong and capable woman.”

  “I never—”

  “You may not be verbally abusive like your parents were, but treating her like a porcelain doll isn’t helping her either. You’re just reconfirming her fears that she can’t take care of herself.”

  I clenched my hands under the table. “I love my sister. I would never say a negative word—”

  “But how many positive ones do you say?” he asked, his eyes showing more emotion than I’d seen from him in the short weeks I’d known him. Like talking about my sister was bringing him to life. “Everything you have to say about her is neutral or defending against the negative. How is that supposed to make her feel?”

  My brows furrowed. “Has she said something to you?”

  His eyes softened barely before slipping into his favorite neutral, no-nonsense expression. “No. She thinks the world of you. But she internali
zes everything you say and do, even if she doesn’t realize it. Even though you and I, and probably even she, know that your concern is coming from a place of love and support, she also hears it as her not being enough, her not being able to handle it.”

  I stared down at the table between us, trying to understand the abstract of what he was saying. It made sense, but I just couldn’t see myself treating Ellie that way. I told her she was amazing every day… didn’t I?

  I thought back, and realized that to some extent, Grayson was right. I made sure to tell her she wasn’t this or wasn’t that, but did I ever voluntarily tell her what an incredible person she was? Did I ever consider all the ways she could succeed when she presented me with a new idea before thinking of all the ways she couldn’t?

  I always thought I had. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

  We spent the rest of our meal eating in silence.

  While my mind was anything but.

  Ellie had looked so incredibly happy when I left her this morning, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever looked like that. If I ever had that wide-eyed innocence or excitement about something. I wasn’t sure I’d had it in a long while. But Ellie, despite everything, was able to look at something like she’d never experienced a problem before in her life.

  I’d watched her as she knitted and hummed under her breath. And in that one moment, you wouldn’t have known she’d been an alcoholic since she was fifteen, you wouldn’t have known she’d been verbally abused by her parents, and you wouldn’t have known she was about to become a single mother. And maybe that was because she didn’t let those things show. Maybe innocence had nothing to do with never seeing the bad, and everything to do with seeing the good in spite of the bad. Being cynical and allowing myself to love things in halves would never change the chaos of my past, but it would forever ensure I’d never have a complete future.