Break Your Heart (14 page)

Should I call Dad? Part of me wanted to, but the other part thought I should wait for her to sober up and ask her what the hell was going on. First things first—I needed to get her home.

After slipping her feet into her shoes, I propped the trailer door open, then darted over and looped her arms over my neck. “Mom, you gotta help me,” I grunted as I lifted her off the couch.

She staggered against me, and I had a flash of carrying my drunk friends out of parties. This was so jacked up. I shoved that thought aside and got her down the trailer stairs as carefully as possible, then loaded into the passenger seat of her car.

The drive to my parents’ house was quiet. Mom had conked back out fast, her head lolling around in her seat. At every stoplight I checked her to make sure she wasn’t showing signs of getting worse. So far it seemed okay and she was stable.

But there was no way I could just drop her off and leave her like this.

That tightness in my chest remained while I hauled her inside. Took her to her bedroom and tugged off her shoes. Marched to the living room and confiscated the bottles out of her purse. Then I spent the next half hour combing the whole house to find another half-dozen bottles stowed in various spots.

I was so sick I almost threw up. Mom was hiding pills? And I didn’t recognize any of the people’s names on the labels. Where had she gotten them from? Had she stolen them?

I propped all the bottles on the coffee table, made a fresh pot of coffee and grabbed my phone. I wasn’t going to wait to talk to Mom before discussing this with my dad. He needed to know, now.

I dialed his number. On the second ring, he picked up.

“Hey, Megan,” he said in his usual jovial voice.

“Dad,” I began, swallowing. I sucked in a breath. “Can you come home? We need to talk right now.”

“What’s wrong?” In an instant, his voice grew sharp. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Hot tears pressed at the backs of my eyes. I blinked. “It’s Mom. I found some pills in her purse. . . .” I paused. “I think she has a problem. She was passed out on the couch in the trailer, and I brought her home. I don’t know what to do.” A sob ripped out of me.

In a clipped tone, he said, “I’m coming home right now. Stay there and keep an eye on her, please. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

We hung up. I put my phone on the table beside the bottles of pills. My head throbbed at the temples.

Dad had sounded angry. But he hadn’t sounded surprised. Like he’d known about this. Like I was the last person to really figure it out. And that realization ate away at my stomach like acid.

“A
nything in particular you wanna watch?” Nick asked me. “I have some movies on demand too.”

I settled closer into the crook of his arm and rested my head on his shoulder, watching as he clicked the remote and loaded it to a movie channel. His dog, Gloria, was settled at the bottom of the couch, totally conked out. “I don’t care. I just want to relax.” I’d done a long shift at the sandwich shop today, and the Sunday postchurch crowd had been a bit chaotic. But since I needed the extra work hours, I took it without complaining.

My feet throbbed. I kicked one leg to cross my other thigh and massaged the tender sole through my sock. Flexed my toes and sighed as I stretched the aching muscles.

My phone buzzed. I took it out and saw a message from Nadia.
Girl, you still alive?? Haven’t seen your face in ages. Where you been?

I texted back,
Just busy, sorry! We should catch up soon.
For a moment I felt a twinge of guilt for not hanging out with her and my other friends as much. But why would I go to some generic party when I could be alone with Nick? No comparison.

Nick settled on a recent thriller release, then put the remote down and grabbed my foot with his free hand. His thumb pressed right into the arch, and I released a long groan.

“That’s perfect, thank you,” I managed to say as I stuffed my phone in my pocket.

“I worked at a restaurant for a while through college. I remember those days. Long hours on your feet.”

“What did you do there?”

“Waited tables, mostly.” He moved up to the pads of my feet and stretched, pressed. His other hand caressed the curve of my shoulder.

“Ever had any terrible jobs?” My voice sounded breathless due to the feel of his hands on me. “When I was in high school, I babysat these demon kids down the road. They did everything they could to make those hours miserable. At least their parents paid me well.”

“Hm.” He paused, then shifted me so I was stretched out on the couch with my back against the arm and both feet in his lap. I shot him a grateful smile. “Not that I can think of. I was too busy with school to have a job, for the most part.”

“Oh, I forgot. You skipped ahead of all the other kids your age. How did that feel? Was it odd, being so young in comparison to everyone else?”

He scrunched his face up in thought. A shot rang out on the all-but-forgotten TV, and a feminine voice screamed. “I got used to it. Was teased a lot of course, especially since I didn’t hit puberty until around when I graduated from high school. I was what they call a ‘late bloomer.’ ”

I eyed the manly scruff on his face, the bold slashes of his cheekbones. “Really? That doesn’t seem likely.”

He crooked a grin, gave a casual shrug. “It was a while ago, so it doesn’t bug me anymore. But I used to will it to happen sometimes. For a long time, I just wanted to fit in instead of standing out so much. It was obvious I wasn’t one of them, and I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. Not a lot of people in my class wanted to hang with someone so much younger than them. And the people my own age were too busy hanging with others in their classes.”

My heart lurched in sympathy. I couldn’t imagine feeling like such an outsider. I’d always had lots of friends. And my parents had encouraged me to develop my social life as much as my academic one.

At the thought of the two of them, my good mood slipped away. I hadn’t talked to either of them in the last few days. I was afraid to, in a way. Which was so cowardly of me, but I just couldn’t. Nor had I told anyone—including Nick—about my mom, and this was all eating away at my chest.

It was one thing when a friend was having such dark personal issues, like Casey and her tragic past with her family. I was there to counsel in those situations, or just to commiserate with a hug and ice cream. Another situation altogether when it was my own mom.

Secretly, I was embarrassed about it, and then ashamed that I felt so embarrassed, and all these feelings were making me pull away from my parents. Our family had always been a “normal” one. We never had issues like this. To say I was left fumbling for the right way to deal with it was an understatement.

“Hey, you okay?” Nick’s brow furrowed. “Your mood changed. What’s wrong?”

I forced a smile. Shoulda known he could read my face. I never was much good at hiding what I felt. “Nothing. I’m fine. It’s fine.” Or I was trying to be anyway. When Dad had gotten home that afternoon, he’d told me he’d deal with the issue. I was trying to put my trust in that.

“So there
is
something wrong,” Nick countered.

“I’d rather not get into it right now. I’d like to enjoy the evening before I go into midterms next week.” Which were also freaking me out, because for once in my academic life, I wasn’t as prepared as I should be.

His face flicked a brief flare of emotion before it smoothed out again. My pulse kicked up in response. I knew
exactly
what he’d been thinking—spending this much time with him the last few weeks had helped me learn to read the nuances in his emotions as well.

My comment on midterms had reminded him that I was a student.
His
student, to be exact, going to take
his
midterm next week. That emotion had been from his conscience battering at him over our dating.

I angled my head and studied him. “Is this going to keep happening, Nick?”

He blinked. “Is what?”

With a sigh, I removed my feet from his lap and tucked them under me. “Every time I bring up school things, are you going to have that . . . surge of regret or fear or whatever it is that makes you freak out?”

His face darkened. “That’s not fair. This isn’t easy for me.”

“Like it’s easy for me? I’m lying about us to everyone I know. I’m holding on to this big secret, and you’re faking like you’re ‘fine’ when you’re obviously not.”

“That’s not the only secret you’re keeping,” he shot back, an obvious reference to my unnamed stress regarding my mom.

I clenched my jaw. Struggled to keep my breathing even. I didn’t want to fight with him. “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready to talk about it right now. I’m still trying to sort it all out.” Frustration poured into my voice, mingled with hurt and fear. “I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and stressed at the moment, and things aren’t quite going the right way.”

His eyes softened and he leaned toward me. Wrapped me in his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m pushing you, and it isn’t fair. I don’t like to be pushed either. I just . . . I hate to see you so obviously upset and not be able to do anything about it.”

I rested my head on his shoulder and tried to shake off my unease. His hands made lazy, soothing strokes on my back. “Can we let all of this go tonight? I wasn’t trying to start a fight or anything with you.”

I felt his nod. “Should I restart the movie?”

“Nah. I’m sure we can figure out what’s going on,” I said with a forced laugh. I pulled away from him and turned to sit beside him. Cupped his hand and let my fingers rub along the lengths of his.

The conversation fell away. Nick got caught up in the movie, but I couldn’t focus. My stomach was a knot of tension, and I kept thinking about our brief argument. I had to be honest with myself. There was dissatisfaction brewing in me, growing larger and larger every day . . . not with the relationship, but with all the secrecy around it.

And it was definitely beginning to impact me.

I got to watch Casey and Daniel together, so happy, so in love. Not caring who saw. And I had to watch my mom change to a person I didn’t even recognize, one who stole pills from people and got high in the middle of the day while at work. In the meantime, I was forced to pretend my life was normal, regular. I couldn’t let on that my whole world was tilting on its axis.

What had Dr. Morrow called it? A mix of bad stress and good stress. Both impacted us.

Two major situations happening to me right now, eating away at me. And I felt powerless to deal with them, unable to do more than roll with the punches. Maybe I should take a closer look at the coping mechanisms chapter to see if anything in there could help me. Of course, I wasn’t going to write my homework assignment on them.

But right now, I was growing desperate enough to try anything. This prolonged distracted state was impacting me more than I wanted to admit. I hadn’t studied much for midterms, nor could I muster any enthusiasm to do so. Every time I cracked open the books, my brain would wander, and I’d close them in frustration. I hadn’t started my psych homework yet, either, which was due early Tuesday morning.

And I couldn’t talk to Nick about any of that. Because he was a prof, and I knew what he’d do—he’d send me home. Wouldn’t see me outside of class, would cut almost all personal contact, which would only increase my anxiety. Frankly, I also didn’t want him parenting me like that. It was so hard to maintain a relationship that felt equal when I was frequently reminded it wasn’t.

Nick held all the cards, had all the power.

Which left me here, all of this emotion and frustration and anxiety boiling over in me with no outlet in the discernible future. Trying to keep everything together and not let this chew me into pieces.

The movie ended, and Nick did a subtle glance at his watch. He shot me a smile. “Well, we should probably end the evening. Morning comes bright and early.” So many words not being said, hanging heavy in the air between us.

I squeezed his hand and tried to act casual, like I wasn’t all mixed up inside. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His kiss was potent, powerful, but it wasn’t enough to fully release me from all my thoughts. I gathered my stuff, patted Gloria on the head and left.

 

“Since I’m sure you guys want to know where you stand in our class so far, I went ahead and graded the midterm exams last night,” Nick told our class on Wednesday morning. His gaze brushed over me, and I saw his brow furrow a touch. My stomach dropped. Shit. That didn’t look good. “If you want to discuss your grade, I’ll be in my office this afternoon. Just drop by and see me.”

Wordlessly he handed back the exams.

Kelly turned to the last page of her pack of papers and gave a heavy sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. B-minus. I was sweating bullets.” She wiped her brow with exaggeration.

Nick reached my aisle and handed me back my paper, no discernible expression on his face. Double shit.

My hands trembled as I flipped through the pages and saw notes in the margins. The last page showed a score of D. He’d also written a note:

 

 

I groaned. Oh God, it was worse than I’d feared. Monday morning, when I’d faced the test, I’d known I wasn’t going to ace it. Peeking at the first page had made me realize I should have fought past my stupid feelings and forced myself to study harder. But I hadn’t realized I’d screwed up this badly.

My eyes burned.

“How did you do?” Kelly whispered to me.

I shook my head.

She made a small sound and reached over to pat my back. “I’m sorry. You should go talk to him about it.”

“I will,” I managed to choke out.

I’d never done this poorly on an exam before. My parents were going to be pissed. Nick was probably pissed too. Well, they could all get in line, because I was pissed at myself.

I tried so hard to push aside those feelings and listen to Nick as he walked through each question, giving the right answers. I wrote them down so I’d know for the final, since it would be cumulative.

After a half hour, he let our class go early. Dallas turned to say something to me, but the look on my face must have warned him off, because he immediately whipped back around and left without saying a word.

“Go talk to him,” Kelly said. “He’s a good teacher. I’m sure he’ll work with you on it. And it’s just one grade—it isn’t going to kill your GPA. I know you can pull this up before the semester is over.”

I hugged her. The words did give me a little bit of comfort. She was right; I’d done well until now, so it wouldn’t tank me. And I hadn’t failed. But I was bitterly disappointed in myself anyway.

A couple of students lingered behind to set up appointment times with him. I fiddled with my stuff and didn’t leave my seat until the room emptied out, except for him and me.

He finally looked at me, and there was so much concern in his eyes that it made mine flood with tears. “Megan. What happened?”

I burst into sobs, cupping my hand over my mouth. Everything was spilling out of me and I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Hey, hey, shh,” he said as he rushed up the aisle. He maintained a respectful distance from me, but the warring emotions on his face showed me he wanted to come closer. But he couldn’t.

Because of the damned circumstances.

“Let’s go to my office,” he said. “You’re not busy right now, are you?”

I shook my head. Gathered my stuff and followed him out of the room. I kept my gaze on the ground until we made it to his office. He locked the door behind us.

I dropped into the seat in front of his desk, clutching the exam.

“Megan,” he began in a stern voice. Stopped and seemed to rethink it, because he continued in a softer tone, “I don’t know what’s going on here. Why you’re suddenly so stressed out. Why you did so poorly on this test. But we have to talk about this. Because if . . . our being together is distracting you—”

“It’s my mom,” I blurted out. Shit. I rubbed my brow. I hadn’t realized I was going to just word-vomit it out like that, but I couldn’t stop now.

I had to tell someone.

Nick stayed silent, giving me the space to continue at my own pace.

I sucked in a shaky breath. It took me a few stops and starts but I got the whole story out. My eyes stayed fixed on his desk; I was afraid to look at him and see what he was thinking right now. “We haven’t talked in a week. I finally left my dad a message to see what was going on, but he hasn’t returned it yet. And what can I do about it anyway?” I exhaled loudly.