I walk home slowly, not feeling the need to get on the subway or even the bus. I don’t feel the buzz that I had a few minutes ago. Earlier I was on top of the world feeling as if I’d made a breakthrough. Now, I’m back to feeling as if I’m the traitor.

My phone rings, and it’s Hayley, my little sister. I hope she has something good to say to take me out of the mood I’m in at the moment.

“Hey sis,” I answer my cell. It’s been nearly two weeks since we’ve spoken, maybe I’m getting obsessive about Marco, and I should let everything take its course. I worked every single day this week, hoping he’d come back in and he only managed to do that today.

“Leah. How have you been?”

I’m just about to answer, when she blurts out, “Mom’s sick again.”

Crap!

It’s as if the lie I told Olivia has come true and I didn’t even think that it was a lie at the time. “What’s happened?”

She sighs. “She doesn’t get out of bed sometimes when I go to school. She just lies there with her eyes wide open. One day I thought she was dead, I was so scared Leah, I couldn’t even get to school.” Her voice sounds as if she’s trembling as if she’s trying to hold back the tears.

“What about Steven? Why isn’t he around?”

“He comes and goes. He leaves a little money and says that there’s no work in town. That he needs to go out and get it. Sometimes I don’t see him for days. Sometimes weeks. I don’t know what to do.”

We weren’t alone; we had another family, why was Hayley trying to do all this alone. Especially, with her finals coming up.

“What about Grandma? Aunt Jessica? Uncle Fred? ...”

The list is endless.

“They’ve all left, ever since the factory closed down and it was clear that there was no money.”

I shake my head. “That makes no sense, the factory closed down three years ago. Remember that’s why I never could go to college.”

She doesn’t say a word, and I have a suspicion that something’s going on. That’s one thing about my family; they have so many secrets that maybe this is the reason I’m getting so used to it. Because it’s something that seems to run in my family and is second nature to them. “Hayley?”

She blurts out, “Look I didn’t want to tell you this, but the factory only closed down officially two months ago. Before then parts of it were closed down, but not all of it.”

“Steven lied to me?”

“I don’t know what he told you. But I just know that Mom’s not well, Leah, and I don’t know what to do.”

I sigh as I think about the weight that’s on my shoulders. I could send the little money I’ve been saving. I send them some, but then I didn’t realize they needed it so badly until now. I thought I could get away with spending a bit on my hair and make-up, but now I can see that she needs it so bad. It’s the real reason she’s calling, not to tell me to come home, but to send more money. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Great, the quicker, the better. Don’t worry; I’ll look after Mom.” She hangs up before I even have a chance to reply.

I wonder if she’s telling me the truth. I shake my head at the idea of her lying. She wouldn’t do that, but then again everything I thought was true up until now seems like a deliberate lie.

I’m about to call her and ask if she’s telling me the truth about Mom. Did she go into depression again? Or is it just Hayley’s way of trying to get money out of me? I need to know because I can’t focus on my plan if my family is hiding something from me. Again.

The first time was when I graduated, that’s when I found out that my dreams and aspirations were shattered because my college fund had disappeared overnight. Mom and Steven had been using it to keep the factory afloat. They’d hoped that they wouldn’t have to file for bankruptcy or there would be a possibility of them losing the house. This is the story that I’d been told, but parts of me were beginning to wonder what part of it was true if any of it.

I sigh as I hesitate to put my cell back in my purse. I feel like buying a bottle of wine to drown my sorrows or just going home and waiting a few hours for Olivia to come and then doing the same thing.

I’m standing debating what to do when I hear a voice behind me.

“If you keep staring at it, you’ll have to end up buying it,” he says.

I turn and think that it can’t be him. He left a while ago. Is he following me? Then I decide if he is, then maybe my day’s not going to end up so bad after all. I just have to think of something sexy to say. Or maybe he doesn’t like that? His smile sends me into a trance. His woody scent freezes me in time. I find myself helpless, and I’m only in his company. If I don’t make the next move, then he can walk and my aspirations to get out of the rut would be gone. The one that he created the moment he destroyed not only my world, but my whole family’s too.