Detroit, Michigan
Ford Field
SKY
The day at the zoo and night of great sex with Brody were just what I needed to calm down. I know the peace can’t last long. My phone rings early the next morning.
“Sky, we have a small problem,” Malik’s voice says on the other end of the line.
I yawn since Brody and I didn’t really sleep all night. “What kind of problem?” I ask.
He sighs on the other end of the line. “A motherly kind of problem.”
I’m fully awake now. “No, Malik. Tell her I don’t want to see her.”
“Normally, I would.”
“Then what’s the problem.”
“She says she has information.”
“Information on what?”
“On the person who put you and Alyssa in danger.
I sit up and find Brody doing the same. The worst thoughts fill my head. There’s no way I heard him right. My mother knows what happened? She couldn’t be responsible, could she? My own mother?
“What do you mean?” I ask him.
“I don’t know,” Malik says. “She won’t tell me anything. She says she only wants to speak to you and no one else. Not even Brody.”
“Come up with her,” I say. I’ll be damned if I stay in the same room with her alone if she did do something to put me in danger. “Get Alyssa, too. Tell her whatever she has to say, she’s going to say it to all four of us.”
“Will do,” he says before hanging up.
“What’s wrong?” Brody asks me.
“It’s my mother. She’s downstairs, but Malik is bringing her up with Alyssa.”
“Why? What did your mother do this time?”
“She may know something about who’s trying to hurt us.”
Brody wastes no time getting dressed while I call Alyssa to tell hell Malik is coming to her with a plus one.
“Sky, hon, I love you, but if that bitch of a mother you have did anything to put you in danger, I’m tearing her smug eyes out.”
I smile at my best friend coming to my defense. I’d do the same for her in a heartbeat when he comes to her deadbeat father.
“Love you, too,” I say, “and I’m quite fine letting you. I just never thought she’d want to hurt me. Even if she didn’t, I’m not sure I’ll be able to believe anything she says.”
“You’ve still got me, no matter what,” Alyssa says.
“I know. That means a lot.”
“You already know Malik would battle an army barehanded for you. I’m sure Brody would tell you the same thing.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“No maybes,” Alyssa says. “Definitely.”
Although Brody and I are better after our day and night together, there is still a small layer of tension underneath. While I’m having a hard time trusting my mother, I’m struggling to have Brody trust me. I know he was messed up when he was addicted, and I don’t have any blinders on about that.
Even if he sees himself as a demon Batman, I’d still be able to except them because I know who he is now. I only wish he had more faith in me to see the real side of who he is now and not the person from his path.
We sit in the suite’s living room to wait for Malik, Alyssa, and the person who calls herself my mother. I shouldn’t assume she has something to do with it, but why else would she know who’s behind all of this madness.
When Malik knocks on the door and announces himself, I’m grateful Brody answers it. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to.
Malik walks in with a grim look on his face followed by Alyssa with the expression of annoyance. It’s a relief to see I’m not the only uncomfortable one here. Brody is the one who I can’t read. He’s a blank slate I can’t figure out at the moment, but I don’t have time to consider it.
My mother races over and hugs me, but I can’t hug her back. Most mothers are warm-hearted and nurturing. Mine is the exact opposite, so it surprises me when she hugs me. Hugs were never really her thing.
“Oh, Skylar,” she says in her over-exaggerating tone she uses. “I was so worried about you after that lighting mishap. I tried to see you, but Malik kept me away.”
“Because I told him to,” I say.
“What? I know you don’t want me to manage you, but banishing me? That’s rather childish and not like you.”
“You’re testing my patience, Mother. Either tell us what you have to say, or Malik will show you out.”
She huffs. “I come here to do right by you, and that’s the thanks I get? You don’t even stand up for your mother anymore. Sitting down is so improper to greet a guest.”
“Malik, take her out,” I say.
He takes her by the arm, but she snatches out of his reach.
“Fine,” she says. “Can we talk in private, Skylar?”
“Whatever you have to say to me, everyone in this room has a right to hear. No one is going anywhere, except for you if you don’t say what you can’t tell us.” Part of me hates being so blunt to her after all she’s done for me to help get me where I am today, but my gratitude for her hard work and business sense is wearing thin with each stunt she plays intercept my life.
“If that’s what you want,” she says.
I look her straight in the eyes. “It is what I want.”
“Very well, dear.” She moves away from Malik and sits in the chair closest to me. “I want you to know that everything I’ve ever done has been to benefit you.”
There’s no doubt in my mind she believes this. I want to tell her that many of her decisions benefited her, too, but I hold my tongue.
She looks at me as if expecting me to thank her for doing things in my interest, but I don’t say a word. She continues when she realizes this.
“I hired someone to put a rift between you and Brody,” she says.
I shake my head. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to let it go,” I say. “What did you do this time, Mother? Who the hell did you hire?”
She looks around at everyone around, almost as if she expects him to react, before turning back to me. “I hired Stephen Hart.”
“What?” This question is echoed by Brody and Alyssa along with me. “You hired Kim Heart’s brother?” I ask. “He’s the one behind all this?”
“Why the hell would you bring him into this?” Brody asks.
“I didn’t know it would be him at first. That’s why I flew the band to Minneapolis.”
“You’re the reason they were at the charity event,” Brody says. “I should have known that wasn’t a coincidence.”
“I was there and watched how you interacted with your former band. He’s the one who you seemed to have the most tension with, so I paid him to get rid of you. I figured why not go to someone who knows about your past. He also had a reason to get back at you, since he saw...his sister’s death as your fault.”
“You know nothing about Kim or my past,” Brody says. “Reading those gossip rags doesn’t mean you know me.”
“I was doing what I could to protect my daughter from you, but that was before...”
“Before what?” I ask.
“Stephen was just supposed to get Brody out of the way, but I realized something wasn’t right when he tried to hurt you, too. I decided to do more research on him, and I found out he’s been seeing a psychiatrist for mental issues.”
“How would you know something like that?” I ask.
“Don’t forget that money can buy almost anything, Skylar.”
“Of course. You bribed his doctor, didn’t you?”
“More like his psychiatrist’s secretary. Turns out Stephen suffers from Schizophrenia. That may be causing him to act out so irrationally.”
“Gee, you think?” Alyssa asks with a snarky tone.
“What did you tell him to do exactly?” Brody says.
“I told him that I didn’t want any details. I didn’t know he was going to do anything dangerous or put my daughter at risk. If I had, I would have done something to stop him. Skylar is too important to me to let anything happen to her, especially by some wannabe rock star.”
I notice she says this and stares hard at Brody, as if he’s the one who climbed the scaffold and loosened the light fixtures himself.
“You must have known on some level,” he says, “because you asked him not to give you details. That way you wouldn’t know anything when people asked you questions about him.”
“Is that true?” I ask, hoping he’s wrong. “You didn’t want to know and didn’t care what he’d do to Brody?”
She hesitates, and that tells me everything I need to know.
“That’s cold bitch move,” Alyssa says. “Even for you.”
“A good mother will do anything to protect her child,” she says back. Her tone says that she would do it again in a heartbeat, and learning that about her scares me more than anything.
“It sounds like I need protection from you. Not Brody,” I say. I can feel my eyes watering up, but I won’t cry in front of her. She always thought that showed weakness, and I need to be strong for what I have to do next.
“You act like I’m the enemy here, Skylar. I’m your mother, for Christ’s sake.”
“No! Alyssa and I could have died after the guy you paid messed with that light fixture. You. Not Brody. My life was threatened because of you.”
“There was a change in your performance that night,” my mother says. “He probably thought Brody would be singing with you instead of Alyssa.”
I can’t close my mouth from the shock of hearing what’s coming out of hers. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am being serious and reasonable. It’s not my fault Stephen wants to see your boy toy suffer for killing that girl.”
I see the words stab Brody as if it were a physical knife powered by her words. Enough is enough. I have to be strong for him and for me.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I say to her. “It doesn’t matter who was performing. What you did, what Stephen did is criminal and far from reasonable! Brody saved us that night. Do you hear me? The man you hate saved your daughter from the crazy shit you pulled! From what you’ve told us, Stephen needs help when he’s found and maybe you do, too.”
“Skylar!” She cries and tries to touch me, but I move out of her reach and closer to the three other people who actually care about me and have actually shown me that.
I never thought she could go this far. She’s so obsessed with protecting me from Brody that she can’t even see what she has done as wrong. She could go to jail for that, but seeing her in handcuffs would destroy me. There’s only one thing I can do now to protect the people I love from her control.
“Malik, escort my mother out, and make sure she’s completely off the premises.” I stare at her. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for this. Until I do and can trust you again, I don’t want to see you at all. If I do, I’ll call the police.”
“You wouldn’t do that!” she says, sounding horrified.
“After this crazy shit you’ve pulled, I definitely would. You need to get a life, Mother, because you’re no longer welcome in mine.”
I turn around and Brody is right there to comfort me with Alyssa. My heart would split into pieces if they weren’t there to back me up, to be the rocks I need to finally detach myself from my mother’s hold on me. I hear my mother arguing, but I block it out until the sound of the door opening and closing fills the room, and she’s on the other side of that locked door.
“Don’t worry, Sky,” Alyssa says. “We’re here for you.” She pats my arm to try to comfort me.
I nod before burying my face into Brody’s chest. There is strength in his embrace that I need to lean on for hours until I can recover and find myself again. I don’t realize I’m crying until I hear my sobs.
“Alyssa’s right,” Brody says. “We’ve got you, and we’re not going anywhere. I won’t let go until you tell me to.”
I realize that I never want him to, but there’s a comfort in knowing that, too.