Chapter 11

Two hours later, Rosie stood at the sink washing the dishes. She scrubbed the soup pan with a sponge she’d found under the sink.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk about her past with Dallas… Okay, she really didn’t want to talk about her past… with anyone.

In her experience, the past wasn’t something to be remembered, it was something to be overcome.

Dallas had a loving mother and a loving father. She doubted he could understand what her childhood had been like.

Talking about her mother only made her feel guilty. As a child, Rosie had understood from the very beginning that she hadn’t been wanted.

By the time her mother had realized she was pregnant with Rosie, it had been too late for an abortion. Rosie knew that her mother would have gotten rid of her if she could have, because her mother had told her so every chance she’d gotten. Even now, the hurt was so raw and painful that she couldn’t talk about it to anyone. She’d ruined her mother’s life. And she’d worked harder and longer than anyone, trying to make up for it.

Tears burned her eyes, and she angrily swiped them away. Tears were useless things, and she detested herself for crying over a crappy childhood. Everyone thought their childhood was crappy. She needed to get over it. No one wanted to hear her sob story. Even she didn’t want to go over the details any longer, but here she was hashing out the low points.

It wasn’t fair, but then again, life wasn’t fair, so bitching about it wouldn’t change a thing. She’d tried so hard not to be a burden on her mother or her sisters, but she’d failed time and time again.

She remembered so clearly sitting in the closet trying to be quiet while her mother and her current boyfriend were having some “private time” in the one-bedroom apartment she shared with her mother and sisters. Rosie had only been five, or maybe six, and her sisters had been old enough to be out with friends all the time. She’d been in that closet for hours, and she’d needed to use the bathroom. She’d waited as long as she could, but she had to open the door and head to the bathroom.

Her mother had whipped her so hard she’d wet her pants. She’d tried so hard to be good, but she was never good enough.

Tears came harder for the little girl who hadn’t been wanted.

Rarely did she let herself wallow in self-pity, but sometimes it snuck up on her and put her in a choke hold. She scrubbed the pot harder, as if she could scrub away the hurt.

Logically, the adult version of herself knew that her mother was the problem and not her, but the little girl who just wanted to be loved still lived inside her.

She’d gone from her mother’s hatred to her sister’s coldness. At least Louisa didn’t hate her. That was something. But her sister had ruled with an iron fist. Hugs hadn’t been part of her childhood, so they didn’t have a place in her adulthood.

When it came to family, there wasn’t any warmth, just obligation.

Dallas’s family had warmth down to a science. She loved watching them together. Hugs were easy, and smiles came often. She was getting used to it. She thought of CanDee and Justus and now Lucy as her family.

Even Justus and CanDee didn’t know her deepest, darkest secrets. She hadn’t purposefully kept them from them, she just wasn’t that much into sharing. Her first Christmas at Texas State, rooming with CanDee and Justus, had been an eye-opener. She’d spent Christmas Eve at Justus’s house.

They’d had a big family Christmas with presents and turkey and all of the trimmings. They’d opened presents on Christmas Eve and speculated about what Santa Claus would bring them. It was lovely and sweet and weird as hell.

CanDee and her grandmother had been there, and they seemed to understand all of that Christmas cheer. Rosie remembered sitting on the sofa just watching all of the smiles and laughter. It was, for lack of a better word, overwhelming.

There had been a stocking for Rosie hanging next to the one for CanDee. Justus’s stepmother had sewed their names on the stockings, like they were official family members. Maeve, Justus’s stepmother, had made a big deal of how the stockings had to be out so Santa Claus could fill them.

Rosie had been all of four years old when she’d figured out that Santa Claus was a hoax. All of that wishing and hoping for a toy to show up was just a waste of perfectly good time. Waking up heartbroken on Christmas morning had taught her the truth about Santa. Things had been a little better after she’d moved in with her sisters. They always managed to buy each other little presents. Nothing frivolous, always something that was needed, but it was nice to open a wrapped present on Christmas morning.

On the few occasions her mother had been sober enough to notice that it was Christmas, she’d signed Rosie up for the Angel Tree or Blue Santa, but the presents she got were always confiscated by her mother and sold or traded for drugs.

Because Rosie knew exactly how it felt to wake up to nothing on Christmas morning, these days she always took several names off of the Angel Tree and carefully shopped, wrapped, and delivered the gifts. She chose to believe that the children receiving those gifts got to keep them.

A loud crash, like glass breaking, came from the bedroom. She tossed the sponge in the sink and ran to check on Dallas.

He was leaning over the side of the bed, trying to pick up white shards of his broken ice cream bowl.

“I’ll get that.” She slid into the black Jimmy Choos she’d left by the bedroom door.

“Sorry. I’m a klutz. I was going for the water bottle and I knocked over the bowl.” He was all contrite little boy.

“No worries. I would have picked it up when I left the room, but you were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you.

Careful not to step on the broken bits, she picked up the large pieces. She brought them to the kitchen and dumped them in the trash under the sink. She grabbed the hand-broom and dustpan next to the trash can and went to finish the clean up.

“I wish I could be more help.” He sounded frustrated with himself and the situation.

“It wasn’t your fault. You need to rest and stay off of your ankle.” She brushed the last of the bowl bits into the dustpan. “You finished your second helping of ice cream just a little while ago. It’s probably a good time for another dose of ibuprofen.”

“Thanks. It doesn’t hurt now, but I’d like to keep ahead of the pain.” He lay back against the pillows.

She dumped the contents of the dustpan into the trash, grabbed the ibuprofen, and headed back into the bedroom.

“You’re supposed to take two.” She upended the bottle and shook out two pills. She handed them to him and then picked up the bottle of water on the nightstand next to him, waited for him to pop the pills in his mouth, unscrewed the water, and handed it to him.

He downed the rest of the bottle.

“Want another?” She took the empty bottle.

“No, I’m good.” His eyes zeroed in on hers. “Your eyes are swollen and red. Have you been crying?”

Life had been so much easier when he’d been a drooler.

“Yes.” She wasn’t a coward. She threw her shoulders back and straightened her spine.

“Why?” He patted the side of the bed where she’d been sitting not two hours ago. “Is it the storm? I’m sure we’ll get out of here soon.”

“What?” She shook her head. “No, it’s just a storm. I find it weirdly comforting. No, you’d asked about my past, which got me thinking about my mother.”

“Sorry, I bet you miss her. It was very insensitive of me.” He looked down at the pale-green comforter. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“It’s not that. I don’t miss my mother, exactly.” How could she make him understand? He didn’t have the frame of reference to fully get her situation. Then again, she shouldn’t make assumptions about what he could or couldn’t understand. “My childhood was pretty bad. My mother had issues with drugs.”

“Prescription drugs?” He really didn’t understand.

“No… well, yes, if she came into some money and could afford them.” She propped one knee on the edge of the bed. “She did… a lot of different stuff. Basically whatever she could get her hands on. She wasn’t picky.”

He just sat there with his mouth hanging open for several beats.

She knew what was next. It would be pity. Pity was actually worse than her childhood, which was saying something.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know you can’t relate.” She was more than ready to drop the subject.

He recovered and watched her very carefully. “Why?”

“Why what?” She longed to escape to the living room, but she kept her back ramrod straight.

“Why was she on drugs?” He made it sound like the most logical question in the world.

That question threw her. She’d never had anyone ask it.

“Addiction is a disease.” She gave him the pat answer that TV psychologists loved to throw out. Part of her knew she was the reason her mother couldn’t face reality.

“I can tell by the look on your face that you don’t believe that.” He yawned.

“It looks like I’m keeping you from resting.” She stood.

He grinned. “No you don’t. Stay right there. I’m the only one who gets to change the subject when I don’t want to talk about something.”

“Noticed that, did you?” She returned the grin.

He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the pillows. “Yes, ma’am, I sure did.”

She climbed onto the bed and sat next to him. “Many years after she died, I found out from one of my sisters that our mother had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The prevailing theory is that she had been self-medicating.”

“I get the feeling that you don’t agree.” He continued to watch her.

“Sure, why not? She had bipolar—that makes sense. It also could have been that she was weak or hated her life or had some genetic predisposition for substance abuse, or she could have just liked the way it made her feel. Does it matter why she did it?” The last sentence came out really loud. She hadn’t meant to shout, but she was shouting all the same. She took a deep breath. “Sorry.”

She didn’t want to have to admit that she was the reason her mother preferred to be high.

“You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one who wouldn’t let it go. I’m sorry.” He reached out and took her hand. “I don’t understand addiction either. Yes, I think it’s a disease, but I also think that people need to take some responsibility for their actions. In this day and age, it seems that everyone blames their mistakes on someone else rather than noticing that they are the common denominator.”

“I feel the same way.” Well, mostly. “Also, there is some physiological component to it too. The body becomes dependent on the drug and can’t live without it.” That had been one of her mother’s many justifications for selling Rosie’s meager possessions to get high. The most popular way her mother justified her addiction was to say she was “sick.” Some of Rosie’s earliest memories were of watching her mother sleeping passed out on the floor and trying to wake her up, or cleaning up her mother’s vomit from before she’d passed out. That was a lot to put on a child.

She opened her mouth to change the subject, but instead every single detail of her childhood came out. She left nothing out. She told him about her earliest memories of watching her mother “cook” heroin and lace cigarettes with PCP and LSD. And how she learned from the age of four to hide from her mother as she became paranoid coming down off of crystal meth. Or the time she’d had to sing in the school performance in only her stockings, because her mother had sold her only nice shoes to buy drugs.

She’d never told anyone—not even her sisters or her best friends—everything about her childhood, but it was all coming out. Her voice was so hollow, it should have had an echo, but she soldiered on through her terrible memories. It sounded like she was recounting someone else’s life.

When she was finished, she took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. She’d always thought that talking about it would make it worse, but she was finding that the opposite was true. Sharing the burden seemed to lessen the load.

Dallas laced his fingers through hers, brought her hand up to his mouth, and kissed it. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

She’d expected pity, but all she saw on his face was awe. He really thought she was brave to have made it through her childhood.

Was she brave? She’d never really thought of herself as brave. She guessed she was a survivor. Addiction was most definitely not a victimless crime. It affected the lives of every single person who came into contact with the addict.

“I’m not sure ‘brave’ is the right word.” When she was in the situation, there hadn’t been a decision to be brave; it had just been her life.

“How about ‘survivor’? It takes a very strong person to come through something like that and not let it destroy their future.” There certainly wasn’t an ounce of pity in him.

“Thanks.” Now that she thought about it, she really was a strong person. Somehow she’d survived her awful childhood and come out okay on the other side.

She was a survivor. That was a whole lot better than being a victim or perpetrator.