Page 43 of Puck (The Lost Boys MC)
“All right, say whatever you need to, Mom.”
She held her hand out. “May I hold your hand?”
I shot her a look. “No.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, sweet boy. I’m so beyond—”
“Stop.”
A tear streaked her cheek. “Please, let me say this.”
I shook my head. “I’m tired of your excuses and your apologies. At this point, they’re empty. I don’t want to hear them any longer.”
“Sweetheart, there’s so much that you don’t know about this situation. And I know we all wish that things could be different—”
I shot to my feet. “They could have been had you not fucked up your entire life while Ruby and I still depended on you.”
“And if you’d sit your stubborn ass down long enough, I’d give you the only excuse that makes sense: which is the truth.”
My eye twitched. “You’re going to tell me everything?”
She nodded at my seat. “If you sit down and shut that mouth of yours.”
There’s the mom I know. “Fine. But make it quick.”
I eased back down into my chair before she took a deep breath. “Your father isn’t in jail because he dealt drugs, Jared. He’s in jail because he covered for me when I got caught.”
My jaw unhinged. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
She shook her head. “I know it’s not enough and I know I can’t take back what happened, but my addiction problem didn’t start with you two. And before you even say anything, I know you and Roo blame yourselves. I know you think that I started getting high because I had you two and it was too overwhelming to have twins in the house. But what you don’t understand is that at the peak of my issues before I started getting high, my doctor had diagnosed me with P.P.D.”
I blinked. “You're kidding.”
She shook her head as her eyes unfocused over my shoulder. “Your father was the light of my life for years. He was the one that convinced me to leave my last year of college and finish it online at a later time once we got pregnant with you two. And yes, he did deal drugs for a spell, but only to make sure we could cover our medical bills. Neither of us were insured at the time and your father was damn near unemployable because he refused to finish his G.E.D while I was pregnant, so he did the only thing he knew how to do.”
I sat there in silence as Mom wiped the tears off her face.
“He worked hard, too. We paid off all of our debt, including my school debt. We paid medical bills with credit cards that we immediately paid off and he quickly worked his way up in the cartel. But when Carlos himself figured out that I was stealing some of your father’s selling stash for my own personal use, he demanded that I sell for free to pay back what I had stolen.”
I nodded slowly. “And that’s when you got caught.”
She hung her head in shame. “He took the fall for me without a second thought, and the police didn’t have any issues convicting him after finding the stash in the house. Between that and his past in juvie, it was a no-brainer to them. I promised him I’d get clean and stay off that shit so I could get the proper help I needed.”
I stared off into the woods. “But you didn’t.”
She sniffled hard. “I tried my best, but after your father went to jail, the cartel came down hard on top of me. They kept feeding me drugs, having me test out new product free of charge. I didn’t see it until later, but they actively did what they could to keep me hooked on their products so that I wasn’t coherent enough to go to the police with what I knew. And when I figured out what the hell they were doing, that’s when I left.”
My entire body vibrated with anger. “Where did you go?”
“Canada.”
I licked my lips. “Canada.”
She sighed. “Jared, if I thought even for a second that the cartel would leave me alone while I was still with you guys, I would’ve taken the chance in a heartbeat. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder how you and your sister are doing. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t pray to any God still listening that you two are okay, and fed, and clothed, and happy. But I knew that if I couldn’t get away from the cartel, they’d suck you two in as well, and I couldn’t let that happen you guys. I just couldn’t.”
It made so much sense in the world, and yet it did nothing to abate my anger. It grew and mounted until all I saw was the red that dripped over my vision.
