Page 26 of Dotted Lines (Runaway 5)

“Who is that woman?” I asked as Aria joined us.

Karson gritted his teeth and stared at the road where she’d disappeared. “My mother.”

Chapter Five

Clara

“Hey.” I smiled at Karson as he came striding my way. I was outside the van, shaking the remainder of the cat food from the bag into a bowl for the stray.

The bag that I’d bought over a month and a half ago, the day we’d seen Karson’s mother jogging down our road, had lasted a long time. Too long. Katherine’s cat hadn’t been coming around much, probably because Katherine wasn’t here.

“Hey,” he said. “Where’s Aria?”

“Shower.” I crumpled the bag into a ball for Lou’s metal trash can. “She’s been working on her plants all day, getting them ready for when we go. She wants to stage them around Lou’s place as a goodbye present.”

Karson nodded and sank onto an old car hood. It rested on top of a heap of large metal scraps and a rusted wheel well. The hood was our equivalent of a living room chair.

“How was work?” I asked. While Aria and I hadn’t had to work today, he’d gone in for an eight-hour shift at the car wash.

“Work.” He shrugged, but the lines on his forehead spoke volumes about his day.

And who’d paid him a visit.

“She was there again, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Came right before I clocked out.”

In the time since Karson’s mother had made her first appearance at the car wash, she’d continued to confront him at least once a week.

“What did she want?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Didn’t let her catch me. The second I saw her car, I shut myself in the office.”

“Does your boss care?”

“I mean, he doesn’t like it. But he gets it.”

I gave him a sad smile. “Sorry.”

“Yeah. Whatever. She can fuck off.”

Karson hadn’t spoken about his mother. Not since her first visit and not before. In all the years that we’d lived together, he hadn’t elaborated. Just like me. What I knew of his past were bits and pieces. Karson’s mother had been an alcoholic. Maybe she still was. And she’d been a bitch, according to her son. That obviously hadn’t changed. But I didn’t know exactly what had happened to make him run away.

The best decision of my life. A phrase he’d repea

ted countless times.

“Anyway”—he stood—“wanted to let you know I was back.”

“Oh, okay.”

He walked away, his shoulders tight and his hands shoved into his jeans pockets.

Karson had withdrawn from me over the past month and a half. Every visit from his mother sent him deeper and deeper into himself. He rarely ate with us these days. He walked us to and from town, but the trips were quiet and tense.

Gone was the playful Karson who’d tease and flirt. Gone was the Karson who’d put his arm around my shoulders. Gone was the Karson who’d looked at me at the stoplight like maybe he wanted to kiss me.

I was losing him.