Whatever sympathy Tyson had been feeling, quickly vanished at Ryder’s words. He pushed Ruby away and glared at her. “I would never go against you for this piece of trash, Rye. I would never go against you over anything.”
Seeming satisfied with Tyson’s response, Ryder turned back to Ruby. “There is no one in this house who will ever take your side, you piece of crap. You can stay here one night and one night only. After that, I want you out of here and I don’t give a shit where you go.”
There was a creak of the floorboards, and Tyson turned and walked out the door. I think this was all too much for him. He hadn’t completely closed himself off to Ruby the way Ryder and I had. I think sometimes he thought that she’d come back as a mother, that she’d change, but the situation was too far gone now. Ruby would never be what he wanted her to be. She would never change.
Ruby’s dark eyes landed on Dylan who was still holding onto my hand. “Fine. I’ll just take Dylan. He’s my son and I can keep him with me if I want.”
A surge of anger pulsed through me, almost blinding me. Dylan was my responsibility; I took care of him, and there was no way I was going to let her ruin his life. For as long as I could remember, I’d looked after Dil, not because I had to, because I wanted to. I wanted to give that kid the best chance at life. I wanted him to have choices. I didn’t want him to turn out like any one of us. If Ruby thought she could get back at us by taking Dil away, she was delusional.
Shoving Dylan behind me, I took a single step towards her that had her shrinking backwards. “Just try to take him. See what I do to you if you step out of this house with him.”
This time there really was fear in her eyes. “What happened to you, Vin? You ain’t the same, sweet boy you used to be.” She shot Ryder an accusing look. “What have you done to him?”
“He’s not weak anymore,” Ryder shot back. “He’s not weak like you. I made him strong. I taught him to fight back.”
What happened next was something I didn’t expect. Ruby turned to me with sympathy on her face. “No, Ryder, you’ve taught him to be cold, hard, and uncaring. You’ve turned him into stone.”
With that, she turned and walked away down the hall. A few seconds later, the bathroom door shut.
What the hell?
“Stupid bitch,” Ryder muttered, before turning back to us. His eyes drifted over Dylan and then back to me. “Food’s getting cold. Let the kid eat.”
That was all he said before ruffling Dylan’s hair and walking out the house.
The next morning, Ruby and her suitcase were gone.
Dylan met me at the kitchen table with a solemn look on his face. He played around with his bowl of cereal, pushing the spoon through the milk, as I sat down across from him, burying my head in my hands.
There was some part of me that should feel bad about everything that had happened last night, I know there should. But I felt nothing except anger. I didn’t feel guilt or remorse for the way I’d spoken to Ruby. The woman who I couldn’t even call “momma”. The woman who said she loved me. The woman who said that I was stone.
That’s what was cutting me up the most; the fact that she felt sorry for me. This woman—who had no home, no money, no sanity, no one who loved her—felt sorry for me. That was the biggest punch in the face—that I was someone to be pitied, like her.
No matter how strong Ryder wanted me to be, there was still something about me that made my own mother pity me. Now that was fucked up.
“Vincent?” Dylan asked, his tone soft and tentative.
I looked up and met his blue eyes that were so innocent. Was there a time long ago that I’d looked at someone with the same innocence?
“Yeah, Dil?” My voice sounded tired and defeated.
Dylan pushed his bowl away and slumped against his chair. “Is she coming back?”
My little brother waited expectantly for an answer from me. I was the adult; I was supposed to have all the answers, but I didn’t know shit. I didn’t know if Ruby was coming back. I didn’t know why she’d chosen this path for herself. I didn’t have a fucking clue.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh.” Dylan sucked in his bottom lip. “Does she hate me?”
Shit. My ten-year-old brother thought that his own mother hated him. What kind of fucked up shit was that? No kid should think that they were hated by their own parent.
“No, she doesn’t hate you.” I reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “She hates herself.”
And a part of me knew that that was the truth
No matter how much we hated Ruby, she hated herself that little bit more.
Chapter Seven
Estella
My feet were dragging on Wednesday at school.
Sometimes it got hard pretending that everything was fine when it really wasn’t. My friends knew a little about my home life, but they weren’t aware of the full extent of it. No one was. Not even Nate and Anna. I planned on keeping it that way. They both had enough to worry about without having to worry about me.
The skin on my left arm was itching a lot today. I wanted to blame it on the material of my sweater, but I knew that wasn’t the reason. It was a psychological thing; whenever I was particularly stressed, that exact same spot would itch. It had happened without fail for the past two and a half years.
I stopped walking when I saw my two best friends heading down the hall towards me. Mariah Brand easily stood out with her deep shade of red hair that was thick and curly whereas Lana spent painstaking hours straightening hers. Hadassah Swinton—better known as Hadie—was short and petite with brown hair. She was usually full of smiles, but that had changed recently.
“Hey, Estee.” Even Mariah’s voice was void of its usual peppiness today.
The general mood amongst my group of friends had been pretty morose lately. See, the thing was, our group of three had originally been four. Lana Buckley—who was also Mariah’s cousin—had recently had a falling out with her and we weren’t entirely sure where things stood with her right now. Mariah was really mad about it, especially because Lana was her cousin, and she couldn’t bring herself to forgive her.
As for Hadie, she was wonderful, kind, and selfless but last month she’d suffered something heartbreaking that had changed her. Some of the light that surrounded her had dimmed a little and she was forever changed. For a while, it’d seemed like she was pulling through it thanks to this guy in our grade, Eddie Cavallari, but lately she’d been withdrawing and pushing everyone away.
That was why I didn’t want to dredge up my problems and make things worse when they were already bad enough for my friends. There was only so much a bunch of seventeen-year-old girls could handle.
“Hey, Ray,” I responded in a flat tone, calling Mariah by the nickname we’d coined for her in elementary school.
Ray flashed me a smile that I could barely bring myself to return. “How did your job interview go?”
That was another topic that I wanted to avoid. “Yeah, it was fine. I got the job.” I tried to act like it was no big deal and Ray didn’t seem interested enough to ask about it further.
Besides, Hadie’s well-being was more important than discussing my tutoring job. Her eyes had been glassy the entire time and that wasn’t a good sign. It meant that she was thinking about the one thing that was killing her inside.
“Hadie,” I said in a gentle tone, “how are you?”
“Huh?” She looked up at me, startled. Her eyes were watery, and I couldn’t help myself; I reached out and wrapped my arms around her.
At first she was tense, but eventually she relaxed against me. “I love you,” I whispered, “and if you need me, I’m here. Always.”
