Page 118 of Dirty Like Me
“Do you want to talk about it?” I offered. “About your mom?” Maybe this wasn’t the kind of conversational territory a fake girlfriend ventured into, but fuck it.
I was more than just his fake girlfriend or his employee, even if he didn’t see it. I, Katie Bloom, was the girl who loved him.
Hell, maybe I was one of many girls who loved him, for all I knew. But I did love him. And maybe it was a bad idea to keep digging for reasons to love him even more, but it wasn’t wrong to be compassionate when he was hurting. I couldn’t stand to just pretend that he wasn’t.
“Not much to tell,” he said. “After our dad left, she was always working to try to give us a better life than the one she got. She loved us but we never really knew her. She never let anyone get close after what happened with my dad.”
“Sounds like she had a hard life,” I said softly.
“Sometimes I think she kept us at a distance because she couldn’t stand getting hurt again. She never figured out how to trust anyone again or find someone else she could love.”
The way he spoke about her… the words so sad, yet his tone so detached. And after what he’d said about breaking hearts, it made me wonder…
“You’re not like her, you know.” I leaned up on my elbow to look at his face, though I could still barely see him. “You’re not like your mom. Afraid to let anyone in. If that’s what you’re afraid of; turning into her. You’re not her.”
Even though I couldn’t see his eyes I felt the subtle shift as he looked away. “I’m not afraid of turning into my mom, Katie.” He sighed again, and I could feel his pain crackling in that tight breath. “I’m afraid of Jessa turning into our dad. He killed himself when I was nine.”
CHAPTER 33
JESSE
I was out of bed on the razor’s edge of dawn. It was a cool morning so I put on a hoodie and went for a run alone. Jude wouldn’t like it, but I needed some time to think. I’d been doing too much of that lately, probably, but it was harder than fuck to climb up out of this place once I was all down in it.
I hated feeling powerless, but every time I spoke with my sister, that’s exactly how I felt.
My conversation with Jessa last night kept rolling through my head; pretty much the same as every other conversation we’d had in the past nine years.
Before the tour, I’d managed to get some time with her while I was in L.A., and she’d seemed better than she had in a long time. More like her old self.
Then just when things seemed to be going well, like always, she withdrew.
Disappeared.
And as always, I’d skirted around the issue when I saw her last night, afraid if I confronted her about it directly she’d bail and disappear even longer.
I was pretty much running out of shit to say to her. I hated sounding like a nagging broken record. Brody was probably right. Maybe I should talk to a therapist or something and they could help me figure out how to get through to her. Because what I’d been doing for the past nine years wasn’t fucking working.
She still refused to commit to anything.
She still refused to stay in one place longer than a month.
She still refused to come home.
The only thing I was totally sure of was that I had no idea how to talk to her, about any of it. She just kept pretending that everything was fine, and when I pressed, she pulled away.
It was fucking impossible.
I was still going over it in the shower and afterward, over breakfast with Katie. At least she seemed to be doing better than she was yesterday when she showed up at the restaurant, but she still looked tired and on edge, like she hadn’t gotten a good sleep in a week. Which would make two of us.
She was her usual sweet self, but kind of preoccupied, texting with Devi. She tried to bring up what we talked about last night, asking if there was anything she could do to help, but by now I was so wrung out over all of it I just downplayed the whole thing.
“It’s probably not as bad as I made it sound,” I said. “I’ve just always felt responsible for her, you know?”
“But you don’t think she’s happy.” She studied me with her keen blue-greens, her brows pinched together and her pink mouth in a thoughtful pout.
I shrugged and stuffed my mouth with eggs, and when she tried to press the issue, to gently get me to open up, I mumbled something about my imagination and started pretending to read the paper. Like a dick.
She gave me a long, unsure look, then went back to her phone.
