Page 70 of Imperfect Match (Imperfect Match 1)
If not, I might just try Aspen’s approach.
Twenty
Reid
“Are you staying at Willow’s again tonight?” my brother asks.
“Are you staying here rent-free again tonight?”
“You can kick me out, but who would make sure the food gets eaten?”
I wonder most days if I’m not just enabling him, but then I remember that he’s my brother and while my childhood sucked, his was worse.
“Yeah, eating the food is definitely an issue. It’s a good thing I’ve got a mooch of a brother to take care of that for me.
Leo nods and then his arms go up. “Thank you for finally seeing it.”
“Yeah, I see something all right. While you’re eating leftover Chinese food, I’ll be at dinner with my girlfriend and then eating her for dessert.”
I leave that last one on because since Leo’s girlfriend dumped him, he’s been in one hell of a dry spell. He flips me off. “Asshole.”
Damn straight I am. “You working tonight?”
His eyes shift around the room, not focusing on me. “No, I’m off. I’m ... umm ... I’m actually …”
This can’t be good. The only time my brother stutters or has an issue forming sentences is when family is involved and whenever family is involved, I want to kill someone.
“What did Mom do this time?”
A sense of relief washes over him and he relaxes since he doesn’t have to spell it out for me. “She’s in rehab again.”
“Oh, good, what do they say? Thirtieth time is the charm?”
“Reid.”
As soon as he says my name like that, filled with disappointment and sympathy, my anger flares. Because he’s not sympathetic to me—no, it’s to her. It’s to the mother that abandoned her kids to a revolving door of nannies and the monster that my father was. But Leo holds her as the victim and because I won’t play their game anymore, I’m the bastard.
I’ve been killing myself to make sure my brother can find a way around the hell they’ve created, but one phone call and he’s thrown right back in time. They’re so selfish and unwilling to accept their issues. She’s not in rehab because she wants to be better. She’s in rehab so my father is forced to give her an ounce of attention. It’s the same thing over and over.
Secrets and lies that keep manifesting in new forms, but always the same results. I’m done.
I’ve been done, but then Leo goes running back and it takes months for him to detach again. This is enough. “No, fuck that, Leo, you can’t keep making excuses for her and thinking she’s going to change. There is no change in that goddamn house. Mom will drink her feelings away while Dad fucks the secretary, maid, or whoever he can get his dick in.”
“She’s sick.”
“No shit! They’re all sick. They use each other and you in this game they play. You think Dad gives a fuck if she gets sober? No. Because then she might actually care about what he does at night when she’s passed out drunk. If she cared about you at all, she’d let you go on with your life.”
Leo gets to his feet and I wonder if he’s going to deck me. “You know, Reid, you may have been stronger than me to walk away, but she’s still our mother. She needs someone to fucking love her.”
“And you and I didn’t?”
“Yeah, we did and they failed us, but we’re not kids anymore.”
No, we’re not, which means we don’t have to take it, either. “You’re right. I’m an adult, and I would much rather go across the hall to a woman who can show love and not require a damn thing from me other than loving her back.”
“We don’t all have a Willow.”
I’m well aware of that, and I’m grateful every single day that I do. Still, I’m in kind of a shitty mood when I go knock on her door.
