or something. I didn’t even know Virginia was married.”
You don’t know the half of it, I want to tell him, but my chest is too tight, and my throat is too dry, and so I down the entire bottle of beer in my hand.
Red notices.
Logan doesn’t.
Mia’s doing something for her dad? There are so many things to process in that one sentence, and I don’t know where to start. Five years is a long time for so many things to happen, to change, and really—I don’t know a single thing about Mia’s life now. Not that I knew much about it then.
“Anyway,” Logan keeps talking. “When I dropped her off, I, uh…” He rubs the back of his head in discomfort. “I kind of tried to apologize if I was ever a dick to her and—”
“Wait.” I set the beer bottle on the coffee table and lean forward. “What exactly did you say?” Red’s eyeing me curiously, but I don’t care. Whatever he said, it could be a trigger. It happens. I read about it, and it’s bad.
“I think my exact words were…” Logan starts, eyeing me sideways. “I’m sorry if I was a dick to you.”
“That’s it?”
He nods.
“What did she say?”
“She kind of scoffed, thanked me for the ride, and then left.”
“That’s a little rude,” Red says, but she doesn’t know. None of them do. And there’s no way I’m ever going to tell Logan. Especially now that he has his own triggers to deal with.
It was about a week after I left her that I found the courage to actually think about everything that had happened... once the anger and self-pity and guilt became too strong to ignore.
It didn’t make sense to me at the time—why her dad was there and exactly what happened that led to him showing up the way he did.
My dad had questions, too, obviously, and I never knew what to say. “I’m a fuck-up” didn’t seem like enough. So, eventually, he left me alone.
But I had questions, and all of them kept me up at night, stopped me from being able to function like a somewhat decent human being.
What?
When?
How?
Why?
So I researched, and I remembered.
Everything.
Dentists are actually trained to recognize the side effects of bulimia. Vomit contains acid that eats away at the enamel that protects your teeth. If you do it enough, your teeth can erode. Mia had been doing it for three years.
I suspect her “workouts” in the barn, where she felt “self-conscious” and didn’t want anyone watching, was where she did most of her purging. The barn had its own toilet, and a lock, and enough space that no one would hear her.
The how is pretty self-explanatory.
And the why… the why was the only question I already had the answers to. And I hold on to those answers tight. Every second. Every day. To remind myself that I never want to be anyone’s reason for anything ever again.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Mia
If a silent scream could actually be heard, everyone in this sports bar would be diving under their tables or fleeing from the psychopath whose throat that scream came from.
Me.
I would be that psychopath.
I slam my phone on the bar and drop my head on it. Again and again. Because this is officially my third day here, and my mother is doing absolutely everything she can to evade me. The day after the party, I knocked on her friend Leslee’s door and demanded she sign the divorce papers. When that didn’t work, I begged. I pleaded. She told me to leave the papers with her and she’d go through it and sign. She still hasn’t. I was so done with being here, and I needed to get back home. Dad even told me to book the flight. He said it wasn’t worth this toll it was taking on me and assured he’d find another way. But I was determined, and it wasn’t even just for him and his hopefully soon-to-be wife. It was for me, too. Deep down, I knew that. This was going to be my little eff-you and one last, final goodbye to the woman who birthed me. I don’t hate anyone. I’ve never hated anyone, but she—she came damn close a few times.
“I’ll take four more of what she’s having,” a quiet female voice says from what seems like inside my skull.
I’m… tipsy. Okay, maybe a little more, but I’m not used to this whole drinking thing, and I overestimated my ability to consume alcohol. Bleary-eyed, I lift my head.