wishing she had never left me alone. “I haven’t fucked that up yet, apparently. She loves me.”
“She told you that?”
“Yeah …” Fuck. My eyes watered, remembering the moment from last night.
“Oh, Blake,” Dr. Travetti said, her tone lilting whimsically. Chicks fucking love romance. “That’s so wonderful. You have no idea how happy I am for—”
“My parents signed the papers to send Jake away,” I cut in. Because while Audrey’s love for me was certainly worthy of joy, there was a greater, darker force looming over my head, robbing me of all the light I’d recently found in my life. “They didn’t even fucking talk to me like they said they would.”
“I don’t know what to say, Blake.” My heart felt the burden of her tone, coated so heavily in sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”
“I got into a fight with my mother last night and went to Audrey’s, because I didn’t want to be alone,” I went on, eyeing a particularly appealing bottle of vodka. “But today, she went shopping with her mom, so I came home. I ended up calling my parents to apologize for last night and to try and work this shit out—”
“That’s something the old Blake wouldn’t have done,” she commented, speaking to me like a proud mama.
“Yeah, well,” I snickered sardonically, “I wish I hadn’t. ‘Cause you know what I learned today, Doc?”
“What’s that?”
That bottle was looking more and more like a thing of need. “My mother despises me. And get this—she blames me. How fucking funny is that? All this time, I’ve been blaming myself, and it turns out, she’s been doing the same fucking thing.”
“How do you know this?” Dr. Travetti asked, speaking slowly and eerily calm.
“Oh,” I laughed with cynicism, “believe me, she didn’t try to hide it. She just came out and told me. Did you know that God punished her by giving her me?”
She exhaled against the phone. “Blake …”
“Yeah,” I nodded, licking my lips, so parched and desperate. “That’s funny, right? I mean, I always thought I was punishing myself because there is no fucking god, but as it turns out, the bastard used me to punish her. And then I guess she decided to take it upon herself to make my life miserable, because I made hers a living hell by existing and ruining Jake. Or some fucking shit, I don’t fucking know.”
“Blake,” her voice nipped at my ears, in an attempt to snap me out of it, “I need you to breathe—”
“No. I won’t fucking breathe.” I pushed away from the wall to lurch forward and take the few strides to the shelf of booze and snatch that damn bottle. “My own fucking mother hates me. Who the fuck hates their own kid? Who the fuck takes their anger out on a fucking kid? Who the fuck …”
My breath was ragged and the sob escaping my lungs surprised me. As my hand tightened around the bottle’s neck, I leaned forward, smacking my forehead against a cabinet door. “Goddammit, Doc,” I cried into the phone, all at once noticing the tears on my face and the trembling in my voice. “They’re taking him away from me. I don’t want them to take him away.”
“I know, Blake,” she spoke to me in that tone meant to drag me from off a cliff, “and I am so, so sorry this is happening to you.”
I smacked my head again, barely holding onto the phone with my bad hand, as I demanded, “Tell me what to do. You’re always telling me what I should do, so tell me something now. Tell me what the fuck I can do.”
“Blake, I need you to listen to me,” she said, coddling in her tone. “I am not a lawyer. I don’t know how it is you could battle something like this, other than to say I’m sure there is a way. But right now, you need to calm down because you’re not helping anybody by acting out in rage, okay? Let’s calm down.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”
“Well,” she said, “why don’t you tell me about what happened with Audrey?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE PHONE CONVERSATION with Dr. Travetti had calmed me down, and that night, Audrey came to stay. I was grateful she hadn’t seen me at my worst, because she only deserved my best, and together, we decided I’d talk to Amy, Miss Thomas, the next chance I got. Audrey was certain she would know what I could do, and I felt a calm in