Page 19 of The Malibu Secret

Moving to the suburbs seems cringe to me, but it won’t to the kid. And the kid, and my mother to a certain extent, will have to come before me.

I sigh. "Mom, I'll just have to figure it out. On my own. I know I need a bigger place and I know that this neighborhood isn't a place to raise a kid. Not if I want a kid who doesn't want to wake up at 2 AM when the sirens rush through because somebody got their face smashed in with a beer bottle or some junkie is foaming at the mouth on the sidewalk. I know this kid will be better off in the suburbs." And, at that, I bolt to the bathroom, barely making it before violently heaving into the toilet. Christ, I've been puking my guts out for weeks now, can't even keep down fucking saltines, but somehow, just the thought of moving to the suburbs makes me want to rip my own stomach out through my throat. But maybe I could psyche myself up for it.

Maybe I'll watch one of those shows on HGTV where some perky couple with daddy's credit card looks at three different cookie-cutter houses that are all on streets named after trees but with "character" and just enough edge to convince themselves they're not becoming their parents.

Oh, who am I kidding? How would I ever afford that? My tattoo place does pretty decent business, but this is Los Angeles - houses start at a mil. I’ll have to come up with two-hundred grand just for the fucking down payment, two hundred grand I don’t really have right now.

But I’m still not telling Cam the truth about the baby. I’ll see a financial advisor who can help me figure this thing out. Maybe take out a loan - my tattoo studio has been in business for seven years, since I was 22, and it’s been pretty solid the whole time. I’m a decent credit risk.

Mom gives me that look—the one that sees right through my bullshit. "Tally, you need to tell me what's really going on. What's the real reason you won't tell Cameron about the baby?"

"What do you mean? I told you. I don't want him to interfere with my life. With the baby's life. I don't want him to become like a ball and chain to me and you know he will."

Do I really know that though? Celeste has a kid with Max—Violet. They both work long hours, though Celeste works from home now. After Violet was born, she left Dreamscape Studios to focus on screenwriting and has crushed it career-wise. She's never once complained about Max trying to control their parenting. When issues come up with Violet, they figure shit out together. As it should be.

But aren't they unicorns? In my mind, I see two parents, faces twisted with rage, squaring off across a gleaming granite kitchen island like boxers in a ring. The mother wants the kid to go to art school because that’s what the kid wants, the father wants the kid to go to some soul-crushing prep school where rich kids learn to become even bigger assholes. Then the kid grows up and still wants to be an artist, so the Mom wants the kid in art school, but the asshole father wants the kid to become a lawyer, and won’t pay for schooling unless the kid agrees to his vision of the kid’s future.

Then I see the mother dragging herself out of bed at 2 AM, panic clawing at her throat, pressing trembling fingers against a burning forehead, while the father buries his useless head under a pillow, snarling about how he survived childhood without being "coddled." Then the kid, white as death, convulsing on the ice-cold tile, appendix already ruptured and spewing poison, and the mother's scream ripping through the house like a chainsaw, pure hatred blazing in her eyes as she lunges at the father. "FUCK YOU, THOMAS, YOU GODDAMN WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT!" Yeah. That's the reality - it wasn’t my reality because Dad wasn’t around, but it’s the reality in most of my friends’ homes growing up.

I can't help thinking about my friend Sonya from fifth grade. Her stomach was killing her, but her dad wouldn't let her mom drive her to the hospital. "It's just a stomachache," he kept saying, even yanking the car keys away while Sonya's mom was sobbing, begging to take her in. By the time they finally got her to the ER, her appendix had ruptured. Three weeks in the hospital instead of a simple overnight stay. I know Cameron would never pull that shit—he's a doctor, for Christ's sake—but it's just one more example of how things go sideways when parents can't get on the same page about their kid.

Hard fucking pass on that nightmare.

Mom narrows her eyes at me. "Tallulah. I wasn't exactly Mother of the Year, and I'll own that. But I know when you're holding back. What's really going on?"

I exhale so hard my bangs flutter. Fuck. There is more to it. Another reason I'm keeping Cam at arm's length. And it circles right back to the woman sitting across from me.

What if this baby inherits Mom's wiring? Her bi-polar disorder jumped from her grandfather straight to her, skipping a generation like a goddamn genetic time bomb. I've dodged that bullet - knock wood - but my kid? The math isn't just "not in our favor"—it's a fucking sentence waiting to happen. And when—not if—those symptoms start showing up, I need to handle it my way. Christ, normal parents lose their shit over bedtimes and screen time—imagine the absolute nightmare when your kid's screaming about monsters that only exist in their fractured brain.

And Cameron? The guy's already survived a battlefield of emotional carnage. He deserves something pure, something untainted. Not some ink-stained disaster with mother issues and a kid who might need psychiatric holds instead of timeout. I clawed my way through hurricane-force chaos—it's burned into my DNA. Survived Cat 5 chaos once, can do it again if the kid loses the genetic lottery and inherits Mom’s mental illness. But Cameron's the superhero who held his shattered family together when their dad bailed, who stitches up broken refugees and literally saves lives at Cedars while I'm drawing pretty pictures on skin. He deserves better than being dragged into the hellfire of my family's demons. I won't fucking do that to him.

I roll my eyes. "No, Mom, it's not that deep. I don't need someone dictating my life choices, and I sure as hell don't want that for my kid either. I mean, yeah, I'll guide them, but on their terms. If they're running around with a toy stethoscope, maybe they've got Cam's medical gene, and I'll support that path. But if they're smearing paint everywhere and dropping Basquiat references before kindergarten, I'm not letting some guy squash their creative spirit because 'artists starve.'"

"Tally," Mom sighs, "what makes you think Cameron would be controlling? He seems level-headed to me."

"Because—" I throw my hands up, then let them fall. "Okay, fine. Maybe he is chill. But what if he's not? What if he turns into this helicopter parent who micromanages everything and screws the kid up?"

Mom gives me that look—the one that sees right through me. "And what if the baby inherits my issues? And you don't want him dealing with that burden."

I slam my palms against the kitchen counter. "That's not it!" The words explode out of me, and Mom's eyebrow arches in that knowing way. Damn it. She's always said my volume rises with my bullshit. I might as well have tattooed "LIAR" across my forehead. Her lips purse, and I know she's pieced it together. Fine. Whatever. If this baby comes out wired like her, I'll handle it myself.

“Oh,” she says. “But it is it.” She shakes her head. “Don’t even try to lie.”

I sigh. "That is it. But not all of it. Most of it is because I…" I trail off, twisting my rings around my fingers. Mom waits, that patient look on her face that always makes me crack.

"Fine. I'm terrified he'll wake up one day and realize I'm this massive mistake. That someday I'll overhear him telling his fancy doctor friends about his 'tattooed phase' before he got serious about life. That if he gets roped into being with me just because we have a kid together, he'll one day look at me across the breakfast table with this kid between us and think about the bullet he didn't quite dodge."

Now, Mom's crying. "Oh, Tally." She says my name three times like it's a spell that might fix everything. "I did this to you, didn't I? Made you build these walls? I dragged you through a childhood where nothing ever stayed the same. I should've been your rock—told you every single day how amazing you are. Then maybe you'd believe you deserve Cameron. Because you do deserve him, baby. You do."

I blink. She means well, but she's got it twisted. I know damn well I deserve Cameron. That's not what keeps me up at night. What scares me is how different our worlds are, and how eventually the shine will wear off. When it's 3 AM diaper duty and screaming matches about private versus public school, he'll look at the tattooed mess across from him and wonder what the fuck he was thinking.

But fine, she's right about the trust issues. Probably comes with the territory when your childhood address changed more often than people change their goddamned underwear. Not that I'll say that out loud. She's already carrying enough guilt about the bi-polar disorder genes I might be passing down.

I roll my eyes. "I know I deserve Cameron, Mom," I say, my voice tight. "But I'm not exactly what he's looking for. He's probably dreaming of some trust fund princess who summers in the Hamptons and wouldn't be caught dead with ink on her perfect skin. The kind of woman who'd rather die than wear the same outfit twice and thinks a Birkin bag is a basic necessity."

"And how exactly do you know that?"

"Celeste filled me in. His precious Alecia taught kindergarten while living off daddy's money and jetting off to her Hamptons mansion every summer. Trust me, Mom, guys like him don't trade in their perfect porcelain dolls for tattooed girls like me. That's not how the world works."