Page 145 of One Night with Number Nineteen

My heart thuds hard against my ribs.

I hadn’t even realized that was the truth.

Not until I speak it aloud.

“I love you, Mom. So much. But I can’t keep putting my life on pause to help you live yours.”

“That’s not what⁠—”

“Not what we’re doing?” I ask when she doesn’t go on. “Are you sure?”

Her breathing hitches and then she’s crying…and I almost break.

Almost apologize and tell her I’ll bring the smoothie, that I’ll stay as long as she wants.

Almost.

But I don’t let it free.

Instead…I let her be disappointed.

A long while later, she exhales shakily. “I thought you didn’t mind.”

“I did mind,” I whisper. “Sometimes. I just…never told you.”

Another moment of quiet, long and tense and sad.

Then she asks, “Why did you keep saying yes?”

“I—” I freeze again, Leo’s words rippling through my mind.

Because you have to in order for people…to love you.

Hell.

The asshole’s right.

Or maybe it’s that⁠—

“I need to find a way for me to just be your son again, Mom.”

For long seconds, she doesn’t say anything.

Then, so quietly I almost miss it, she whispers, “I’m not sure how to do that.”

Neither do I.

But—

“We just…start here,” I murmur. “And take it one day at a time.”

I hold my breath as I wait for her to answer.

“I can do that.”

My exhale is shaky.

But for the first time in more than a decade, her words give me hope.