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“Okay, sounds good,” I say, pausing a moment before adding, “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Bodhi,” he replies without hesitation, only this time, there isn’t a decades-long lie wedged between us. We know who we are to one another, and it makes all the difference.
Bodhi
I pull up outside my parents’ house, and the echo of emotions I felt the last time I was here hit me in the gut.
If I didn’t need to set everything in order so badly, I’d sure as shit be whipping this car around and getting as far away from this ache as possible.
My dad’s car is missing. I’m sure he’s at the office, running numbers or something to determine how I might become better in the future. Too bad for him I won’t enter into another race employed by Kane’s Racing.
At least him being gone means I’ll have time to talk to mom on my own without his menacing shadow looming over us.
I take a deep breath before stepping out of the car and walking up to the front door. It’s unlocked, just like always, and I let myself in, calling out for my mom as I make my way through the house.
The air feels musty and stale, like it hasn’t been circulated in a while — even though I was just here a few days ago — and I feel a pang of sadness as I realize how lonely and abandoned the house must feel.
“Bodhi?” Mom’s voice is weak, and I follow it to the living room where she’s sitting in her favorite armchair, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, taking a seat on the couch across from her.
“You’re here,” she says, a hint of surprise in her voice.
“Yeah, I am. I think we need to talk,” I say, and she nods, sensing the seriousness in my tone.
“We do, but I’m afraid I don’t know where to start,” she says, her voice cracking as tears well in her eyes. “Bodhi… I am so sorry. I never wanted you to find out that way.”
“Kinda sounds like you didn’t want me to find out at all, Mom,” I say.
Her shoulders roll forward as she curls in on herself, small whimpers filling the silence.
“I d-didn’t know h-how to tell you,” she cries.
“Not really that hard, Mom.”
She shakes her head adamantly, her blonde waves coming loose from the carefully pinned hairstyle she’s wearing today.
“You don’t understand. Your dad— Thompson… wouldn’t let me say anything,” she says, sniffling and wiping the tears away.
It doesn’t do any good, because they just keep falling, leaving little streaks on her make-up covered cheeks.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“He didn’t want the bad press,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “He said that if the world found out that his wife had an affair with his brother and gave birth to a child that wasn’t his, it would make him look bad.”
“No offense, Mom, but if that was going to make anyone look bad, it would be you,” I say.
“That is exactly what I told him, but it would make him look bad by association.”
Horse shit. I swear, I wanted to try to look past his attitude and the way he handled everything, but he infuriates me to no end.
“I didn’t mind what people thought about me. What did I care? I was a South Side girl, born on the wrong side of town, but he took a chance on me. Thought he could mold me into the perfect wife. His little trophy,” she says.
I pull my head back, never having heard this bit of information before.
“Wait. You were born on the south side?” I ask, and she nods, a sad smile pulling at the corner of her lips.
“Not too far from where Keaton lives now, actually,” she says.
