“Explain,” he grits out.
I almost laugh, one of those awkward, embarrassed laughs you can’t control and wish you could, because he sounds grumpy as hell. It’s not surprising, Bridger comes off as broody and on the quiet side. Still, since I burst into his life yesterday,I’ve gotten glimpses of him opening up to me. Every time he lets me in, even just a little, it feels like I’ve won some kind of championship that comes with a giant trophy and a flower wreath.
Which is silly, but true none the less.
“She’s a drunk and she takes the mantra of ‘better living through pharmaceuticals’ to the extreme. She’s not hooked on pain pills,” I pause, and my eyebrows pull together before I mutter, “at least I don’t think so.” I shake it off and keep going. “But she does love Xanax and her sleeping pills. Everything is mixed with alcohol like some toxic chemical powder keg just waiting to explode.”
“Who raised you?”
I sigh and look out the window again. “Nannies mostly when I was too young to be able to fend for myself and when mom wasn’t having some paranoid delusions about the nanny sleeping with my father.”
“Was he?” Bridger sounds offended on behalf of my mother and I almost giggle.
“Probably,” I answer with a shrug. “The man doesn’t see any value in women beyond being a wife which might as well mean sex toy.” My voice changes, becoming wistful and full of yearning, “He always wanted a son, but I’m an only child. He didn’t know how I could benefit him for most of my childhood. When I started school and maintained really good grades, he started to see a little bit of value in me. It’s why he sent me off to college and law school.”
“But?” His prompt is gentle and that almost stings worse because it means he knows I’m in need of a little coddling.
“But it wasn’t enough. I was still a woman in the man’s world he built. His empire. His legacy. My degrees don’t really matter to him because he never gave me a chance to be a lawyer in his firm. I’m treated like a paralegal, one who just happens to have a law degree and has passed the bar,” I mumble sullenly.
“Did you want to become a lawyer?”
Bridger’s question is innocent, but it still breaks something inside of me. “No,” I gasp and rub my chest right over my heart where the ache is the deepest. “At this point I’m not sure what I wanted to be. Maybe I just wanted a chance to figure it out instead of having my entire life mapped out for me by someone who never saw my worth.”
He gives my thigh a squeeze, his voice a low rumble, “You deserve so much better than that, Sweetheart.”
I nod and keep my lips pressed tightly together. Because I can’t trust my voice. I’m fairly sure if I say anything then a sob will break free and I’m tired of crying.
“It’s why I got so emotional when Amelia told me that I’m part of the family,” I admit, my tone dejected, “I’ve never had one before.”
Bridger squeezes my thigh again. It’s not pretty words. It’s not sunshine wrapped in a rainbow and bedazzled with rhinestones. But it’s real and it’s enough.
After arriving and parking, the way Bridger puts his hand on the small of my back, a steady presence in the chaos of my mind, has me thinking about jumping into his arms and climbing him like a tree instead of finding out what version of my mom will greet us.
I don’t bother knocking because I already know there’s no point.
The house, which feels more like a mausoleum, is quiet. I almost heave a sigh of relief, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
Our steps are quiet as I head through the entryway and toward the stairs. Everything about this house is cold. Nothing was done with the thought of a child living within these walls, which is ridiculous considering how large the house is and how many rooms it contains. There is enough space for ten kids, but only the kind of kids who can fit into a mold made of luxury, expectation, and gilded marble where dreams die.
“Wow,” Bridger mumbles, “I didn’t realize you grew up in a mansion.”
I shoot him a small smile filled with sadness. “It always felt more like a tomb than a house.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulders and tucks me into his side. With the way he’s holding me, I’m able to almost ignore how the cold of this house reaches for me. Maybe it can’t really touch me anymore.
Just as we’re about to take the first step up to the second floor, the gleaming white marble of the staircase almost blinding me, my mom’s voice rings out, “What are you doing here?” We turn slowly, as if neither of us want to face what is inevitable. The moment we do, mom takes in Bridger and her fake upper lip curls into what might be a snarl on someone who hasn’t been getting Botox and fillers for longer than my 28 years of life. “And why are you bringing this trash into our home?”
A laugh, sharp and short, bursts from my chest. Even though my mom has just insulted the man, he doesn’t drop his hold onme, and he doesn’t step away. Instead, his fingers curl around me in a way that feels like a promise to never let me go.
“Home? This was never a home,” I don’t yell the words even though I want to, my voice is calm but has the force of a whip.
“You’ve always been ungrateful,” she fires back without a second of hesitation as if she’s just been waiting for the moment to spew her vitriol and catch me in the crossfire.
The only thing that stops me from flinching is the heavy weight of Bridger’s hand on my back. It grounds me. And it reminds me that he’s right here with me and facing this storm like it’s his own.
When I don’t say anything, when I let the lies she wraps up in truth hang in the air between us, something shifts. Or maybe it breaks.
My mom folds first. She looks away. For the first time, her challenge isn’t met or placated and she’s the one to flinch.
