Hooked #4 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 4) (6 page)

“Molly! Wait!” he called to me. But I didn’t turn.

Finally he grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around.
I blinked at him. His face looked so ruddy, upset. I pictured us on the beach:
me in that tight, beautiful 80’s dress of my mother’s, he in his handsome,
shining tux. “Don’t do this,” he cried to me.

But I couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice. I
felt such anger, such resentment. “You paid my loan for me,” I finally said, my
voice shaking.

He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Molly. I am. But I
knew you needed it. Remember—remember your blackjack money? I used that. It
wasn’t a big deal. That was your money, after all!”

I shook my head, blinking at him with such
exasperation. “No. That was your money. It was your money that created it, and
thusly that is your money.” I pointed at him, at his chest.
At
his heart.
“You had absolutely no right to pay my loan back. I was going
to work hard for that money. It was going to come from me.” I knew I was acting
so prideful, but I didn’t care.

“Please. Let me explain—” Drew spouted. His eyes
were nearly brimming with pain, with fear that he would never see me again.

“No. No, I won’t allow it. Just leave me the hell
alone. I don’t need your charity.” I spun back around, removed my shoes and
rushed through the cold, hard sand, all the way into the darkness. I ran until
I was certain that Drew was out of sight. When I turned around, something like
three hundred yards later, I peered into the darkness and discovered that I had
done what I wanted in that moment: I had made him disappear.

CHAPTER
SIX

I made it back home, finally, after a long night of
walking toward the L in my heels and finding the right stop, even in my haze of
anger and alcohol. I sat on the train feeling so silly in my beautiful dress. I
felt something stick, collected from the seat, on my leg, and I allowed my head
to fall back in exasperation. It seemed nothing was going right.

I collapsed into the chair at my kitchen table when
I arrived home, throwing my heels into the corner and pouting toward my cat. He
sauntered toward me, meowing. He leaped up on my lap and tapped his nose onto
mine. “I know, I know, cat. I liked him, too.”

I removed the dress and walked naked through my
apartment, feeling the dead weight of disappointment on my shoulders. I hadn’t
fallen in love with anyone maybe ever, but this had been the closest time. I
had felt like I could actually know him, maybe. I had felt like maybe I could
change
him,
make him into a boyfriend—rather than a
player. But I had been
wrong,
just as I’d been wrong
so many, many times over the years.

I poured myself a glass of wine, feeling sad for
myself. I sipped it, wondering what had happened after I’d left the nice
restaurant. I wondered if Drew had allowed the food to rot on the table, if
he’d run home as well.
Back to his empty hotel.
I
wondered if he’d found another woman,
a nobody
to
sleep with that night, even as I slept alone in my apartment.

As I sat there, feeling sorry for myself, I dove
into many, countless other things—other things to feel sad about. I felt so
many things at once, so certain I was that I was about to lose my home in
Chicago. No matter what, there would be another bill. No matter what, there
would be another asshole to walk all over me.

I had another glass of wine and felt my head spin
around, over and over, as I listened to the beeping and traffic from the
street. I dialed the number almost without thinking, and placed the phone
against my temple.

Her voice on the other end of the line was strained,
perhaps drunk, as well.

“Hello?”

I paused before I answered. I heard so many things
in her hello. I heard panic; I heard sadness. I heard the image of the woman I
would ultimately be unless I worked hard for a different life.

“Hello?” she tried again. She sounded like she’d
been crying.

“Mom?”
I whispered back. I hadn’t heard her voice in months.

“Molly,” my mother said. Her voice felt comfortable
then. Like something I’d known my entire life. Like the way you know what pop
tarts taste like before you taste them; like the way you know what your home
smells like before you enter.

“How are you?” I tried. I wasn’t going to tell her I
was going to fail in Chicago. I wasn’t ready to hear her disdain.

“I’m—I’m fine, darling.
Just
fine.”
She sniffed, making me worried.

“Mom.
What’s going on? You sound upset.”

“No, no.
Honey.
It’s just
that me and Brett broke up, is all.” Brett had been her boyfriend of the
previous two years. I had met him a few times, but I’d never liked him a great
deal.
A beer belly and a raucous laugh.

“When did this happen?”

“Two weeks ago. I know. It’s pathetic, me crying at
home every night. I just feel like my life is over, you know? I mean. You
probably can’t imagine. You’re up in Chicago, living the life of your dreams.”
My mother sniffed. “You are okay, aren’t you honey? You don’t normally call
this late.”

At the end of her sentence, I could almost hear her
say the words: “You never even call at all.” But she didn’t. I could have used
this against her as well. Neither of us dialed the phone. It was the way we
worked. Too much had happened.

“You’re not pathetic, mom. I was just calling to say
hi.” I felt all the
strain, all the terror in my heart begin
to dissipate as I spoke to her, listening to her voice. “Sometimes, I just have
to hear my mother’s voice. Sometimes, that’s the only thing that I need.”

“Well,” my mother spoke. She was dumbfounded, I
knew. “It’s good to hear your voice, as well.” Her cries had begun to
dissipate. There was nothing for us to discuss. We just sat on the line,
listening to each other breathe.

“I opened up a different dance studio,” I told her.
Just to fill the air with words.

“Did you, honey? That’s wonderful. Is it still in
your—“

“Wicker Park.
Yeah. It’s right by my apartment.”

“Oh, darling.
You don’t still live in that dreadful apartment.”

“I do, mom. But Boomer keeps me company.”

“You’re seeing someone?”

“Sort of.
A few different guys,” I answered, lying. It was always the lies between us. I
felt us falling away from the honesty that had been at the beginning of our
conversation. I swallowed.

“That’s the way to live, isn’t it?” my mother
answered.
“When your father and I were dating, though.
I just knew.
Instantly.”
She sniffed.

I thought about that; how she’d never told me that
part of the story before. All she’d ever told me was that my father had forced
her to stay, when she could have been anyone, she could have been anything.
She, like me, was so beautiful; she wore her heart on her sleeve. But she got
that sleeve caught on something in Indianapolis, Indiana. And now, she was
going to die there.

“Do you ever think about what would have happened if
you hadn’t met dad?” I asked. It was an outrageous question, one I never should
have versed. I bit my lip while I waited.

My mother sighed. “I think about it all the time.
But in an off-hand way.
Like, would my skin be more wrinkled
if I’d lived in Florida? What if I’d never had a baby? Would I have better
sex?” My mother cackled. I’d never heard her speak in such a way. I closed my
eyes and tried not to giggle. “But no. I couldn’t imagine my life without him,
actually. He was the love of my life. And then we produced you.
And you, Molly Atwood.
You are the love of my life now.”

I swallowed, feeling the weight in my chest once
more. I peered out into the night, wondering about all the lost souls out
there, all of them living alone, without anyone to care for. “I love you too,
mom.”

We hung up the phone not long after that. I
suggested she have a few of her old friends over, but she said she wanted to
get caught up with some Dr. Oz shows she hadn’t seen yet. I nodded into the
phone, feeling assured.
Feeling so happy, really.
I
felt, in those moments, that whatever I did, however I messed up, my mother
would be by my side. There wasn’t anything to worry about, really. I had a
support system, just down south.

I clambered into bed, feeling my consciousness
falling away. I wrapped my arms around myself and daydreamed until I couldn’t
think anymore. And then I fell asleep.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

The next morning, I prepared myself for the young
girls’ first dance class. It was going to be at four o‘clock in the afternoon.
These younger girls were five and six years old, and they were dizzy, lost
little girls who couldn’t quite plié yet. But we would get there. After all,
I’d started when I was four. And my mother stated I’d looked more like a
spinning turtle than anything else, until my legs grew in.

I went to the studio and looked around at it sadly,
spinning in a circle, looking at the broken mirror I’d strapped to the large
wall; eyeing the awards I’d brought over from the previous studio—my awards
from high school and college. It all wasn’t so far away, but it seemed like a
few lifetimes ago.

I orchestrated a beautiful technique for the girls
to learn that evening. I did an initial plié and then I spun into a leap,
landing softly on my toes. I felt the strain for a moment in my bum knee—the
knee that I’d hurt after college. But then the twang went away and I smiled at
myself in the mirror. It was going to be all right.

I got a call mid-routine and I rushed to my bag,
which was splayed by the door. Mel was on the other line. I answered the phone,
breathing heavily. “Mel? Hey. What’s up? Are you coming in for the little girls
tonight?”

I hadn’t received word yet if Mel was heading in to
help me teach the class. I was certain she would, of course. She had been eager
to train the children, especially as she became a better and better mother. But
then, her voice on the other line sounded strained. “I’m so sorry, Molly. I
have been called away by something. I can meet you immediately after? I’ll need
to go over something in the books with you, okay?”

“Okay, okay. The class lasts an hour. You’ll be here
by then?” I tipped my hip to the right, watching as the sun began its descent
over the city.

“Yeah.
Again, I’m so sorry,
Mol
—“

“It’s okay, of course! I can handle the five year
olds by myself.
But hey.
Listen.
Your—your
nephew or whatever.
He was the one who paid for my fucking loan.” I
sounded so huffy, so angry. I knew it wasn’t coming across correctly. I sighed.

“Molly, I’m so sorry. Can we talk about this later?”

“Of course.”

Already, I could hear the pitter-patter of little
feet as they ascended from the pub to the dance studio. Their mothers strode up
with them, forcing the stairs to creak beneath their weight. They all smiled at
me in greeting. “It’s been a while, Molly,” they said. The little girls reached
toward me and wrapped their sticky hands around my waist. “Miss Molly!”

“Not ideal that it’s above a pub, is it?” one mother
murmured to the other in the corner. The other mother shook her head, frowning.
I felt the weight of their comments on my chest. I wanted to scream at them
that I was doing the best I could. But there wasn’t time for such things.

I turned back toward the girls and flipped on the
music. “Who wants to
stretch!
”

And they leaped into the air like excited monkeys.
We waved our hands first this way, then that. We touched our toes. After a few
moments of warm up, we dove into the choreography I’d outlined for them. They
jumped, chaotically, making the room shake. They were giggling loudly over the
music. I stopped them every few moments to orient them into a better move, to
make them do each movement with better form. Their arms were so slim,
so
tender as I worked to mold them into perfect ballerinas.

At the end of an hour I was exhausted. I led them
out the door, allowing each one to hug me on her way
out
.
I waved goodbye to the mothers. Each of them had been impressed with the way
I’d handled the chaotic little girls, and they gave me smiles of approval. I
only got paid once a month, of course, which meant that I would be receiving
their checks at the end of the month. I would have to hold out.

I sighed, walking toward the office. I had stocked
all of my financial reports there, and I looked at it beneath the lights,
wondering how I was going to ever organize everything. The lights had begun to
dissipate outside, and I knew I needed to walk home soon, before it got too
cold. I looked at the calendar and realized, suddenly, that it was Halloween. I
rushed to the window, where I could still see the little girls exiting the pub
below. One of the mothers had begun placing silly costume hats on the girls;
another one handed her daughter a small chocolate bar. I remembered how my own
mother and I used to go trick-or-treating together, at least during the younger
years. I’d been a princess or a ballerina during each one, and I hadn’t
regretted it. Not once.