My mom knocked on Lily’s bedroom door. “Lily, sweetheart? Are you ready? The social worker is here.”
The look of terror on her face killed me. It freaking killed me. I knew from personal experience that going back home once you’d been removed rarely worked out. Yet the damn judges always wanted to put you back—as if mothers and fathers were entitled to have children, and they had to prove to the guy in the black robe why they were incompetent. Birth parents usually had to screw up a half-dozen times before they’d stop sending you back. The system sucked.
I motioned toward the door with my head and whispered, “Tell her you’re getting dressed, and you’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Lily did, but her voice broke. Mom said she’d meet her downstairs.
It was only a matter of time before my mother noticed I wasn’t around. Lily and I had kept our relationship a secret. We were afraid my parents would think it was a bad idea to keep two fifteen year olds who were in love in the same house. I mean, it was…but they didn’t need to know that. They also didn’t need to know that I snuck into her bed every night after everyone was asleep. That would most certainly freak Mom out.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Lily sobbed quietly.
I cupped her face and wiped away her tears with my thumbs. “Don’t cry. You’re never going to lose me, Lily. Not ever. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We held each other for a long time. Eventually, though, we had to let go.
“I’ll write to you every day we can’t be together.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to write back. I know you don’t like writing stuff. Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll write to me if you fall in love with someone else, and tell me all about her so I’ll know you’re happy and I should stop writing. Otherwise, I’ll never give up on us.”
I grinned and kissed her nose. “You got a deal. Works out pretty good for me. Because I’ll never have to write one damn letter.”
***
I’d never met anyone who had hallucinations before. My mom had been an addict, and she would sleep for hours on end, sometimes days when she was on a binge. But even when she was at her worst, she never heard voices in her head.
This was the second Sunday I’d visited Lily since she moved out, but the first time her mother had been home. Rose had a job waitressing on weekends, so she’d been at work last week, but apparently this week she was incapable of going. I understood why now. Rose was lying on the couch smoking a cigarette so small that I couldn’t imagine it wasn’t burning her fingers. Her mouth kept moving as she spoke quietly to herself, but I couldn’t figure out what she was saying.
Lily tugged my hand when she caught me staring and told me to come to her room. “But…” I leaned and whispered, “What about the cigarette?”
Lily sighed and walked over. She slipped the cigarette from between her mother’s two fingers and dropped it into a half-full glass of water on the coffee table, which already had a dozen other tiny remnants of filters. Her mom didn’t even seem to notice.
I took a seat on Lily’s bed, and she hopped onto my lap.
“I guess she stopped taking her medicine?”
“She ran out a week ago and didn’t refill it. I hadn’t been checking, so I didn’t notice right away. But I called the pharmacy, and I can pick up the new one later.”
“How long will she stay like that?”
Lily sighed. “I don’t know. But she was doing so good.”
Things had been normal for me for more than ten years now, but I still remembered the constant disappointment of my mom sleeping all the time—not to mention all the scary guys who hung around our apartment. It was easy to forget my life had once been like Lily’s.
“Maybe we should call someone. Like CPS?”
Lily’s eyes widened. “No!”
“I thought you wanted to stay with us. If they see her like that, they’ll remove you again, and you’ll probably come back to our house.”
Lily frowned. “I do want that. But now that I’m back with her, I can’t leave her like this. She needs me. They drug her up too much in the hospital.”
“I know. But she doesn’t look so good.”
“The medicine will make her better. I swear.”
I didn’t like it, but I understood wanting to take care of your mother, even when she should’ve been taking care of you. I sighed. “Fine.”
Lily wrapped her arms around my neck. “Did you get my letters?”
“I did. You really don’t want me to write back? I couldn’t do it every day like you. I wouldn’t know what to say. But maybe I could write once or twice a week.”
“Nope. If I ever see a letter from you in my mailbox, my heart’s going to be broken, because it will be your goodbye.”
I wasn’t going to argue, considering I hated writing anything, especially letters. Plus, I had better things to do. I brushed Lily’s hair from her shoulder and leaned in for a kiss. “I missed you this week.”
“I miss sleeping with you at night. I haven’t been sleeping well without you. I got used to the sound of your heartbeat lulling me to sleep.”
“Well, you might not hear it at night anymore. But it still belongs to you.”
Lily and I hung out in her room until I had to go. My mom was picking me up, and I wanted to wait downstairs so she didn’t come up and see the condition of Lily’s mom. Reluctantly, we untangled our bodies, straightened our clothes, and headed back to the living room. Lily had slipped out a few times over the last few hours to check on her mom, but I hadn’t seen her since I came in hours ago.
Rose wasn’t spacing out on the couch anymore. Now she walked back and forth from one side of the living room to the other, pacing. When you spent a good chunk of your childhood around junkies and addicts, you learned to read how stable a person is from just a quick look into their eyes. And Lily’s mother looked the opposite of stable right now. Noticing me looking at her, she stopped pacing and stared at me. Her face twisted with anger, and she walked toward me with purpose. I stepped in front of Lily.
Rose’s eyes looked crazed. “I know you told them.”
My brows furrowed. “Who?”
“The doctors. It’s your fault.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Harrison. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
Before I could register what the hell was happening, she wound up and slapped me straight across the face. “Liar!”
Lily jumped between us and pushed her mom back. “Mom! What the hell? What are you doing?”
“He tells the doctors.” She wagged her finger at me. “He tells them everything.”
“Mom.” Lily put her arm around her mother and guided her to the couch. “You’re confused. You stopped taking your medicine, and it made you sick again.” They sat down. “I’m going to go get it from the pharmacy.”
Her mom started to cry. All of the anger in her face was gone, replaced by sheer sadness. It was the craziest transformation I’d ever seen. It took Lily a few minutes to calm her down, but eventually she got her back into the position she’d been in when I walked in: lying on the couch, smoking a cigarette in an almost catatonic state, and whispering to herself. Lily walked me to the door and waited until we were in the hall to speak.