Eighteen (18) (27 page)

He has a secret life with me though. And I have one with him. And Jason has one with Phil and the babysitter. So it appears that it’s not so hard to have a secret life.

I guess anything is possible. But I’m not throwing away anything with Mateo over his past with Danny’s family. I love him way too much to do that.

I wish I didn’t. Because Danny’s right about one thing. Mateo is leaving Anaheim in two days and I’m not.

Chapter Thirty-Two

When I get home Danny was right.
There’s a note on the table in Jason’s scratchy handwriting saying that Olivia is staying at the sitter’s.

Why, though? Why tonight when he’s never done this before? It just bugs me. And the whole secret relationship with the babysitter. Why is it a secret?

I sit down on the couch, not used to the quiet and freedom to be here and not have Olivia’s demands be the first thing on my mind. I turn the TV on to make background noise, and still, I’m unsettled.

I don’t think Mateo is cheating or anything stupid like that. But I just got a lot of information I didn’t necessarily want. It’s no big deal if he decided to go to LA today. Or if he got back early and didn’t let me know. We don’t have one of those report-back-to-me relationships. We hardly ever talk when we don’t have plans. But we’ve had plans every day but Sunday for the past four months, so I never had to worry about where he was.

I get out my phone and press his contact button. It rings three times before he picks up, but the relief I feel washes over me like an ocean. “Hey,” he says. “What’s up? Have a good last day?”

“Yeah,” I lie. I’m just happy to hear him. “What are you doing?”

“Just work,” he says casually. “Cleaning out my office and turning things in.”

“So you’re still in LA?”

“Yup. I’m gonna stay here tonight. Got a hotel down the road.”

“Oh, that sucks. I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” he growls. “But I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. You have plans tonight?”

The first part of that response started out normal. But there’s something in the last part that sets me on edge. “Why would I have plans?” I ask. “I have Olivia.”

“You do,” he says, after a few moments of hesitation. “Yeah, good then. Just forgot.” There’s a bunch of voices and then it becomes muffled, like he’s covering the phone.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

“No one. I gotta go, OK? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“OK—” And then the call drops. I just look at the phone. “What the fuck was that?” But then my phone buzzes with an incoming text.

Mateo: Sorry, got cut off. I’m really busy, but I’ll text you tonight when I finish up.

Shannon: You should come home tonight.

Mateo: Probably can’t, but we’ll talk later.

I don’t text back, and he doesn’t either. How did things get weird all of a sudden?

Maybe things have always been weird, Shannon? Maybe you just never noticed it before?

I sigh and throw my phone down on the cushion, bored out of my mind. For the first time this whole semester I have nothing to do and nowhere to be. No one is counting on me, and even though I resented the fact that I was taking care of Olivia all the time, now that she’s not here I just want her back. Bad.

I swallow my pride and call Jason, just to check and make sure everything is OK. He picks up on the first ring.

“Yeah,” he barks. I can hear Olivia crying in the background.

“Jason? Is Olivia OK? I got your note.”

“Fine,” he says absently. “Just hungry. I’m about to feed her now.”

“I can watch her tonight, you know. She can stay here at home if you’re busy.”

“Nah, I’m gonna keep her with me. And I didn’t want to have this talk on the phone, but since I’ve got you, you know that you can’t stay anymore, right?”

“What?”

“I didn’t want to tell you like this, but I’ve got a girlfriend. She has kids too. And our lease is up on Monday, Shannon. I’m moving away.”

“Where?”

“Back to San Diego. I’ve got a restaurant job down there again. I’m taking this girl and her kids with me. She’s gonna take care of Olivia from now on.”

“Oh.”

“You’ve got all weekend to find a place though. So you can stay until Monday. I already moved our shit out.”

My throat starts to close up. “OK.”

“Great, see ya around.”

That call drops too and I just stare at the phone. I think my whole life just fell apart. My heart starts beating fast and I can feel the tears coming. It’s not like I’m going to miss Jason, but just the thought of not being in Olivia’s life breaks my heart. And he’s replacing me with the babysitter, I just know it. I know she has two kids. He’s probably been waiting for me to graduate all semester so they could move and leave me behind.

I look around and notice little things are missing. We didn’t have much, but the small things that said
we live here
are gone. The apartment was furnished, except for the bedrooms, but when I walk down the hallway and into Jason’s room, it’s cleaned out. No bed, no crib, no diapers or bottles lying around. Everything is just gone.

I walk back to my room and flip on the lights. I have my futon and two cardboard boxes on either side of it that I use as nightstands. I have a few clothes in the closet, but that’s it. I’m eighteen, I have no living relatives aside from a six-month-old baby, and my entire self-worth is contained in this bedroom.

I have a bank account and some money. Gigi has paid me every two weeks for the work I’ve put into the website. But it’s not much. I get a little of that large payout with each check. Not enough to pay for an apartment in Orange County, that’s for sure. I wondered all semester how Jason could afford this place. It might not look like much, but this is Colonial Anaheim and the rent is eighteen hundred a month. I guess that mystery is solved, since he’s a drug runner for Phil and not an actual chef.

I could go back to Ohio. I could. It’s a lot cheaper to live there.

But Olivia… I promised I would not leave her behind and now she’s being taken away.

Why didn’t I see this coming? I knew Mateo was leaving, but Jason? It never entered my mind that he’d throw me away. I always figured he sorta needed me.

But he doesn’t. He has the babysitter to fill my shoes.

I drop to my knees on the bed and then crawl to the pillows and start to cry. It’s not a sobbing cry. I’m not that kind of girl. It’s a silent one. The kind where the tears just fall out. I know I should be worried about where I will live next week, but all I see is Olivia’s face. All I think about is her growing bigger, and learning to crawl, and talk, and walk. And I won’t get to be there for any of it.

I have never felt this sad in my whole life. Not when my mother died. I had Jill then. We had a house and a car and I had all my friends and their parents coming by to make sure we were OK. I had teachers and neighbors who cared.

Not when Jill died. I was too scared of the future to mourn her properly. Too worried about Jason’s erratic moods and Olivia’s infant demands to take in how much I just lost with her death.

But this… I cry a little harder. Maybe I am that kind of cryer? This is so much worse. Because I have no one but Mateo. And he will leave me behind in two days when he goes out into the world to sell his software and make his dreams come true.

Do I even have dreams? No. I don’t. I have thought about nothing but finishing school for months. And yeah, I have this little beginning of a career in web design. But my whole life has been wrapped up in sex and math. A baby and a bad brother-in-law.

I can think of no good way out of this, so I just fall asleep with tears on my pillow and an aching hole in my heart.

Chapter Thirty-Three

My phone is ringing out in the living room
. I sit up, disoriented in the dark, then get up and find it on the couch where I left it earlier. “Hello?” I croak out, my voice still heavy with sleep.

There’s loud music on the other end. “Shannon?” It’s Danny. “You coming tonight?”

“What time is it? I fell asleep.”

“What’s wrong?”

How does he always know? “Nothing,” I say. “I was just so tired, I fell asleep.”

He says something else, but the music is so loud, I can’t hear. And then the call drops.

I almost laugh at that. But what do I expect? When things start unraveling in my life, they don’t stop until there’s nothing left. I plop down on the couch and stare at the TV in the dark as all the things that happened today come rushing back.

A few minutes later there’s a knock at the door. It opens without me even getting up. Danny Alexander stands in my doorway. “Shannon?”

He’s backlit by the outside lights so all I see is a shadow. “What are you doing here?” I say from the couch.

He comes in, closes the door, and walks over to stand in front of me. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

“Did you know Jason was moving to San Diego with that girl?”

“Um.” Danny sits down next to me and frowns. He did.

“God, I’m so stupid.”

“Jason’s been around Phil’s a lot lately. For work and stuff.”

“I can’t believe you call what he’s doing work. He’s a drug runner, Danny. And he’s taking Olivia to San Diego. Did he ever have a restaurant job? Or has he always been doing these bigruns from Mexico?”

“Shit, Shannon, I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this. Phil would kick my ass, especially since you’re dating Alesci.”

“He’s not a fucking narc, Danny.”

“Whatever. But yeah, I knew. I figured you did too, Shannon. I had no idea Jason was skipping out on you.”

“God, I really feel stupid.”

“He’s an asshole anyway. You’re better off without him.”

“I know that, Danny. But he’s taking Olivia. And I know you don’t know my whole story, but she’s the last thing I have in this world. She’s the only family I have, OK? And I need her.”

He stars at me for a few seconds. “You don’t know my story either. My mom never recovered from that bust. She got worse. She came out of jail so much worse than she went in. She was dealing drugs, doing drugs—”

“Then why do
you
do it?”

“I gotta make money to get the fuck out of here somehow. Might as well be the family business, right?” He laughs, but I don’t. “Look, I don’t deal like Phil or Jason. I sell joints. Pot is practically legal now. It’s not the same.”

“It will be the same if you keep doing it.”

“I’m not going to keep doing it. I’m retired now. I sold the last of my stock a few days ago. No more high school, right? No more kids who want to get stoned at lunch or after school. Rocky and I are going to Santa Barbara for school at the end of the summer. Why do you think I was in the counseling office that day we met? Rocky and I had just gotten back from visiting the campus for recruitment week and my counselor wanted to know how it went. That’s why you never saw me at Phil’s over Christmas break.”

How did I not know this about him? Why did I just assume he was a loser like me? “Great, so everyone is leaving this shithole but me. And I don’t even belong here. Jesus Christ, can my life get any more fucking ironic?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realize you were so attached to the baby. If I had, I would’ve…”