My lips formed into a thin line as I hesitated to tell her the truth. By now, Mom knew Brooke was pregnant, so I wouldn’t have even had to leave that out. I could’ve just told hereverything.
Part of me really wanted to.
“What if I told you Alana was never my girlfriend? Would you be mad about that?”
Mom cocked her head at me, uncertainty etched into her features.
I was sure she was going to get mad now, but somehow, she still looked anything but angry.
That was strange, wasn’t it? I mean, I’d never genuinely seen my mother mad-mad. Sure, the occasional “being pissed off at your kids because they were misbehaving like every kid should,” but it was never anything above that level of anger.
Not sure why I thought now was the moment she’d unleash some kind of dark side to her.
“Eden, what did you do?” she asked calmly, softly.
My eyes closed as I took a deep breath. “I think I fucked up.”
“Doing what?”
“Falling for someone who was never supposed to stay in my life for longer than a few weeks.”
Mom immediately wrapped her arms around me, holding me like she did every time I came to her with a problem.
The difference was that she’d always watched me make those mistakes and then comforted me. She’d lecture me later, though she was big on learning from my mistakes so thoselectureswere more her asking if I understood why it was wrong.
Of course she’d try to prevent us from making those mistakes, but sometimes, even the best parent in the world couldn’t stop their child from doing something stupid.
Whenever I was upset because of something dumb, she would hold me for hours until I felt okay again.
I never came to her, revealing a lie like that. I really didn’t know how she was going to react. The last thing I expected was for her to hug me.
Mom still had no idea what was really going on, at least not for the most part.
I suppose she could piece some things together, but unless I told her the whole truth, she wouldn’t know what really happened.
“I think she still likes someone else,” I told her, leaning into my mother, my arms swinging around her body as tears fell from my eyes. “She said she doesn’t anymore, but… I don’t know.”
“Eden…”
“The worst thing is, I knew what I was getting myself in to, Mom. I still did it, though.”
Mom held me tighter, her hand gently rubbing my back as I cried. “So, you love Alana, but she doesn’t love you?”
I nodded, then shook my head and nodded again. “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Mom said softly.
“Do you remember when I told you about the guy who kept getting with all my exes?”
“Yes. Austin, was it?”
“Uh-huh. Alana likes or liked him, I’m not even sure which tense it is anymore,” I told her. “We made a deal. If Alana taught me how to bake for Brooke’s baby shower, I’d help her become more confident and make sure she got with… him.”
I felt my mother nod slightly, letting me know she was listening.
Maybe it was also time I finally told her about Tori’s blog, though I didn’t think it was necessary. The article itself didn’t even bother me. I’d dealt with a fair share of lies Tori made up about me before. I could handle it.
What I couldn’t handle was Alana believing each of those lies. Starting with the fact that, years ago, Tori made me out to be the guy on campus who’d fuck everyone. They just had to ask and I would jump at the opportunity.