She moved her mouth, but I didn’t hear her.

“My entire life has been turned upside down. Again.”

Shaking her head, she looked around Jax’s living room as stringy, ratted strands of hair knocked off her gaunt, sallow cheeks. “I thought . . . I thought I could get the money back.”

“Yeah, by stealing heroin from Isaiah. Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” I was breathing heavy, my heart pounding with fury and a ripe kind of sadness. “You know, he was here. He said you can’t even be in this state. Do you know what that means, Mom?”

“I’m leaving,” she rasped, her gaze flickering away from me, over the walls. She was as twitchy as a cornered mouse. “I got some friends in New Mexico I’m hooking up with. I wanted to see you before I leave.”

She was leaving, like really leaving.

Okay.

Wow. That wigged me out more than I thought it would, which was stupid.

I figured this would have to happen. The only other option was her staying, which equaled certain death, Mack-style. I watched her move in a slow, random circle in front of me, digging at her arm with her dirty nails. I pressed my lips together, cutting off what would’ve been a sob.

“You’re high right now, aren’t you?”

She picked up her pace in the little circle she was making. “I’m not high. I just needed something, baby. Things aren’t good.”

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. So much anger rose inside me, eating away at me like a cancer. And it was a poison that had been inside me, pecking away since I was a little girl. That was nothing new, but as I opened my eyes and watched her scratching her arm as she trekked a path in the floor, I was suddenly too exhausted to hold on to the more razor-sharped edges of the anger. After tonight, I was never going to see my mom again. She would be gone. Over the last couple of years it was like she was dead, but now it would be even more real. Before, I knew she was here or at least in the general vicinity of here, but after tonight, I’d have no idea where she’d be. If she got hurt or something worse happened, there’d be no Jax or Clyde to call me. I’d never know. She would be seriously gone.

I sat down, exhaling.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

My gaze lifted and she was closer now, still pacing and still scratching at what were most likely track marks. I tensed up. “I know.”

She stopped, looking at me like a deer in front of a speeding semi, and then she started walking. Frowning, I twisted around and watched her make her way toward the dining room table I doubted Jax had ever made use of.

There were a couple of sheets of paper.

With trembling hands, Mom swept off the paper and she turned to me. She started forward, stopping a few feet behind the couch. “This is . . . yours.”