Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit

43. Rivers

43

RIVERS

“ M att, I swear to God, if you’ve got me out here for something that’s going to get me in more trouble than I’m already in, I’ll?—”

“It was Lila’s idea, not mine,” my best friend said quickly, never taking his eyes off the road in front of us.

Lila, however, spun around in her seat—taking her eyes completely off the road—and glared at him. “Matt! This is a group effort!”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back around in her seat. “If it’s a group effort, maybe you should make sure we arrive in one piece. Eyes on the road!”

Lila was driving, so I agreed with him on that point.

Anna, however, reached out and smacked the hand closest to her, then turned to glare at Matt. “Lay another hand on her and I’ll make sure you don’t get it back, buddy.”

This was such a change from the way she’d been looking at him lately—namely with mooning eyes and lips ready to be kissed—that I sputtered with laughter.

I mean the whole thing was actually hilarious. They sounded like some sort of traveling comedy routine with their banter— which had been going on, by the way, since they’d essentially kidnapped me from my room this morning before I was even fully awake. Matt had come in and yanked me out of bed, shoving me quickly into jeans and a T-shirt while he made excuse after excuse about why I had to get up and get dressed before the sun was even rising over the buildings around us and telling me not to worry about it because he had everything under control.

Two things: First, Matt never had anything under control. He was way too much of a nice guy to ever assert control over anything, and I knew for a fact that he preferred following someone else’s directions to making up his own rules. Second, and more importantly, when he’d hustled me into the living area of my suite, we found Lila and Anna there, both looking bossy and in charge. Which meant that he absolutely didn’t have anything under control.

I’d thought at first that this was some Anna scheme—she was definitely the more assertive of that duo—but within moments Lila had started talking about wanting to take me on a road trip and needing to do something, and that although she’d been doubting it, Taylor had said something that had made her think it was necessary but that she needed me to sign on to whatever it was.

I guessed that meant she was at least kind of asking my permission before they kidnapped me, though most of her words flew in one ear and out the other without making much of an imprint. I’d only been asleep for a couple hours, courtesy of Lila dragging me out into a meadow for most of the night, and I hadn’t had any caffeine yet.

But the fact that she had dragged me out into a meadow for most of the night, and had actually asked what was wrong with me and then listened to the answer, made me agree to whatever plan she had. Hell, I would have agreed to almost anything she said in that moment. Her hair was messy and her eyes were on fire with excitement—which should have made me nervous—but she was looking at me like I was the only person in the world for her, and that was enough for me.

This girl had taken the time to try to see who I was and ask what I wanted. And for that, I would have cheerfully run off the edge of the world if that was what she’d wanted.

All of which led to this moment, where I was stuffed into the backseat of Lila’s tiny car—still on tour with us courtesy of one of the roadies driving it for her when she couldn’t—with Matt, while Lila and Anna took up the front seats.

No, it didn’t make sense for the two tall guys to be stuck in the backseat while the girls were in the front. But it wasn’t my car. Also, I didn’t know where we were going, so I wouldn’t have made a very good dRivers or navigator.

“Turn right here!” Anna suddenly screeched.

Lila was already jerking the wheel to the right, like she’d known ahead of time that Anna was going to say it, and I remembered Lila telling me that the girls had known each other long enough to be able to read each other’s minds. I wondered if Anna knew what we were doing, then. I assumed so, since she’d agreed to come along. I wondered if Matt did. I chanced a glance at him but he was busy hanging onto the door handle, his jaw tight with anxiety, presumably at Lila’s driving skills.

He must have known I was looking at him.

He didn’t bother to return my stare.

Right. If he knew, he wasn’t going to tell me, and for the first time I started to get nervous about this. Where were they taking me? Was this some sort of intervention? I didn’t think so; surely interventions didn’t allow so much joking around during the drive toward them. Or did they? No one had ever bothered to give me one, so I didn’t really know the rules for them.

God, did I need to start preparing or something? Should I be reciting what I was going to tell them when they said I was drinking too much, brooding my life away? Did I need to be on the defense here?

Then Lila turned and glanced at me over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth turning up in a slightly nervous smile and her eye glinting with hope.

That wasn’t the face of a girl who was about to sell me out or lecture me. That was the face of a girl who had a plan, and was hoping it would work out for the best.

I didn’t know what she had up her sleeve, but I hoped it was good. Because I already had a ride booked back to Nashville for later today, and this might be the last morning I ever spent with her.

I really didn’t want to spend it listening to someone lecture me about how much I was hurting the people I loved and letting them down.

* * *

I knew this trailer park.

And when Lila finally came to a stop, I knew the trailer, too. I knew the old, yellowed-out siding. The metal on the shutters. The broken-down stairs that led up to the front door that didn’t close all the way and the cracked pavement that should have been a parking space and was more like a pile of gravestones.

When I’d been a kid, I’d thought maybe they were gravestones and that there were dead people underneath them. People who had once lived in our trailer and had died there and never been taken anyplace else. I’d been terrified that they would come get me at night and nearly as frightened of them as I was of the real men who paraded through the house.

Now I looked at the place with the same horror... and then turned my eyes to Lila, panic already flooding through me. What the hell were we doing here? Why had they brought me to this place? How did they even know this place existed?

I’d trusted Lila not to lead me into harm. And yet she’d brought me to the place where all my nightmares started.

“Lila?” I asked brokenly.

She turned and looked at me with nothing but love and hope in her eyes. “I found them, Rivers. I’ve been looking for them for days and I finally found them. I know your mom left you when you were small and that it changed everything for you. I know what you went through because of that. But I also know that she’s told people she felt she didn’t have a choice and that she’s regretted it every single day since then. I know she loves you and wants to mend things with you, and I thought... I thought...”

She paused and frowned, like she’d just realized that she might have thought wrong or overreached, but then reached out and took my hand. “I know that if she didn’t leave you for the reasons you thought she did, it changes things again. And I think you deserve the chance to hear how much she loved you and wanted the best for you. You deserve to know that it wasn’t your fault and that it wasn’t about you. I don’t want you to have to keep carrying that with you for the rest of your life.”

I didn’t know what to say. My throat had closed up and I couldn’t breathe, and even if I’d wanted to answer I knew I wouldn’t have the voice to do it. She’d found my mother. She’d been working on it for days. She’d figured out where she was and maybe even talked to her. Maybe asked her why she’d done what she’d done and had heard that my mom hadn’t had a choice.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

I didn’t know what to feel. Half of me felt like this was some sort of crazy dream because I’d taken the wrong sort of vitamins or something. Part felt like this was too good to be true. I’d known that this trailer park existed, of course, but I’d never thought my mother was still here, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have come searching for her. I’d been so sure she didn’t want me, so sure she’d abandoned me, and it hadn’t occurred to me that we could ever mend that bridge.

I’d been too content to carry the damage with me for the rest of my life.

But what if she hadn’t had a choice?

What if it was like Lila was saying and my mother had thought she was doing the right thing for me? Maybe she’d been so broke she couldn’t feed me and had been desperate to turn me over to someone who could. Maybe she’d known what those men were doing to me and had done what she needed to get me away from them.

Maybe she’d been saving me, and I’d been wrong about her all these years.

It was a thought too beautiful, too precious, for my dark and shadowed life. A possibility that floated ahead of me like some sort of rainbow-colored cloud, almost too good to want to touch.

I bit my lip and gazed into Lila’s eyes, taking in the faith and hope there, the belief that everything could be okay because I was finally going to find my family...and then I got out of the car and made for the front door.

It was the hardest walk I thought I’d ever taken, though it got a whole lot easier when Lila appeared at my side and took my hand. She squeezed gently and fell into step next to me, and before I knew it we were at the door, and she was reaching forward to knock.

I watched her hand with my heart in my throat, trying very hard not to throw up at the thought that I was about to see my mother again, and perhaps rewrite everything I’d ever thought of her. God, if this was all it took to change everything, if this actually told me that she was never who I thought she was but had loved me all along and done her best for me...

My life would change, and I’d owe it all to Lila Potter.

Then the door opened and a stick-thin woman with enormous eyes, stringy hair, and sagging skin was standing in front of us, a cigarette dangling from her lips and a sour look on her face. The eyes, foggy with drugs or alcohol or something else, looked up and down my body and then snapped to Lila, who she glared at.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I remembered that voice. I remembered the way she snapped at me every time I’d done something wrong.

I remembered her handing me to the man at the orphanage.

And I knew nothing had changed. No matter how much Lila wanted to believe it had.

“Mrs. Shine?” Lila asked hesitantly. “My name’s Lila Potter. I believe someone has been in touch with you? Told you we were coming?”

The eyes glanced at me one more time and then turned to Lila, the sneer on the mouth growing even more pronounced. “Lila Potter? The girl who says she has my Rivers with her?”

Lila pushed me forward a bit. “Right. Here he is. I wanted to bring him in person so you could... So you could...”

The woman—my mother—jerked herself away from the door and into the dimly lit trailer, and Lila’s voice faded away. Maybe because she was realizing that this wasn’t going to go the way she’d hoped it would.

My heart broke for her a little bit, because I knew exactly how it felt when my mother told you one thing and did another. Lila had lived such a bright, sunny life that it had probably never occurred to her that your mother could care so little for you that she’d give you up without a second thought. She’d probably never imagined any parent would refuse to love their child.

She’d grown up in an entirely different world than I did.

Still. There was a part of me that wanted this just as badly as Lila did. So I stepped into the room, vowing to give the woman a chance to make things up to me. Maybe she just didn’t like strangers, or maybe she needed a moment to think.

She could still do the right thing.

She whirled around and threw herself into an armchair that looked like it had been made in the 70s. And her glare finally turned to me.

“So you’re Rivers,” she said, sounding annoyed, like we were imposing on something important. Her eyes traveled from my eyes down to my feet and back up. “I guess I can see the resemblance. Some sort of rock star now, aren’t you?”

“I guess you could say that,” I said hesitantly.

“All rich and famous and successful.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a sneer.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, trying to inject some humor into the situation. How the fuck were you supposed to handle something like this? Was there a rule book somewhere that I just hadn’t gotten?

She snorted. “Richer than you would have been if you lived here, that’s for sure. You come around to ask me for something? Or did you finally figure out you had family that needed help? Richard! ”

She shouted the name like it was part of the conversation we were having and I jumped. What the hell? Who was Richard? Did she have Tourette or something?

A second later, though, a guy roughly my age emerged from another room, looking... far, far too much like me. I could see it in the eyes and the nose. The sharp jawline. The dark, ruffled hair.

That person was related to me.

“Your little brother,” she snapped. “Richard, meet Rivers. Your big brother. He’s here to help us. Finally give us some of that money he’s been making for years.”

Wait. I had a brother?

We stared at each other, our mouths hanging open in what had to be nearly identical expressions. The image of something like my face staring right back at me was so surreal that I went back to thinking I must be dreaming all of this. It was all too strange. How old was this kid, and when had he been born? I knew from the records that I’d been three when my mom deserted me, so he must be at least three years younger than me. His dad and mine might be the same person. We might have been friends.

Except that she kept him.

And deserted me.

I swung my gaze back to my mom, all the confusion of that boy flooding back into me, and saw her smirking up at me.

“So what is it, Rivers? You come home to make good? Come back to get to know us, finally? Your dad’s not here. Been dead for years. But your brother and I are here. We’re ready to move out of this shit hole. Fine time for you to show up.”

She took a drag of her cigarette and reached over to pour herself a glass of whiskey on the side table, and suddenly I was three again, watching her get drunk at night and forget to make dinner. Knowing that I’d have to climb into the cupboard and look for anything that hadn’t gone bad.

Knowing that she didn’t care enough to take care of me.

Back then, I hadn’t had any value to her, which was why she’d dumped me. Now, the only value I had was money. Fuck, I was surprised she hadn’t tried to find me years ago, just to ask me to give her some of the cash I’d been earning since I was twelve and figured out I had to take care of myself. Maybe she had, and she’d been blocked by my lawyer or Taylor or the record company itself.

Maybe she just hadn’t bothered, and Lila looking for her had given her the opportunity she’d been waiting for.

One thing was for sure: She hadn’t changed. She was still the same trash she’d always been, living in squalid conditions that no human being should have lived in. She’d never tried to improve herself or her situation, and she certainly hadn’t come looking for me.

I really doubted she’d ever even bothered to think about me once she dropped me off.

Lila had been wrong. I didn’t know if my mom had lied to her or if Lila herself had just been hoping for the best, but this wasn’t it. I glanced over at the girl and saw that she looked just as horrified and broken as I felt, and my heart broke for her again. This was so far beyond her ability to understand. She was from a happy, full life in Nashville where she and her sisters had formed a band and played Blondie for their parents. Where she’d had enough money that she could practically adopt her best friend, and where she’d probably never been hungry or scared or cold or anything else.

She didn’t know what it was like to grow up in a world where your mother didn’t care whether you lived or died. And seeing it now, seeing how I’d grown up, had to be ripping her to shreds.

I was betting she didn’t feel so great about her plan now, either.

Her eyes met mine, full of unshed tears and sorrow, and then she spun and left, muttering something about needing to make a call. I turned back to my mom, my mind reeling at everything that had happened in the last ten minutes, and when Richard—my little brother—pushed past me, I didn’t try to stop him.

I didn’t have the energy to deal with him, too. I needed to figure out what to do about my mother, now that she knew I knew her whereabouts. Needed to figure out how to stop her from making any trouble. Then I’d get my friends the hell out of here and back to solid ground.

I opened my mouth to try to talk to her, try to say anything that might sound like I didn’t hate her guts...

And then I heard Lila screaming.