But then it just became a reminder of what I’d lost. Or what I thought I’d lost.

On the last day I came here, I had reached a point where I couldn’t be disappointed anymore. I couldn’t listen to anyone else not want me.

So I shut down. Completely and immediately.

That’s the thing about change.

It can be gradual. Slow and almost unnoticeable.

Or it can be sudden, and you don’t even know how you could’ve been any other way.

Becoming hard at heart isn’t an intersection in your brain where you have a choice to turn left or right. It’s coming to a dead end, and you just keep going, over the cliff, unable to stop the inevitable, because the truth is you just don’t want to.

There is freedom in the fall.

“Jared,” a hesitant voice sounded behind me.

My shoulders straightened, and I turned around.

Oh, what the hell?

“What are you doing here?” I asked my mother.

And then I remembered that her car had been in the garage when I got home from the race. I’d thought she’d been gone for the weekend as usual.

She was hugging herself against the evening chill, dressed in her jeans and long-sleeved cardigan. Her chocolate brown hair—same shade as mine—hung loose to her shoulders, and she wore brown boots up to her knees.

Since getting sober, my mom was beautiful all of the time, and as much as she pissed me off, I was glad I was the spitting image of her. I didn’t think I could stare at my father’s eyes in the mirror every day.

Lucky Jax.

“The front door was open.” She inched closer, her eyes searching mine for a way in. “I heard what happened with Tate.”

Not going to happen.

“How in the hell did you know I’d be here?”

Her small smile confused me. “I have my ways,” she mumbled.

I wondered what it was, too, because my mother wasn’t that clever.

She sat down next to me, our legs dangling off the small cliff with a five foot drop to the pond.

“You haven’t been here in years.” She acted like she knew me.

“How would you know?”

“I know a lot more than you think,” she said, looking down to the pond. “I know you’re in trouble right now.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t start acting like a mother now.”

I pushed off the ground and stood up.

“Jared, no.” My mother stood up and faced me. “If I ever ask anything of you, it’s that you listen to me now. Please.” Her tone threw me off. It was shaky and unusually serious.

I sucked in my cheeks and stuck my fists in the pocket of my hoodie.

“Last year, after your arrest,” she started, “and after I got back from the Haywood Center, I asked you to choose one thing—one idea—that you could focus on day to day. Something you loved or something that kept you centered. You never told me what it was, but then you snuck off around that time and got another tattoo.” She jerked her chin at me. “The lantern. On your bicep. Why did you get that?”

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“Yes, you do. Why?” she pushed.

“I liked how it looked,” I yelled, exasperated. “Come on, what is this?”

Jesus. What the hell?

Tate. A lantern. I associated the two, and when she was gone, I needed her.

Why a lantern? I don’t know.

“On your eleventh birthday, I got drunk.” Her words came out calm and slow. “Do you remember? I forgot about the dinner we were supposed to have at the Brandts’, because I was out with my friends.”

There weren’t many birthdays that sat well with me, so no, I didn’t remember.

“I forgot it was your birthday,” she continued as tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t even have a cake for you.”

Big f**king surprise there.

But I didn’t speak. Just listened, more to see where she was going with this.

“Anyway, I came home at about ten, and you were sitting on the couch waiting for me. You had stayed in all night. You wouldn’t go to the dinner without me.”

Me. In the dark. Alone. Angry. Hungry.

“Mom, stop. I don’t want to—”

“I have to,” she interrupted, crying. “Please. You were sad at first, I remember, but then you copped an attitude. Told me I was embarrassing and that other kids had better moms and dads. I yelled at you and sent you to your room.”

Madman whining at my door. Rain against the windows.

“I don’t remember.”

“I wish that was true, Jared. But unfortunately, that tattoo proves that you remember.” She’d stopped crying, but the tears were still on her cheeks. “About ten minutes later, I went to your room. I didn’t want to face you, but I knew you were right, and I had to apologize. I opened your door, and you were leaning out your open window, laughing.”

She paused, lost in thought as she stared at nothing. “Tate,” she finally said, “was at her open French doors. Her room was dark, except for a Japanese lantern lamp that you and her father had made for her as an early birthday present.” My mom let out a small smile. “She had the Beastie Boys’ Fight For Your Right song blasting, and she was dancing all crazy…crazy just for you. She glowed, like a little star bouncing around her room in her nightgown.” Mom raised her eyes and looked at me. “She was trying to cheer you up.”

As soon as I’d seen Tate at her doors that night, I didn’t feel shitty anymore. Mom was forgotten. My birthday was forgotten. Tate became more of a home to me than my own blood.