Rewritten (Unwritten Book 2) (20 page)

Nichole’s eyes fill with tears as she listens to everything I’ve gone through.

“I haven’t heard from her in years. When I first got established and started making good money she found me. I wanted so bad to just rid her from my life but I couldn’t. No matter what, she’s still my mother. But I wanted to keep her out of my life. So I set her up with an account and said I would pay for her living expenses if she would just leave me alone. Every month $4,000 is transferred from my account to hers to automatically pay her housing, utilities and an account at a local grocery store. That way I don’t have to see or do anything. Deep down I can’t live with myself knowing she’s not taken care of. Even though I want nothing to do with her, I at least know she has a place to live and food on the table.”

“So why is she calling you now?”

“I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to listen to the voicemails. The text messages I have seen just say she needs to talk to me but doesn’t say why.” I slump my shoulders down in defeat letting out a long sigh.

Nichole walks up to me, so close she’s pressing her body against mine. “I’m sorry Paul.” She places her hand on my face. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this and I’m sorry I thought you were seeing someone else. Thank you for telling me. Is there anything I can help with?”

I look into her eyes, “Can we just drop it? I really don’t want to drag her into my life. My life with you. Do you forgive me for acting like a total ass today?”

Nichole sighs, looking down before replying, “I’m not giving up modeling. This is what I do. You need to be ok with that.”

I pull her in closer. “I am ok with that. I love that my phone says ‘I’m fucking a model.’ I would never ask you to change who you are.”

Nichole laughs, “You left that on there? After your client saw it?”

“Hell yeah I did. It’s sexy as hell. And I don’t care who sees it. I’m proud.”

“Ok Paul, but don’t fuck up again.”

I lean in, kissing her lips sweetly, “I won’t, promise.” I look back at her, tilting up one eyebrow, “Can we have makeup sex now?”

Nichole laughs, “And here I thought you were getting all soft on me.”

“I’m always hard for you.” I lean in, kissing her neck before picking her up and running up the stairs.

T
he morning light peeks through the blinds in Nichole’s room as I’m wrapped around her lying in bed. She reaches up to touch my face making my eyes slowly open and a small grin grows on my lips.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Hmm, it’s ok. Morning.” I lean in to kiss her lips gently.

“Morning. I couldn’t sleep.”

“I’m sorry, were you uncomfortable?”

“No, I was just thinking.”

“About what doll?”

“About you. About your mom.”

My smile disappears, “Please don’t. I didn’t want to tell you. It’s not your problem to worry about.”

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to have sleepovers,” she teases. “Maybe if I didn’t have you draped all over me while I’m trying to sleep I wouldn’t be thinking about you so much.”

I smirk, “Ok, my bad.” I lean in to kiss her again.

“I think you should listen to the messages.”

I sit up, removing my arm that was wrapped around her. “No, Nichole.” I prop my arms on my knees I pulled up close under the sheets as I run my fingers through my hair. “I told you, don’t worry about it. Let me deal with it.”

Nichole leans up, putting her arm on mine and leaning her head on my shoulder. “Please let me help you. I’ll listen with you.” She turns around to pick up my phone from the nightstand and hands it to me.

I give her a grim stare then look down to my phone without grabbing it from her.

“Hey, you’re the one that started this whole thing. I just wanted to fuck. Now you have me caring what happens to you.”

I let out a quick laugh grabbing the phone from her. “So this is how you show me? Making me do something I don’t want to do?”

“No, I show you by letting you stay the night wrapped around me. This is just an added bonus,” she smiles.

I look down to my phone and power it on. “She hasn’t called in the last few days. Maybe she got what she needed from someone else.”

When my phone powers on completely there is a missed call from a 415 number that came in around two in the morning.

“Is that her?” Nichole asks as she looks over my shoulder at my phone.

“No, not sure who that is.”

I click the voicemail and put it on speakerphone so Nichole can hear as well.

“Hello. This message is for Paul Foust. This is San Francisco General Hospital. We have Beth Foust here and she says you are her emergency contact. Can you please give us a call back?”

“Fuck me.” I throw the phone down on the bed.

Nichole takes a sharp breath in, wrapping her arms around me tighter. “Are you going to call them back?”

“Fuck,” I look at her, “Do I have a choice?”

“I’m sorry Paul. Do you want me to call them back?”

“No,” I snap at her before looking back down to my phone and picking it back up.

“Are you going to listen to the other messages first?”

I take a deep breath and scroll to the first message she left on my phone, hitting play and leaving it on speakerphone.

Beth’s shaky voice plays over the speakerphone. “Paul, it’s your mother…” Long pause. “Can you call me sweetheart?”

My jaw tightens at the sound of her voice as I hit delete and play the next one.

“Paul son. I’d love to talk to you. Please call me back.”

Then the next.

“I could really use a phone call back, son.”

The next.

“Why aren’t you calling me back son? I am your mother…”

Next.

“Paul, I really need someth… I mean, I’d love to hear your voice. Please call me back.”

Next.

“Son. Don’t you love your mother anymore? Call me baby.”

My expression hardens as my mother’s voice grows in desperation. There are twelve more messages with every message getting a little more needy. The worst one came in at three in the morning a couple of weeks ago.

“Look baby. Mommy needs a, uh, um, you to call me back. Please baby. I’m begging.” Her voice is shaky and moving from high to low pitches.

The next morning she called again. “Hi son! Wow I love hearing your voice on your voicemail. You sound so sophisticated and manly. My boy all grown up. Look, sorry for the calls. I’m alllllll goooood noooow,” she says giggling into the phone. “Love you, baby.”

“Fuck. She’s high as a kite…” I grumble staring at my phone.

Nichole holds me tighter placing a small kiss on my cheek. I can’t bring myself to look at her but when she kissed me I felt the tightness in my chest loosen instantly.

I hit play to the next message that came in two days after the last one. Her voice is back to shaky and needy and the entire process starts over with her begging for me to call and each call getting worse until the call comes where I can tell she got her fix. In every call she plays the guilt card by calling me son and reminding me she is my mother.

Nichole wipes a tear that fell down her check and I turn to her. “No, please don’t cry. I don’t want you affected by this. I don’t want you crying over my problem.”

“Paul I’m sorry. I’m just in shock ok. I’ve never known anyone addicted to drugs. Just listening to these voicemails is really overwhelming and the thought of you having to deal with this all of your life is a little much for me to take in.”

I just shake my head looking down, “You have no idea.”

“Are you going to call the hospital back?”

I snap at her, “As I already said, do I have a fucking choice?”

Her eyes get big at my response and I look back down, running my fingers through my hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t want anyone to know. Charlie doesn’t even know. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me.”

“I know…” she says as she gets up to give me space to make the phone call.

I put my feet on the ground and hunch over, placing my elbows on my knees, running my fingers through my hair and I hit the call button and hold it up to my ear.

“San Francisco General Hospital, how may I direct your call?”

“Hello, Beth Foust is a patient there. I have a missed phone call from someone saying they were trying to reach me.”

“Yes, I see she is a patient here. Let me transfer you to the nurse’s station. I see here that she can’t accept phone calls at this time.”

I look up in frustration, dropping my head back, “Thank you.”

The phone beeps a few times and someone answers, “Hello, is this Paul Foust?”

“Yes, I hear Beth is a patient there. What happened?”

“Yes sir. I’m afraid she’s in pretty bad shape. She was found in an alley beaten badly over in Hunters Point.”

“Fuck. Was she prostituting?”

“Sir, I’m not sure of the details. You’ll have to talk to the police about that. She’s heavily sedated due to the detox process. Before we had to sedate her she gave us your number as a contact person. Are you able to come in to help fill out paperwork?”

I sigh, running my hand over my face. “Fine, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Nichole is standing at the door holding a glass of water. I turn to look at her as she sits down on the bed next to me handing me the glass. “Everything ok?”

“No. She’s in the hospital, pretty beat up and going through detox. They found her in an alley. My guess is she was prostituting again. Fuck, maybe I should have called her back. Maybe then she wouldn’t have sold herself to get high.”

“No, Paul. Don’t say that. You can’t support your mom’s drug habit. This is not your fault. She’s a grown woman who can make her own choices. By what you have said you already do enough for her.”

I look at her with pain in my eyes as I try to give her a smile. “Thanks, baby. I have to head to the hospital.”

I get up and Nichole grabs my hand stopping me. “Can I come?”

I shrug, “If you want to, I guess.”