What He Explores (What He Wants, Book Twenty-One) Read Online Free Page A

earned me nothing more than a tiny frown as the woman hurried by.
    “I told you, nothing really!” my mother said, smoothing down her ruined dressed. “I just mentioned about the fight you had with Noah, and about the fight you had with me.”
    “Did you tell him I hit you?” I asked.
    She looked away, staring down at the sidewalk, her eyes running over the last shredded ribbon of pretzel wrapper that remained on the sidewalk, the rest having been carried away by the slight breeze that had kicked up while we’d been standing there.
    “I told him it was just a fight,” she said quietly. “The kind of thing mothers and daughters get into all the time.”
    Noah gripped me tightly, trying to steady me as I struggled to keep it together. The implications of what she’d just done hit me like a brick. She’d told a reporter from what was, essentially, a tabloid, that I’d hit her. My own mother.
    It would fit perfectly into the narrative the police would try to spin about how I’d killed Dr. Cartwright. They’d point to it as evidence of my anger issues, of my inability to hold my emotions inside of me. A girl who would physically assault her own mother would be capable of anything.
    My anger was hotter than ever, but Noah gave me a warning look.
    Don’t give her anything else. No more of your thoughts, your energy, and no more ammunition. Nothing else she can use against you.
    So as much as it pained me to do it, I summoned all of my self-control and said nothing.
    “Pamela,” Noah said. “We will get you some new shoes. And then it will be time for you to go home.”

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    W e drove her to Grand Central, bought her a ticket home from one of the automatic kiosks, then waited with her downstairs in the food court until her train came.
    She claimed to be starving, even though she’d just eaten pretzel, and so Noah got her some teriyaki chicken and rice, which she washed down with an extra large Diet Coke.
    “And my purse and my phone?” she asked as we walked up the wide stairs that led to the main concourse. “You’ll get them back for me?”
    “Yes,” Noah said. “They will be sent to your house.”
    While my mother was eating, Noah had stepped a few feet away from us and made a call. The train station was busy, and I hadn’t been able to hear his side of the conversation, but when he returned to the table, he told my mother that her phone and purse would be mailed to her, with all her money and credit cards intact.
    “What should I tell your stepfather?” my mom asked me now. “About where my things are? And my shoes?” She looked down at her feet, which were now encased with a pair of bright purple sneakers Noah had found at a Payless across the street. I appreciated Noah’s tiny gesture of defiance– he could have chosen any kind of shoes in the world, and yet he’d gotten my mom something she would never wear again, something that looked almost more ridiculous than if she’d stayed in her slippers.
    We were walking onto the platform now, and the air around us became thick and humid, like a heavy blanket you couldn’t quite shake.
    “I don’t know what you should tell him,” I said and shrugged. “Tell him you were mugged.”
    The train pulled into the station, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t wait for her to get the hell out of there.
    “Okay, well,” she said. “I guess this is goodbye.”
    “I guess so,” I said.
    “Goodbye, Pamela,” Noah said brusquely.
    My mother made a move to hug me, but I pulled back. “Bye, Mom.”
    She opened her mouth like she was going to say something. It was going to be something smart and rude – I could tell from the way her eyes were crinkling and the way her lips were puckering. But Noah took a step forward and put his hand on my arm protectively, telegraphing a message to my mother: I’m being respectful, but if you mess with Charlotte, I will not be.
    “Okay, well. I’ll call you.” She smoothed her wrinkled dress down over