End Game (New York Stars Book 1)

𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝄠 Vindicated – Dashboard Confessional

CUTTING someone toxic out of your life is never easy, especially when it’s a mom who, technically, has always been good.

I saw Ollie’s apartment when we went to pick up his things last night—Mom would have died rather than let her kids live in that environment.

There were used tampons on the floor.

On. The. Floor.

Needles littered the table.

It stank.

And the refrigerator contained nothing but mold.

Fucking mold.

As I settle in front of Mom at the coffee shop I agreed to meet her in, it’s hard to reason that I had the right to protect myself from her ways.

Sure, she favors my brothers over me to the point where I struggle with my place within the family, struggle, even, to have an identity that isn’t linked to hockey, but she never starved me. Never put me in unsafe environments. Never chose to avoid seeking help for her addiction. She always fought for me, for us.

God, Liam’s making me so emotional—because just thinking that has tears pricking my eyes.

“Gracie,” she rasps when she sees me, shocking me by snagging ahold of my hand from across the table. “I’ve missed you, darling.”

Uncertainly, I squeeze her fingers back. “I don’t say this to hurt you, Mom, but I haven’t missed you.”

Her throat bobs. “I deserve that.”

“I love you,” I whisper. “But I’m tired of always being the disappointment.”

Mom’s face crumples. “You could never be a disappointment.”

“No? It’s how you’ve always made me feel. Like nothing I do could ever compare to what the boys do. My achievements mean nothing in the face of theirs. Do you know how hard it is to get into Cornell?”

“Do you know how it felt not to be invited to your graduation ceremony?”

My eyes flare. “What?”

“You think I didn’t know they have those?” She scoffs. “Your undergraduate ceremony passed by without a single mention. Not a single one. If I hadn’t looked it up on your school’s calendar, I’d never have known.” Her bottom lip wobbles as she reaches for her phone. Suddenly, she’s shoving it at me. “I had to take these like some kind of spy, Gracie Agnieska. I had to bribe one of the security guards with tickets to one of Kow’s games. Do you even care how that upset me?”

I gape at the pictures of me on the stage. The mortarboard on my head, the scroll in my hand, a smile on my face even though I never bothered to glance at the audience because there was no one there to see me, no one I’d invited because I didn’t even think Liam cared, never mind my siblings or parents.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested,” I admit, my fingers gently brushing the screen.

“Of course, I am! But I won’t force myself on you when I’m not wanted.” She grabs her coffee cup and takes a deep sip. “You’ve always been an unusual child. We never knew what to do with you.”

“Do you know how that makes me feel?”

“How do you think I feel hearing that you left one of the safest places in the world to go to New York City? And not only do you go around getting mugged, I have to hear about it from your brother who heard about it from Liam!

“The second Kow told me, I burst into tears. Your father went stone white at the prospect of what could have happened to you!”

“I didn’t ask for that to happen to me! And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want a lecture about how great Canada is. I know it’s fantastic. But my life is here.” I heave a tired sigh; already exhausted after my exam, this isn’t helping my energy levels. “Why did you never ask me how I was doing?”

“Why did you never tell me?”

“I shouldn’t have to! You should have wanted to know!”

“Gracie, whatever I do, it’s never the right way with you. I try to care, and you think I’m being pushy. I give you space to tell me, and you never do! I’m not a mind reader. You’re nearly thirty years old. If you want something from me, tell me. I love you! I never want to hurt you.”

“Like I hurt you, you mean?” I spit, hearing the criticism there.

She sighs. Wearily. “I didn’t say that. Why must we always be at cross purposes?

“Your problem, my darling, is that you’re too intelligent for your own good—mine too. I know you’re smarter than me, Gracie.”

Uncomfortable, I mutter, “Don’t say that, Mom!”

“I only speak the truth. I remember when you were a teenager, you went through that phase where you refused to study. You wouldn’t apply yourself. How you scraped through and graduated is a testament to how smart you are because you didn’t pick up a single textbook that spring.

“Then, you decided to follow your brother around the country like some puck bunny! Deciding that you were going to draw those odd comics for a living.” Jeez, I forgot about wanting to get into manga. “My only consolation was that Kow promised me you weren’t sleeping around with the players.” She pats at her forehead as if sweat is still beading there from the memories of that time. “I tried to get you into the printing shop, but you weren’t interested. There was work there. A solid career. You could have inherited everything! But you didn’t give a damn.

“Everyone has their own prerogative, so I never said anything but when you finally decided to get a degree. It just felt like something else you were playing at—”

I’d like to argue with her, but I think of the time I worked at the sex line or that stint at the comic book store where I got fired for reading all the comics… never mind that short-lived desire to draw manga she remembered and I didn’t.

“But in the end,” she continues, unaware that she lost me for a moment, “you always made me feel like we were never good enough. Always refusing to attend Thanksgiving, never coming home for Christmas or for our birthdays though all the other boys make the trip… You rejected us—every year. Every holiday. Every family event—”

“You don’t play in law school, Mom. Or with an MBA. I get why you thought I was being flighty at first but what did I have to do to get you to believe in me? All these years later and you still undermine my career choices.

“The boys are millionaires. I’m half a million in debt with student loans. I can’t just fly home whenever you think I should, and even if I could, I wouldn’t.” Her wounded expression has me rasping, “I want to be me, and you never let me be that at home. I didn’t want to just be a Bukowski.”

“Don’t you see how hurtful that is?” Mom cries. “‘To just be a Bukowski.’ You don’t know how proud I am to be one. When I married your father, I married into a family who cared for their children. Who loved them. You know my parents died when I was barely fifteen. I was alone for so long, Gracie, that to be invited into the fold was an honor.

“But you throw that away at every corner.”

It might be mean of me to get to my feet when she’s imploring me to understand but I do. When I step away from the table, she gasps, “Gracie! Where are you going?”

I stare at her. “I didn’t choose to be born, Mom. This isn’t about you. It’s about me. Do you want me to apologize for being difficult to raise? Do you want me to say sorry for being a teenager desperate for attention when her mother only gave it to her brothers? Is it any wonder I rebelled?” Fatigue hits me. It’s an exhaustion so bone-deep, it’s as old as I am. “Thank you for coming to see me, for trying to reconcile things, but if this is how this conversation is going to go then I’ll leave.

“I’d prefer to hang out with Liam than have every aspect of my childhood torn apart and skewed where I’m the guilty party because I’m too difficult, too awkward, too goddamn hard to love by the one person who’ll forgive Kow for being a walking STI, who’ll excuse Noah’s terrifying temper, who never says a bad word against Trent even though he’s certainly not perfect—”

“No! I’m sorry. I want to make this right. I don’t want to leave here without my daughter back,” she pleads.

My throat bobs as I plunk my ass down. “I just want to be me. I’m not sure that ‘your daughter’ is me. I know how much you wish I were like Cousin Amelia.”

“You shouldn’t say such things. I-I do like you for who you are.”

A lifetime’s experience makes me take her words with a grain of salt. “Do you know how often I get tossed aside so that people can reach one of the boys? Everything I do ends up being tied to them. None of my achievements are my own.

“It’s been like that my whole life. No matter what I do, I can’t escape them.

“It isn’t my family I want to liberate myself from. It’s the fame and the…” I pull away so that I can press my hands to my face as I repeat, “I just want to be me. I’m so accustomed to being used by friends who dump on me to get to them, I’ve stopped even trying.

“I am so alone, Mom, and I did it to myself because I know I’ll get hurt. You think I have an attitude and I know people think I’m mean, but it’s…”

“A self-defense mechanism. I know, darling.” She doesn’t just lean over this time. She shuffles out of the booth and plunks herself at my side. At first, I think she’s trying to trap me in the banquette, but before I know what’s happening, I’m in her arms and she’s squeezing me tightly. “You are never alone. You’re a Bukowski. Your brothers might drive you crazy, and their fame might have impacted your life, but you are one of us. We are always a phone call away.”

“You say that and then they hit Liam up to tell him that he should dump me because he can do better! You feel the same way!” I glare at her, aware that I’m bawling like a baby in public and not giving a fuck.

“I didn’t think that. I just know you, that’s all. Liam hasn’t been the same since the kidnapping. I didn’t want you to tire of him. You get bored so easily, sweetie—”

“You thought I’d get bored of Liam?” I splutter.

“I did. It’s not as if the men you date last long. I didn’t want that for Liam. I was protecting him. But I understand that I hurt you in the process, and I’m very sorry about that.”

For a second, I can only gawk at her.

It doesn’t help I never tell her who I’ve been dating and that if I do, it’s by accident.

The different names I’ve unintentionally dropped to her over the years make me cringe.

“As for the boys, I’ve told them off.”

“You’ve told them off?” I repeat.

“Yes. And your father’s with them now, teaching them that brothers aren’t supposed to stand with the boyfriend when it comes to who their sister is dating.” She purses her lips. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard what Liam said. Dad will teach them the error of their ways, don’t you worry, darling.”

I swallow. “I love him.”

She squeezes my fingers. “Truly?”

“Truly. I won’t hurt him. I won’t.” I can see that’s where her worry stemmed from, even if it still stings. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”

“And he loves you? Or do I need to slap him upside the head?”

A soft gurgle of snotty laughter leaves me. “No. He does. He proposed.”

“He did?” She snags at my hand. “No ring?”

“He says that he knew better than to pick one for me.”

“There are few who aren’t related to you that know you better,” she concurs with a soft, tinkling laugh.

The gentle sound of amusement, without a hint of malice, has me blinking at her. “I never thought of him as a brother and he never thought of me as a sister.”

Her cheeks turn pink. “Did you… When you were younger—”

“No. We didn’t mess around back then,” I murmur. “I wish we had. We wasted a lot of years.”

She squeezes my hand. “Life is long if you’re blessed, Gracie. You have a lot to make up for but plenty of time left too.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, Gracie.”

She probably doesn’t understand how hard it is for me to say. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“You never were, but now that we understand each other better, we can make sure you stop feeling that way entirely. There’s nothing I can do about other people. I, myself, am targeted by stupid women at the country club. It’s wearisome—I know that. But now, we can complain to one another.”

“I just thought you were showing off how jealous people were about the boys being your sons,” I admit, thinking back to her conversations about women trying to set their daughters up with one of my brothers.

“Good lord, no! I’m proud of them, Gracie, but I’m not totally blind to their faults even if I willfully hide from some of them.”

“I’m sorry I was mean.”

She sighs. “Back anyone into a corner and they’ll come out swinging. Never mind a Bukowski. But if anyone understands what you’re dealing with, it’s me.” She squeezes my hand. “Now then, tell me about you and Liam. I want to hear how he proposed.”

For the first time in decades, there’s no resentment in me at her demand.

For once, I just spew it all out, gradually gaining more and more steam as I go because she’s right—if there’s anyone who can understand, it is her.