Once home, I got Michael bathed and ready for his weekend stay with David. Michael loved being in a car and was often lulled to sleep so easily as long as it was moving, so our excursion into LA and back had left him in a great mood even though my talk with Olivia had left me with anything but good spirits. Still, she was right. I did deny my mother in front of everyone, too humiliated to be linked to a woman who had had a longer relationship with drugs than she did with her daughter.

It was the story I'd told myself ever since Eunice gave me a second chance when she helped me have my juvenile records sealed - that my mother, Anna Marlin, was long gone, probably overdosed and dead somewhere.

Maybe it was Eunice's way of making sure I stayed with her - something I was more than willing to do for she had given me so much more than I'd ever received from anyone before. It was the opportunity for a new life - a new beginning, even if it meant I had to take care of Eunice for a few years.

Maybe I was being too cold about Anna, but living with a heroin addict was like living with someone already dead inside, for that person was nothing but a shell that needed to be fed with drugs every day just to keep going. Take the drugs away and you had a monster. Give the drugs, and you had a monster as well. Though it had been over 12 years since I'd been to that house where Anna lived now, the memory of Roy coming into my room every time she was high never failed to remind me just how important it had been for her then to have the love of a man and have her access to drugs at the ready - at any price.

David was waiting for me at Lorena's house by the time I got there at 5:50. I kissed Michael goodbye and said hello to Lorena, who was sitting in her usual chair knitting a baby blanket. David then offered to walk me to my car.

We didn't speak as we crossed the lawn but as we got to the car, David blocked the driver side door. He leaned against the side of the car, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You really believe that you can get away with this, don't you?" he asked.

"Get away with what?"

"Don't think for one minute that I don't know what's going on tomorrow night, Sam," he said. "Your latest pieces are part of an exhibit at the CSK Gallery. Of all the galleries you had to pick, it had to be one of the best ones in town. Shit, now that you've got some hotshot doctor championing you, why not, right?"

"I don't want to talk about this, David," I said. "Can I just get in my car?"

"Look, I was stupid to think I can stop you from painting though it worked for a while," David said. "But you know what? I'm not stopping you anymore."

"What?" I eyed him suspiciously. What game was David playing now?

"Because you're not worth it, Sam," he said. "Why worry about someone who's nothing - underneath all her nice clothes and fake mannerisms designed to hide who she really is. Just nothing. Isn't that what you are? Just some daughter of some drug addict, someone who never reported about being raped by her stepfather because - who knows? You probably liked it."

"Don't you dare say things like that," I said, the anger building.

"Do you really believe your nice doctor will still want you when he learns about your mom? This woman you've been hiding for years, pretending she doesn't even exist? Hey, maybe you're not exactly selling yourself to get drugs - but you are whoring yourself still, Sam. For your art. I bet you think that's a more noble thing to do, don't you?"

"You have no idea what you're saying," I said.

"Oh, yes, I do," David said. "You didn't think I don't know about the studio he built for you in his house? That you whore yourself to him so that he can give you whatever you want? Are you going to dump him one day, too, when you've gotten everything you can from him?"

"At least, he doesn't steal from me, David, like you did," I said. "He doesn't take credit for my work as you still do, and even keep my work from me, selling them wherever you can. And he sure as hell does not treat me like trash, like you're so determined to treat me."

"Why not treat you like trash?" David scoffed. "That's what you are anyway, Sam. Even you told me that years ago."

He was used to saying the same things to me in the past and always, like a script that we knew so well. It was like a dance choreographed and performed again and again between us, and soon I'd start crying in front of him. He usually got a kick out of that.

But this time, the tears he expected didn't come. This time, I looked at him with a bored expression on my face, as if he was wasting my time. Because he was wasting my time.

"I may have thought that years ago, David," I said. "But I don't anymore, and that's what matters. Because I'm not."

"Newsflash, Sam," David said. "He's a man. And like any man, he wants only one thing from you. How soon did you give it up? One week, two weeks? Who knows? Did it only take a day?"

"Get away my car," I said. "We're not having this conversation."

"Oh yes, we are, Sam," he said, as I pulled out my phone and switched on the recorder. He frowned, staring at my phone, then at my face. "What are you doing?"

"If you're going to be saying those things to me, I might as well have you on record, David, in case I'm missing the sound of your voice telling me again and again how awesome I am - oh, my bad, how worthless I am. Then I can replay this to Michael when he gets older, just to let him know what a loving daddy you are-"

"Don't you dare, Sam," David said. "Leave Michael out of this."

"Then stop harassing me and step away from my car. Or I'll scream right here in front of your son and your mother watching us from the window."

"You bitch," he said, his face turning pale. "Is your boyfriend paying for your lawyer, too?"

"Just be glad you're not," I said, forcing a smile towards Michael, who was standing by the window watching us. "Smile, David. I don't want them to think we're arguing."

Behind him was Lorena, handing him a box of juice. Michael was pressing his face against the window, and I could hear him calling my name. I forced a smile and waved at him. To anyone watching us, we were simply standing by my car having a civilized conversation, though it was slowly beginning to disintegrate into a full-blown argument.

But I'd had enough surprises for one day, and I wasn't about to stand there and pretend that his words were not going to eat at me later that night, just like he meant them to. David knew me too well in that regard, about how I'd beat myself up over the tiniest things, especially those that had to do with my past.

"Don't get too cocky, Sam," David said as he took a step away from the car and I got in. I didn't look at him as I drove away, suddenly afraid of what he was about to do, but at the same time, feeling a sense of glee fill me for a brief moment. I knew it was temporary, but I was going to take whatever I could get - such moments like these were few, so few and far between. As I glanced in my rear-view mirror, I saw him still standing where I'd last left him, staring hard at the car.

By the time I turned the corner away from the cul-de-sac where Lorena lived, I was shaking with the rage that had built up inside me, my self-control now gone. I'd kept it all in check the whole day, from the moment I saw Anna to the whole time I sat there trying to defend myself from Olivia when she called me for my actions.

Olivia was right. Anna was still my mother. And if there was anyone who had the right to know who she was to me, it was Erik. He'd done so much for me, even going against his judgment just to prove to me that he wasn't ashamed of me.

Yet here I was, too ashamed to face my past.

I had denied my mother, the woman who was my only visitor when I spent a year in juvie - who gave me my very first sketch pad and set of pencils while I was there, nicked from some art store along the way.

Even Rosie had not come to visit me then or even write me. I used to think that it was because she didn't know where to send her letters to, but even Anna knew I wasn't too daft to know the truth - that Rosie couldn't be bothered with me then. It was only when Anna tracked her down, taking trains and buses all across the country to wait for Rosie as she got out of class, hand in hand with Chuck, and confront her with the girl she had conveniently forgotten.

She's in juvie because of you, you know. You let her take the fall, even though you were the one who keyed DICKHEAD on the paint job. And now she's doing time for something that you did that night. And you can't even be bothered to send her a postcard. A postcard.

Who the hell are you? Chuck asked her. Go away or I'll call campus police.

Go ahead. Call them, she had told Chuck before turning to face Rosie. You're lucky she's not going to tell them the truth just so she can get out earlier. You know those plea deals people negotiate while they're inside, like they do in the movies? What if I tell her what I'm seeing now, lovey dovey both of you, while she's inside. You know she's only fourteen, right? And you two are what - eighteen? Nineteen?

Though I never believed Anna when she told me that story after I got out and moved into the house that my grandmother - her own mother - had passed on to me, it made sense when Rosie's postcard arrived two months after Anna came to see me and ask for Rosie's full name and what university she'd been accepted into. Rosie and I began writing regularly after that, of course, but it always made me wonder if guilt had driven Rosie to keep at our friendship till the very end.

Still, thinking about Rosie was merely a distraction for me at the moment, a way to avoid facing the fact that I had just humiliated my own mother by pretending not to know her.

With the car stopped at a stop sign, I made my decision. I wasn't going out to dinner with Erik, or finished what we had started in his office. I called him, got his voicemail and left a message. Then I made a U-turn heading to the northbound freeway that would take me back to downtown L.A. even though I knew Friday traffic would be slow. I would call Erik when I got to where I needed to go, instead of trying to call him while I was driving, traffic or no.

I didn't really know where I was going, but when one has lived in a place where all they wanted was to leave it, it doesn't mean that you don't remember. It only means you never forget. The streets were familiar though I didn't know their names. I had walked them daily when I used to live in the area, had been familiar with the people who stood along their corners, selling their drugs and fake green cards.

But even as I drove through the darkening streets, I felt fear creep into my bones, worried that someone might get in the car and steal my money or worse, kill me. Funny how living away from one's old home changed a person. One day, I was a resident of East L.A. and the next, all I wanted was to call myself a South Bay native, hoping no one would ask me where I was really from.

Eunice was the first to get me settled in Hermosa Beach, helping me through the legal process of getting my juvenile record expunged. Then with Rosie moving into the area, she, too, helped get me entrenched in the beach culture, even more, making the denial of my old life even more real. Slowly, my history disappeared, fading like an old photograph till nothing was left but a blank sheet of paper, replaced by a new history that only I knew of because I was still writing it.

When I couldn't find anything better than the birth name Anna had given me, I simply tweaked my name. Alyssa became Alicia and Marlin became Martin. It wasn't a stretch at all. Still, I had just stood in a parking lot in front of my mother and acted like I didn't know her. But now, there was no more hiding who I was. Olivia knew, and it would be a matter of time before Erik would, too.

.·:*¨¨*:·. .·:*¨¨*:·.

I arrived at the house I had inherited over an hour later. The sky was darkening, and there was a group of teenagers playing basketball at the far end of the street. A few men and women were hanging out on a street corner, paying more attention to their phones than they did to each other as they smoked their cigarettes and occasionally point something out on their phone screens for the others to look at.

The house was in the middle of a dead-end street, and its wire fence was covered with vines. It was a small two-story house, but it had a large yard in the back, one of those fixer-uppers one would choose to buy and demolish so they could build a McMansion in its place with hardly a yard at all. A lone bulb illuminated the balcony by the front door.

A few of the street lights were out, but at least, the one by her house was still working. The neighbors next door were all hanging out on their porch, eyeing me suspiciously as I parked the car in the driveway. It was now or never, I thought. It was time to face my past.

As I unbuckled my seat belt, my phone rang. It was Erik. Realizing that I'd left him a message, and he was only calling me back, I leaned back against my seat and answered the phone.

"Hey, Sam, I'm going to be running late tonight," he said before I could say anything. "Something's come up."

He hadn't heard my message, I thought. He doesn't know I just canceled dinner.

"You didn't get my message?" I asked.

"No, what was it about?"

"I can't make dinner," I said, a feeling of annoyance coming over me. I'd been so focused on facing my past that I hadn't planned on talking to Erik at all, and now I didn't know what to say to him that didn't feel like a lie. But at the same time, hearing his voice made my resolve face my past crumble. Why face my past when my present was good enough?

"Can I ask why?" Erik asked. "I'm just running a bit late, and I'll be there in half an hour."

"You first," I said. "What's up?"

"I'm asking Serena to step down from the board of directors," Erik said. "I had planned on talking to her at the clinic, but we got slammed with patients after you left and I got delayed with one of them. So Serena's coming over to talk about it."

"At the clinic?" I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was half past seven.

"No, at home."

This time I as really annoyed. Why was Serena coming back to his house? Why was Erik letting her come by? "Are you sure that's all you and Serena are doing? Just talking?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "What's that supposed to mean, Sam?"

"I don't know, Erik. You tell me. Are you sure she doesn't want anything else from you? You know - like what she wanted back in Cabo?"

A couple of kids walked past the car, arguing over some movie villain being good enough, complete with expletives. The silence that hung between Erik and I was deafening. I had crossed the line, and my heart was hammering inside my chest. It was as if I was hurtling myself into the abyss I had created with my lies, driven only by my desire for a better life.

Erik may move mountains, I thought, but some mountains were best left alone.

When Erik finally spoke, his voice made me shiver. "Don't talk about things you know nothing about, Sam. You have no idea what happened in Cabo so unless you were there, leave it alone. And as for Serena wanting anything else from me other than talking, how could I even do such a thing to you? How could you even think I'd consider it for one second?"

He exhaled, and I could tell he was controlling his temper. In the distance, a car horn blasted, followed by the shouting of some of the young men shooting hoops. In yo face, man!

"Where are you?" He asked.

"You've got other things to worry about than wondering where the hell I am, Erik," I said, shutting my eyes as I waited for what was about to follow. Did I really want him to let me go that bad that I was willing to sabotage everything we had? Still, there was whatever happened to him and Serena in Cabo - he'd never talked about it, and not that I'd even asked till now, but I never even asked him. I merely accused him.

"Look," Erik began, his voice calm. "I understand you're angry about something that has nothing to do with me, Sam, but don't take that anger out on me. If there's anything you need to ask me, then go ahead and ask me. I'll tell you. And I'm not going to insist that you tell me where you are if you don't want me to know. But you have to stop keeping secrets from me if you want us to work out. I'm tired of keeping us together while you're so determined in destroying what we have, driving wedge after wedge from your past to keep us apart."

"My past? What about your past?" I asked. "What about Cabo?"

"All you had to do was ask me," Erik said as the doorbell in his house rang. "I'll tell you about it tonight if you want."

"I'm sorry," I whispered, Erik's voice helping me calm down.

"We'll talk later, Sam, okay?" he said and hung up, leaving me sitting behind the wheel of my car, staring at my phone, its screen going blank. I felt terrible for acting the way I did, like a child having a tantrum, lashing out at the ones she loved, and pushing them away.

For wasn't that what I was doing — pushing Erik away using everything I could think of - whether it was my past, Anna, and now, Cabo?