Crazy Love You by Lisa Unger Page A

to bend in on him. He is crushed, grieving for his friend. And he’s angry, angry because he knows Priss had something to do with his partner’s death. As he approaches his building, a flash of lightning outlines her unmistakable form—the flip of her hair, the curve of her hips, the narrowness of her waist. He draws closer and they stand in the rain, looking at each other.
    â€œPriss, what did you do?”
    â€œOnly what you wanted me to do.”
    â€œNo. It’s not what I wanted. I never wanted you to hurt anyone.”
    â€œBullshit. There’s a rage inside you, Ian. A big one—it’s a beast. You keep it locked away because it scares you. But the beast talks to me. He tells me what you want. And I do the things you can’t do yourself.”
    â€œYou’re wrong. You’re the beast. You do what you want.”
    He walks past her and pushes open the door. The thunder and lightning, the heavy downpour—it’s right above them. Priss stands soaked in the street, legs apart, hands on her hips.
    â€œWe’re done, Priss. I’m sorry, but we are.”
    She laughs.
    â€œI mean it. I don’t want you in my life anymore. You helped me once, many times. You were strong when I was weak. You saved me one night long ago, and I’m grateful. But I’m not weak. And I don’t want you to hurt anyone else.”
    â€œIt’s because of her, isn’t it? Molly.” Priss says her name like a taunt. Her face grows twisted and ugly in her anger. But Fatboy doesn’t back down.
    â€œNo,” he says. “It’s because of me. I’m a man, not a little boy anymore. I need to stand on my own now.”
    â€œThe world’s an ugly place,” she says. “Bad things happen. They happen all the time.”
    â€œI know,” he says. “Thank you for protecting me. But it’s okay. You don’t need to do it anymore.”
    â€œDo you think it’s going to be that easy?”
    Her rage is growing, her face becoming redder, uglier. She’s getting bigger, her hair blowing around her like a mane of fire.
    â€œYou think you just walk away from me?” Her voice is a roar that mingles with the thunder.
    â€œNo,” he says. “I’ll miss you every day.”
    â€œThat’s sweet,” she says. “But that’s not what I meant.”
    â€œGood-bye, Priss,” says Fatboy.
    He walks inside and leaves her raging as the storm grows more violent—thunder, lightning, howling wind. He leans his back against the door, as if to hold it closed. And he weeps, sinks to the ground. He knows it’s not the end. But it’s the beginning of the end. And things are going to get ugly.

Chapter Nine
    I took Megan up to The Hollows to meet my mother, Miriam. I wouldn’t have asked it of her, but she wanted to go. My grandmother and father have both passed on. My maternal grandparents both died when I was a baby, my paternal grandfather before I was even born. Bad genes on both sides.
    My mother is the only family I have. She has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and she lives her life in a medicated fog as a resident of a psychiatric hospital where she also works in the library and assists in the art therapy department, drawing a small stipend.
    My mother is destitute, and the costs of her care are mostly covered by Medicaid. I pay for anything that isn’t covered. She is a model patient, has some off-grounds privileges, but mainly she has no desire to leave the premises. The world is too ugly, too frightening for her. Too full of demons and sinister characters, bad memories. But really, I think, it’s the crushing guilt that keeps her in the little world she has constructed for herself. She is a woman who smothered her own child, and there is no changing that. There is no moving on, not for her.
    â€œYou don’t find it weird? That I still see my mother?” I asked Megan as we