Just as I Begin to Fade

Thirty. Betrayal

After dinner, Gwen excused herself politely and she remained in her room for the rest of the evening.

Laying in bed with her bedroom phone to her ear, "I think you could've been right... I think my mom and Lindsey are dating," she sighed.

"Really?!" Donna asked.

"I just don't know how I feel about that. My mom is so unpredictable at times---at first she adored him, then she hated him and now they're dating? She threatened to have him taken away from me..." she leered, bobbing her foot profusely as her ankles laid crossed.

"Well, be positive. Maybe going out with Lindsey will help her. At least you know that he is a good and healthy man. If he's willing to take the brunt off of your shoulders, I say let him."

"Yeah, maybe... I just always have this fear..." she paused. "I told you how my mom lied to him about what I was doing last week. I just have this fear that she'll say something about me, he'll believe it and then he'll want nothing to do with me anymore. She's done it before..."

"Don't let that bother you. If she's done it, just roll with it. Lindsey is a really judge of character... He knows when anybody's lying, so I really wouldn't worry. The passed two years I have known him, he has presented all of this to me. Spending so much one-on-one time with him, you should know that too."

"And I do. It's just the fear of my mom eating at that..." she sighed. "I never realized how scared of my mom I am. She makes me anxious and sometimes nervous."

"She won't hurt you, will she?"

"No, she's never hurt me physically. Well, I mean, she slapped me and that was a first, but the damage she has done mentally. Then I feel stupid because I always defend her when I have to. Any time I do nice things for her, it bites me in the ass and I hope you know I am not being dramatic."

"No, I get that. It happens with my mom too," she laughed. "Can't ever be enough sometimes."

"Exactly."

"Which is why I think you should let Lindsey help, even if he is dating her. I get that you didn't want that, but maybe the idea of being partners with your healer is comforting for her. You guys have gone through a lot and a lot of it together. He'll see everything that she is about with time; he'll decide what's best and I know he will decide within what's best for you."

"Yeah..." she sighed in agreement only because she knew all of it, but it was reassuring to hear it from a friend. "Let me let you go, I think I heard the door. Derek might be here..."

"Okay, see you tomorrow."

"Bye," Gwen hung up. She then slipped her feet into her black slide-on slippers and she ventured out of her bedroom to see if Derek was there like she thought.

And he was.

"Hi, honey, I was just about to call you," the blonde got up from the couch so she could greet him.

After their meal, Stevie and Lindsey had moved their conversation to the couch and they were just talking comfortably, in which Gwen noticed.

"Hi, mom, good to see you," he hugged her. "What's up, Lindsey?"

Lindsey only waved subtly, not so thrilled to see him because he just didn't care for him, but he was cordial as it wasn't his house and he was a frequent guest.

"Let me heat you some dinner..." she then added.

"No, you stay---I got it," the teen pulled Derek by the hand and she brought him further into the kitchen, serving and heating up a plate of dinner for him.