I wanted to learn more.
By the time the sun started to set, we’d brought in over twenty full-sized shrimp and cooked them over the fire pit area set up for bonfires. It was amazing.
The last time I’d done anything like it was many years before, when Dad was still alive. He taken Jayce and me camping on the beach, and we’d roasted marshmallows.
This was like that.
The shrimp was delicious, hard on the outside and soft on the inside with a smoky taste. I was certain I had more than Ryan.
We sat together afterwards, side by side on the soft sand of the beach, watching the waves roll in and out. He’d pulled on a t-shirt and gave me a jacket he’d packed in his bag.
It was dark, and the only light came from the fire we’d made, which was kind of dying down.
“Last chance to tell me what’s going on with you, or I swear I’ll bring up last night every chance I get.” He looked over at me and smiled. The flames from the fire flickered over his profile, making a show of his chiseled features.
I looked at him and hugged my knees to my chest. I didn’t know where I should start.
“I think I may lose my job.” There, that was the worst-case scenario.
He twisted so he could face me, concern filling his handsome face. “What happened?”
My throat tightened every time I thought of what had occurred, and it dried up as I attempted to talk. I swallowed hard past the lump that had formed and tried not to get too choked up as I explained everything in full.
“Sally just didn’t like me. Everything I did was the wrong thing—everything. Everything I said, everything I suggested. I never actually did anything to her.”
“And your boss didn’t want to hear your side?”
“No, my side doesn’t matter. The thing is, I don’t get it. It was like she didn’t want to do the article. I came up with some ideas that were great, but she just shot me down.”
“And you said you think she was sick?”
I shrugged. It had looked that way with the coughing and the blood, but I wouldn’t say it was a certainty. She might have just coughed so hard it irritated her throat.
“I don’t know what’s up with her. It was…” My voice trailed away when I took a moment to think about what it meant for me to do the exclusive. “It wasn’t just about the exclusive. Sure, it would put me on the map and help my accomplish my goal of being senior features editor, but there was more.”
“Like what?” He narrowed his gaze. “That pretty much sounds like the jackpot if that’s your goal.”
“It was. My mom…left when I was ten. My parents had a terrible divorce. It was definitely what people call acrimonious, because my father tried everything he could to fix things with my mom, but she wanted nothing to do with us. She wanted to leave and start a new life, and she did just that, even got remarried to some guy who promised her riches.” I pulled in a breath and tried to act like I wasn’t crushed by my past. I’d gotten the act down pat so no one would guess the whole occurrence had affected me to no end. It still did, though, even now.
It was hard to have a mother somewhere in the world who treated you like little more than a pen pal. A card on my birthday and one at Christmas, that was it, nothing more. Jayce got the same. Mom had never been a real mother and she saw us as more of a burden. The cards was probably her thinking she was doing her part.
Ryan straightened up, looking quite shocked. “Your mom did that?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t help the sadness in my voice.
My father and mother got together in high school. He was more into her than she was him. That was even clear to me and it shouldn’t have been. When Dad was away there were always strange men at the house. My earliest memory of Mom cheating was when I was seven . I caught her and who I thought was the gardener kissing. I actually told Dad and nothing became of it. He never confronted her about it.
The strange men going in and out of our home when Dad was away continued and as time went by my eyes were opened to the person my mother was.
She’d always ask Jayce to watch me, or take me to the park. She told us the men were dad’s friends but we weren’t stupid or naïve.
Dad howver chose to be naïve. He never saw the woman she was, and he never chose to see that she didn’t love any of us.
I was ten when she left and Dad was crushed. Completely crushed to the point where he had to take long term leave to sort himself out.
I always thought it was crazy. He’d been in a war zone for God knew how long, lived , and experienced many terrible things. But his wife leaving him was the worst thing that could happen to him.
And, she didn’t just leave either like a normal person might. The woman woke up one day, drove Jayce and I to Grams house and left us there, and left.
