“Oh yes.”
Had I made the worst mistake of my life when I’d broken up with Logan? I had done it out of love. I had wanted the best for him.
“He will always have his memories with Laina, no matter what happens to the land. But what he wants is to walk with you, to dream with you, to love you, always, through life.”
“Oh, Mom…” I put my head in my hands, my hair making a curtain around my face.
“You couldn’t conceive that he would want you more than the land, could you?”
“No. I couldn’t. Not in the long run. Not in the short run either.” And there was my truth: I hadn’t thought Logan would think I was, ultimately, worth it. I still didn’t think he’d think I was worth trading for his beloved mother’s land, his family’s land, and the sweet memories he had there of her.
But maybe I shouldn’t have made that choice for him.
And maybe he would think I was worth it.
“I think, my love, that you were quite wrong.”
Moms are the best to cry on.
When I was done crying on her, I said, “I love you, Mom.”
And she said, “I love you more than the world, baby girl.”
Slip-and-Slide Sledding Day was Sunday with my mother’s huge, eccentric family.
I was not going to go. I was going to help my mom, cook some taco soup for her, then go to bed and pull the blankets over my head and cry my eyes out. I expected there would be so many tears my eyeballs would roll out of my head. Then Iwould read a thriller, something that would scare me down to my bones. I would make chocolate chip cookies and eat six, plus batter. I would watch a reality show. Or three. I would play Scrabble with my mother, and she would win, naturally. Then I’d go back to bed again and let the waterfalls run out of my eyes while I wrangled with a bleak future that was going to be filled with loneliness and aloneness and this gut-wrenching loss. That sounded pathetic and whiny even to me, but losing Logan was pathetic, and so I whined.
And over this self-pity party would hang the dreaded questions: Had I made the worst mistake of my life by not telling Logan the truth and breaking up with him? And was I nowmaking the worst mistake of my life by not telling him the truth? My mother had sworn on my head that she would not interfere, as I had begged her, but the dreaded questions had to be answered.
My plan on being pathetic all day didn’t work out because my cousins Jaxi and Helena came by.
“Wow,” Jaxi said. “You look awful. Your eyes are all swollen. Crying. She’s been crying.” She turned to Helena, then back to me. “Over Logan? Oh no, Bellini. I am so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, Bellini,” Helena said, wrapping me in her arms.
Jaxi put her arms around both of us. “You look pale.”
“I look like a skeleton and a ghost,” I said. I’d seen my face in the mirror. I terrorized myself.
“It’s true,” they said.
“More skeletal,” said Jaxi.
“I think more ghostly,” said Helena.
“Not well,” Jaxi said. “You’re both red and pale.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t take her, Jaxi,” Helena said, as if I weren’t standing right there. “She looks like she needs to lie down for a month. I’ll stay with her, you go.”
“No, I’ll stay with her. I want to. You go, Jaxi.”
“We’ll both stay with her.” My cousins nodded at me.
“I’m so steamin’ mad about this,” Jaxi said. “What did Logan do?”
“Nothing. He did nothing wrong,” I choked out. “It’s not working out. We’re not working out.”
“But why?” they asked
