Ichoke on the protein bar I’m scarfing down as I stand in my bathroom, curling iron in hand, and stare down at my mom’s face on my phone. “You did what now?”
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth, darling. It’s so unladylike.” Mom’s eyes roll like she’s had to tell me this a million times already. She hasn’t. Not since I was nine and she told me no boy would ever like me if I talked with food in my mouth.
I swallow and set the curling iron on the counter. “Sorry, I was just caught off guard by the whole ‘I left Max’ bit. It hasn’t even been three months.”
And besides, it’s not normally my mom who does the leaving.
“Yes, well,” she says, waving a hand in the air like she’s brushing the memories away.
“What happened?”
“He was obviously still in love with his dead wife, and I can’t compete with a ghost.”
I have so many questions but don’t even know where to start. Is love supposed to be a competition between you and anyone they’ve loved in the past? Should Max no longer love Aidan’s mom just because she passed away? And how did my mom notknow this about Max before they were married? And why did she just up and leave instead of trying to work things out?
I go with the last question, and she gives me a pouty sigh. “Falling in love is the best part, honey.”
“No mom,being lovedis the best part. Anyone can fall in love. It’s choosing each other, over and over, that makes love worthwhile.”
“I forgot you were an expert on the matter,” she says snidely.
It’s true, I’ve only been in love once before, with my college boyfriend. He broke up with me right after graduation, so instead of moving to Austin with him, I moved to Park City, where Lauren got me a job with Petra.
And now, Aidan, who showed me what it felt like to be truly accepted in a way that seemed a lot like love... but thenstilldidn’t choose me. Does that mean he didn’t love me? Or he just didn’t love meenough?
“Maybe I’ll come up to Boston for Thanksgiving,” Mom says, and that snaps me out of my own thoughts real fast.
I can’t control the way my eyes widen and my head shakes. “What?”
“We could have a mother-daughter weekend,” she says, like that’s something we do. My mom’s idea of bonding is going to the spa together and having treatments in separate rooms.
“I can’t.”
Mom looks confused and kind of offended, like I just told her that her Prada bag from two seasons ago is no longer in style. “Why not?”
“Because I have plans.”
I don’t, yet. But I will. If my dad is in town, I’ll spend it with him. Or I’ll spend it with the Flynn family again. And if neither of those options works out, I’ll spend it alone. Even that is preferable to spending the holiday with my mom.
“You can’t change your plans for your mother?” She sounds genuinely shocked that I won’t drop whatever’s going on in my life to accommodate hers, and that pisses me off.
I’m not just mad at her for always being so damn selfish, I’m mad at myself for allowing it. For being afraid to rock the boat and risk disappointing her, when all she’s done, over and over, is disappoint me.
When I don’t respond right away, my mom lays on the guilt. “Honey, I just separated from my husband and you can’t even make time for me?”
Her audacity has me seething. It’s not like separating from her husband is an uncommon occurrence, and every time this has happened, I’vealwaysbeen there for her.
“You’ve neveronceput me first in your life, yet you always expect that I’ll drop everything for you. And that’s partly on me, because I always have. But it stops now.”
Mom’s jaw drops and I’m pretty sure she calls me ungrateful under her breath. “After everything I’ve done for you?—”
I swear those words have me so heated I could breathe fire, so I interrupt her. “Mom, you left me when I was a kid and I’ve probably only seen you a dozen times since. You prioritized every guy in your life over me, made me participate in multiple weddings for marriages that everyone knew wouldn’t last, and you only come running back to me when those marriages fail. The one thing you’ve done for me, my entire life, is put me last. So that’s where I’ll be putting you from now on. I need to go. I have to get to a work meeting.”
“It’s Saturday.” My mom says this like she’s caught me in a lie.
“And yet I’m still trying to catch up on work after being deathly ill two weeks ago. Not that you’d know anything about that. Goodbye, Mom.”
Disconnecting the call feels both freeing and terrifying. I’ve never stood up to my mom. Never called her out on her bullshit. Never refused her anything. It feels good to finally put my foot down, but I would never have had the courage to do so without Aidan’s constant reminders that I deserve better.
