“I will keep Ava here with me.”
“No.”
I turned and made my way to the kitchen.
“If you wish to stay here, you will go to this retreat.”
I turned and looked at her. “What did you say?”
“You have some time to think about it. But if you want to continue to stay here under my roof, you will go to this and get your life in order.”
“You two are unbelievable!”
Stacey looked at her watch before standing. “Well, I have to get going. But I’ll see you in a few weeks, Eleanor,” she said as she came over and gave me a hug. “See you soon, mom.”
I stood there. Blind sided. Again.
“I can’t believe you.”
She simply picked up the brochure and leafed through it. I turned, stomping up the stairs, like the petulant teenager I could never quite escape in this house.
I shut my bedroom door behind me and finally let my back slide down it until I hit the floor. My hands were shaking. My breath was uneven. The old familiar ache of being small, being wrong, being too much pressed against my ribs like a fist.
I needed . . . someone. And there was only one person I wanted to see right now.
I grabbed my phone and hit Alex’s name for FaceTime before I could overthink it.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hey,” he said softly, like he somehow already knew. “You okay?”
The question undid me.
Not all the way. Not loudly. But enough that my voice cracked. “No,” I whispered. “Not really.”
His face appeared on my screen, warm, worried, hair mussed like he’d been running his hands through it. The instant he saw me, his expression shifted into something fierce and tender at the same time.
“El,” he said gently, “what happened?”
I told him. Not everything, I couldn’t get all the words out, but enough. My voice trembled as I told him that my mother wanted to send me away, the lecture, the criticism, the blow-up. His jaw tightened. When I mentioned my mother telling me that if I didn’t go, she would kick me out, he swore under his breath.
“Oh, honey,” he murmured, pain and protectiveness layered in his voice. “I’m so sorry.”
“I just—” My throat closed up. “I want out. I want Ava out. I want . . . something else. Anywhere else.”
“You can come here,” he said immediately. Without hesitation. “You and Ava can stay here. Tonight. Tomorrow. As long as you need.”
My heart squeezed so hard it hurt.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I don’t want to uproot her. Not like this. And your house is . . . it’s Leo’s house. And Becca’s. And Mel’s. I don’t want to disrupt anything.”
“Eleanor,” he said, voice firmer than I’d ever heard it, “you could never disrupt anything. You’d be welcome. Both of you would be welcome . . . and the other half of this duplex is empty.”
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “I didn’t think of that. I don’t know, that seems like a lot. I couldn’t pay anything now. And before you say I wouldn’t have to, please don’t. I need to take care of Ava. I need to stand on my own two feet for her . . . and for me.”
He sighed. “Okay, I get it. Then I’ll be here. Whatever you need. However, you need me.”
We talked for a while. Not heavy, not planning, just . . . connecting. He made me laugh once, even though I’d come upstairs ready to scream. He told me Leo drew a new comic today calledThe Ballad of the Blue-Haired Witch Queen, and Ava was clearly the inspiration. I told him Ava had declared herself powerful. He said, “Well, she’s right.”
