I looked down at the burnt orange T-shirt I was wearing. “Noted.”
“I used to be young and pretty.”
“You still are,” I said. My mom was a striking woman. At sixty-one, she had white hair that she kept shoulder length and icy blue eyes. Her skin was soft like rose petals, and she smelled like rose petals too.
“Cherish your looks, you won’t always have them.”
“But we’ll always have our winning personalities,” I said, mostly as a joke because I was feeling far from charitable lately, and my mom, well, she was a grump. But that wasn’t new.
“I should call your father,” she muttered, almost to herself. “Tell him what’s going on.”
I wondered how often she called my dad. When I had lived here, it had been at least once a month. Sometimes he’d call as well, but not as often. “You should.”
I pushed her to the vanity in her room and retrieved the blow dryer from the basket on the floor.
When I finished drying her hair, my phone was buzzing on the counter in the bathroom where I had left it. I could hear it from where I stood. My heart nearly stopped in my chest when I saw the name scrolling on the screen:Nate.
I answered it quickly. “Hi, hello,” I said, sounding breathless.
“Hey,” he said. “When will you be home?”
My heart thudded heavily in my chest. I wasn’t sure why. I’d already established that Nate wasn’t getting any second chances. Not after how he broke up with me. I only needed to be shown a red flag once. “Uh… why?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to get back together or anything. I just left some stuff in your apartment that I need. Can I use my key and let myself in?”
The feelings seeing his name on my phone had elicited, whatever feelings those were, drove off a cliff and crashed into the rocks at the bottom where they belonged. “Oh, yeah, of course.”
“Thanks.” He paused. “How are things? With your mom?”
I glanced over my shoulder. She was messing with her hairin the mirror of her vanity. I walked out of the bathroom, out of her room, then into my room. “Okay… hard.”
“Is she not doing well? Complications?”
“No, she is. It’s just hard to be back, I guess.”
“For sure. I don’t know that I want to hang out in my childhood bedroom for very long either. I bet you miss your memory foam mattress and your five-star hotel sheets.”
Because he thought all I cared about were my belongings. “Yeah… how are you?”
“Good. Got back on the dating apps. I forgot how atrocious those things are. But hey, I need to run. Oh, did the meat guy work out?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” he responded. “Bye.”
“Bye.”
I set my phone down and braced myself on the dresser. I didn’t miss Nate. I didn’t. I missed being home. I missed things being easy… or easier. I missed having a person to do life with. Even if that person told me that it seemed like I was doing life alone and not including him. I really was. I could do life alone.
I did not miss Nate. At least that’s what I was trying to convince myself.
CHAPTER 11
Wait, why had I made us vow to be truthful in this therapy session? I hadn’t thought through the consequences of that. The main one being,Ihad to be truthful.
“What do you think your parents did well in their relationship that you can take to yours, and what do you think they did poorly?” That was the question Dr. Franklin had asked. The one that had me frozen, trying to think of a creatively truthful answer that didn’t give away everything.
Elijah went first, like he often did when I stayed silent. “My parents talked about everything. Even if it was at loud volumes, they talked things through. And when they fought, they always let us see them make up too. That’s what they did well.”
