A part of me deep down desperately wants her to remember that my birthday is coming up, but I know it’s not possible.
She hasn’t celebrated the day I was born and the day she became a mother since before my dad died.
The only way I knew it was my birthday, was when my teachers in school would arrange a cake for me every year.
In the fourth grade, I took down the date, and burned it into my brain so I could always remember to celebrate me, even if she never did.
“I just need some money.”
Figures.
“How much?” I sigh, blinking back the same tears that have threatened to fall every year around the same time.
“We’ll, you see, I’m short on a few things and the man I’m seeing doesn’t know that I’m broke and I don’t want to ask him for—”
“How much?” I repeat, trying to keep my voice steady. She can’t know I’m on the verge of tears, or she’ll call me weak.
“A few hundred.” I sigh again, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’ll pay you back,” she says quickly. It’s an empty promise. They always are.
But I stopped expecting things from my mother years ago.
You see, my mom doesn’t have a problem, per se.
She has priorities and preferences. Right now, everything is shifting. And because there’s a new man in her life, he’s taking precedence over anything else.
For how long, though?
Only time will tell.
Chapter fourteen
Cole
The binder with castand crew information had everything I needed to know.
For example, it told me that her birthday is this weekend and mentioned the number of the room she’s occupying in the apartment building where we all live.
A quick internet search told me her calendar is booked a year in advance, so there goes making an appointment once we get back to California.
The thing it didn’t tell me, though, is that she’s the jealous type.
Seeing Mara attempt to get closer to me triggered something inside her, effectively pissing off arguably the most important person on set.
All because seeing me next to someone else made her feel something she didn’t like.
Mara walked away from us, completely red-faced. She tried to brush it off with a forced smile, waving her phone in the air asif to answer a fake call. Jenna acted so casually in the situation, as if inviting her fake boyfriend over for dinner at her place was something she did regularly.
It caught me off guard, too, but I went with it.
It’s what I do.
And if it meant having dinner with the girl whom I can’t stop pining over, I’d call it a win.
Shedidignore my texts on night one, though. So, I’m going to confidently assume that thewantbetween us is strictly one-sided.
Jenna seems like a ‘one and done’ type of girl, and usually it wouldn’t bother me, but I don’t think I’m anywhere close to being finished.
Not with her, anyway.
