I shake my head. “Sorry, I can’t. I need to get going, though—good luck!” I wave a hand up and head to my car, back to the house, and to Tessa, who I am not in love with.
nineteen
Tessa
“I’m so glad you could come meet me,” Meredith says as we’re walking through the outlet stores about two hours away from Ember Falls.
Killian is working with Everett, and I needed a break from planning the rodeo.
“Me too. You need a dress for what now?”
She sighs heavily. “Jake has some corporate party to go to. Usually I just wear my tried and true black dress, but he said I needed something a little fancier.”
“Too bad we aren’t in New York. We could find a million options.”
Meredith smiles. “Do you love it there?”
“I do, but…you know, it’s totally different from where I grew up.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. Speaking of, how are things with your family?”
My mother has been very quiet since our last call. A part of me wonders if she’s respecting my boundaries, but that would be both hilarious and a first. She believes that because she’s my mother, it entitles her to whatever she needs. I owe her—you know, for breathing.
“Right now things are good. She asked for more money and I promised I’d send it when I get back to New York. I’m sure she’s behaving so she gets it.”
She shakes her head. “You know that’s absolutely ridiculous, right?”
“I do.”
However, I can’t just leave her to fend for herself either. It’s a never-ending loop of guilt and a lifetime of manipulation that doesn’t have an end.
Meredith loops her arm in mine. “I just hope one day you’ll be able to stand up for yourself when it comes to her.”
“Me too,” I say with a nervous laugh. “I think I’m getting better, though.”
In the past, I would stay on the phone with her as she berated me. I allowed the abuse to continue without speaking up. Now, I choose to converse with her less and less. I focus on myself a lot more, giving her what I can because I do hate the hell she’s in after her accident.
“Yeah?”
I nod. “It’s not like it was in college. I don’t stress to the point of making myself sick. I’ve also come to understand why she is the way she is.”
Meredith glances over at me, surprise on her face. “What do you mean?”
“She had terrible parents. My grandmother was obsessed with herself, and she neglected my mother. She was a wonderful grandmother, but I think a lot of that was to atone for the hell she put Mom through. Her father worked fourteen-hour days, and that left very little time for anything with his kids. Then, she met my father, and we all know how that went. She was eighteen, and I honestly believe she did her best.”
“That’s very mature of you.”
I laugh. “Therapy. Alotof therapy. What about you and your dad?”
Meredith falls silent for a moment and then sighs. “It’s better. I wish my mother was alive because there are a million questions I would ask, but I can’t now. I’m accepting my situation, and I love my dad, but I worry about him a lot. Which makes Jake worry about me. It’s a fun circle.”
“Why do you worry about your dad?”
She exhales deeply. “He’s angry too. He was lied to. He thought I was his daughter, biologically. Now he looks at me differently, although he says he doesn’t. I think he’s just feeling betrayed and is worried I’ll want to know my real father more.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “But, I don’t really want to think about it either.”
