She shrugs, a tight smile stretched across her cheeks. “He lives next door. He always comes over,” she explains. “Your little high school romance… that was ages ago.”
Little high school romance.It was so much more than that. He was my childhood best friend, first love… and he broke my heart. He wrecked me.
“He lives next door?!” I ask, my words clipped. “Did he move back home?”
“Yes, after his mother passed away, he moved back in. It’s a beautiful house… he couldn’t let it go.”
True. I completely get it. It is a great house; a traditional Victorian home; a real life-size doll house. And there were so many priceless memories there; countless moments; laughs, board games, spaghetti dinners, movie nights. It was his mother’s pride and joy. She tended to her gardens like a new mother tends to her newborn. She was a lovely woman. When I found out that she had passed a few years ago, I wanted to attend the funeral, but this thing with Blake and I was still too raw. I’ve always regretted not going.
“Well, I want him out,” I tell her. “I don’t care what excuse you need to use. You guys can be all chummy again in a week, when I’m gone.”
Momma shakes her head as we head toward the house. Corrie is bouncing like a school girl, eager to see my childhood home.
