“It hasn’t passed.”
“I saw.”
He sent a pointed glance in my direction, and that’s when I realized that I had misbuttoned my top three buttons. With a mutter of “Fetching Canada,” I set about fixing it. “I did this for you, you know.”
That made my dad pause, his hand hanging in the air. “Did what for me?”
I got my buttons into the right holes. “I gave up Ember for you. For Marley, too, but mostly for you. You were so sad for so long that I didn’t want to be the reason your new marriage didn’t work out. I left so that there wouldn’t be this huge problem with you and Tricia. Like I could give you happiness where Mom had just taken it away.”
“I always wondered what it was that drove you to Pennsylvania. But I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.” He let out a long, tired sigh. “But it wasn’t your job to make up for my mistakes, or your mother’s. I don’t think I suffered as much as you thought I did.”
That information sent me reeling. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, yes, it hurt when your mother left. I loved her. We had a family together, and she walked out. But I focused on you and Marley, and I moved past it. Even before I met Tricia, I had a good life. A life that made me happy. Even now, I only wish good things for your mom. I hope she really is clean and sober and that she’s able to build a relationship with you and Marley, if that’s what you want.”
I couldn’t even think about my mom situation right now. She wasn’t what mattered. “This isn’t about Mom. I’m trying to explain to you what is going on and what happened in the past and why I made the decisions that I did. I thought I was doing the right thing. I was trying so hard not to hurt anyone.”
“I know it wasn’t your intention, but you did hurt people. Which I understand all too well, because I’m kind of the expert on it. I’ve spent most of my life hurting people I love, even when I was trying to do the right thing.” He shook his head, as if he could just shake those painful memories away. “I am the parent. I should have talked to you about this. I should have told you that running away wasn’t a solution. I shouldn’t have let you go. But I was trying to respect your independence and your ability to make your own choices for your life.”
His words twisted in my gut, like he’d plunged a knife into me and then turned it. “I didn’t want to wreck your new relationship and—”
My dad cut me off. “You also never had the power to break up me and Tricia. We made commitments and vows to each other that we intend to keep. Even if the two of you do date and it ends badly, that’s not going to affect our relationship.”
“That’s good. Because you should probably know that I’m not here to ask your permission to date Ember. I gave her up once, and I’m never doing that again. I love her and she loves me, and everybody else is going to have to find a way to be okay with that.” By everybody, I meant him and Tricia.
Which he seemed to recognize. I heard a note of respect when he said, “Then it sounds to me like you should go find Ember and tell her what you told me. You can take the truck.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
It had gone better than I’d anticipated, but even if it hadn’t, nothing would have changed. I was always going to put Ember’s needs first.
As I headed back into the house to grab the truck keys, I started to think about Ember and her nearly pathological need to please her mother. If Tricia was upset about this and stood in our way, what would Ember do? Would she keep doing whatever her mom asked?
I stopped short, my hand on the car door as a realization slammed into me. Here I was upset that Ember would do anything to make her mother happy, but . . . hadn’t I just confessed to doing the same thing? I wanted so badly to make sure that Marley and my dad were happy that I had done what I thought they’d wanted. I’d sacrificed what I wanted, and I’d run away.
Now Ember was running away, but I was going to find her. I knew better than anyone what she was feeling. And this time, I was going to fight for her. Whatever it took, whatever she needed from me, I was in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EMBER
My vision was so blurred by all the tears that I drove into an empty church parking lot not far from my mom’s house. My phone kept buzzing and ringing, and I turned it off, not ready to deal with any fallout just yet. Instead I sat in my car and cried. Cried and cried until I felt wrung out and like there was no moisture left in my body because I had sobbed it all out.
I stayed there for hours, my head against the steering wheel as I tried to figure out what to do next. Because now I was in a position where no matter what I did, I was going to hurt somebody.
Once I’d exhausted myself in both body and spirit, I headed back to my apartment. It was only when I arrived that I realized I wasn’t wearing any shoes. I’d kicked them off back at the house, and it was only occurring to me now because the sidewalk was cold and I was no longer fleeing the scene, all pumped up on guilt and adrenaline.
I hoped that my roommates were out so that I could go into my room and crash. Unfortunately, I walked in to find Deja studying at the peninsula in the kitchen and Molly on the couch playing a video game.
“Hey, Bash came by a couple of hours ago,” Molly said, her eyes still trained on the television.
“Are you pulling a Cinderella?” Deja asked me, surveying me from head to toe. “If you are, you’re supposed to be home when the prince comes by. He even brought your coat and shoes home. It was adorable.”
“Where did you go again?” Molly asked. “You look like you just got back from a place with rainbow glitter, pastel dreamlands, and birds that help you get dressed.”
“The ball. I am kind of like a broken Cinderella, huh?” Limping in with no shoes after midnight, having just run away from the man that I loved, finding out that my mother was against our relationship.
My roommates must have heard something in my voice as they both stopped what they were doing and looked concerned.
My inclination was to burst into tears, but I had none left. I dropped down on the floor, too tired to move another step. Both Molly and Deja hurried over to sit with me.
“Everything is bad.”
Molly asked, “Could you, um, elaborate a little?”
They knew about my and Bash’s past, what had happened between us and how we’d ended our relationship four years ago. I’d filled them in on all those details after they caught us kissing. They also knew why we were keeping us dating a secret from my family.
I told them how Bash and I had been in the midst of a serious make-out session when both of our families walked in and caught us, and my mom had gotten upset. “Then I freaked out and ran away.”
“With no shoes,” Molly added, and I nodded.
“And then Bash asked me why I kept sacrificing my own life for my mom. That I was more worried about making her happy than the things I wanted. He asked me why I couldn’t stand up for myself and just be honest with her.”
Deja and Molly exchanged loaded glances that irritated me.
“What?” I asked.
“You know we love you—” Deja said, and Molly interrupted to say, “You are surrounded by so much love right now!”
“But,” Deja continued, “Bash was not wrong.”
I was crossing from irritated into full-blown annoyed territory. “What do you mean?” Because my gut reaction had been to say he was a hundred percent wrong. That he just didn’t understand the kind of relationship I had with my mom.
“We have been your friends for three years, and again, we’re saying this with nothing but love for you,” Deja said, putting her hand on my arm. “But every time your mom says jump, you ask how high. Do you know how many times you’ve canceled plans with us? Or missed a practice or a game because of something your mother needed?”
“She’s my mom. And she almost died.”
“But she didn’t die,” Deja said. “And no amount of support or obedience or whatever it is you’re doing is going to kee
p her alive. You know that, right?”
Of course I knew that. That wasn’t why I did what I did.
“You can’t stand to disappoint your mom for any reason,” Molly chimed in. “But in another year you’re going to be a college graduate and starting your own life. It’s not your job to run home every time your mom asks you to.”
“You guys don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like. How afraid I was all the time. And the only way to keep the fear at bay was to be doing something. Helping her. Making her happy.”
Deja gave me a sad smile. “There’s nothing wrong with your coping mechanism. Only that you don’t seem to realize that you don’t need it anymore. Your mom is good, and her tests have been clear for years. You don’t have to keep operating from a place of fear. I mean, I am still shocked that she got you to jump out of an airplane.”
“Right?” Molly said with a laugh. “Remember when we went to the Space Needle to celebrate Ximena’s birthday, and Ember threw up in the elevator when we got to the top?”
“Yes, me and my very expensive shoes remember,” Deja said. “But making your mom happy is not going to keep her cancer free. You stepped up to take care of your sister and your stepsister, and that is really admirable. You put your life on hold. But you don’t need to do that anymore.”
Molly put her arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “I mean, you can be a good daughter without being a mindless drone. You might have crossed over just a little into the mindless-drone category.”
I wanted to protest and say that they were wrong and didn’t understand. But what if they were right? Was I somehow psychologically messed up from dealing with my mom’s breast cancer? I hated telling my mother no. I knew that about myself. I had sat and cried in my car not only because of the look of disappointment on Bash’s face, but from my mom’s shock and anger. If anything, I had probably been more focused on her in that moment, and even I recognized that there was something fundamentally wrong with that.
Because honestly, it didn’t matter what Mom thought about me and Bash. It wasn’t her relationship, and Bash and I were both twenty-one. We were adults by every definition. It was our decision.
I loved him. I wanted to be with him.
And the only way to prove that, both to myself and to him, was to put him first. His feelings should have mattered more.
I had been wrong, and I needed to tell him. “Why didn’t you guys say something before?”
Deja shrugged, like she didn’t have a good answer. “I don’t know. It didn’t really interfere dramatically with your life before. But if pleasing her is more important than the good man you’re in love with, that’s . . . not great.”
“What do I do now? How do I fix this?” I asked. How could I change my own mind so that I didn’t automatically default to making my mom’s wishes and desires more important than mine or Bash’s?
Molly said, “When you’re trying to change a behavior, the main thing is to be aware of it. Once your conscious mind recognizes it, it makes it easier to stop. That doesn’t mean you’ll be perfect at it, but it’s just like anything else in life. The longer you practice, the more you do it, the more natural it becomes and the better you’ll be at it.”
“Now I feel kind of stupid,” I confessed. “How did I not notice this before?” I kept thinking of all the times Bash had tried to warn me, without hurting my feelings. Telling me that I could decide things for myself, like whether or not I wanted to be a writer instead of a nurse. Offering several times to take me away from that airfield and the airplane so that I wouldn’t have to skydive. Trying to get me to cut my mother’s apron strings in the kindest and most supportive way possible.
I seriously loved him. And I didn’t want to lose him.
“We don’t always see our own shortcomings. It’s like a protective thing,” Molly explained. “You guys know that my mom’s a therapist, so most of our dinner table discussions revolved around stuff like this.”
I put my hands over my face. Everything felt like such a mess. I was a mess. But I was going to give myself one last night to feel sorry for myself and my poor decisions. Tomorrow I was going to start fixing them. But tonight, I needed to sleep. To let my brain and my eyes rest, and then I’d start dealing with this stuff.
Thanking my roommates, we hugged, and then they helped me off the floor. Deja unzipped my dress and then hung it up, muttering something about how she didn’t want to see it pooled on the floor. Molly pushed me into the bathroom, making sure I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I hugged her again and then went and put my pajamas on. I decided to turn my phone back on.
There were all kinds of notifications from Lauren and Bash. Even a few from Marley.
But nothing from my mother.
I texted Bash, telling him that I was okay and would talk to him soon.
He responded immediately, telling me he loved me. I told him I felt the same, hoping that would be enough to ease his mind for now.
My phone rang. It was Lauren, but I was too tired. I pushed ignore. But then she called again, and again I pushed ignore. When the phone rang for the third time, I knew I wasn’t going to get out of this conversation.
“Hi. What do you want?” I asked.
“You answered! I can’t believe it. Finally! Marley! She answered! Hey, are you okay?”
“Not so much right now, but I will be. How’s Mom?”
There was a muffled noise, and then I heard a door closing. “She hasn’t come out of her room since, you know, we saw you climbing Bash like he was a tree. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s all very dark and full of terrors over here. Marley and I have already decided we’re both going to sleep in her room tonight.”
I was glad she had Marley, because my urge to run home and make this better for everyone else was eating away at me. I acknowledged it and then dismissed it.
“Bash told everyone that he was in love with you.” I’d never heard Lauren sound so worried before.
“He did?”
“Yep. Then he had a serious conversation with Doug out in the garage, and he came out of it looking determined and took the truck. I think he went to find you.”
I lay down and threw an arm over my eyes. “Yeah. I just got home and heard he came by.”
There was a silence that lasted long enough that I thought maybe the call had dropped. “Lauren?”
“I’m here. I was just thinking about when I was twelve years old. I was totally obsessed with romantic comedy movies, remember? The way the heroes and heroines in those movies would look at each other was how you and Bash looked at each other in real life. So I’m sorry if I gave you guys a hard time. My preteen fangirl heart just wanted you two to happen. I also didn’t realize how big the fallout would be. I thought there would be some yelling, and then everybody would just get over it.”
“Yeah, I feel bad that Mom’s basically taken to her bed like some character from a Victorian-era novel.” I paused. “She must be really upset.”
“You know Mom’s not the boss of you anymore, right? You can make your own choices.”
“I’ve realized tonight that I really hate disappointing her.”
“Really?” Lauren sounded shocked. “I actually find it very liberating.”
I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I wish I felt that way.”
“You totally should. Because you get to find out who you are by making your own choices. And maybe Mom’s not going to like that, but life usually isn’t arranged to our liking. She has her own trials and issues, but you dating Bash shouldn’t be one of them.”
“When did you get so wise?” I asked.
“We grow up much faster these days. It’s all the GMOs and smartphones.”
I smiled at that. “Okay, Little Miss Knows Everything, I am going to bed. I have a lot to deal with tomorrow.”
“Good. I want to hear as many details as you’re willing to share after you chat with Bash. I’m here for you if you need me. And Ember? All I want, all any o
f us want, is for you to be happy. I love you.”
If I’d still had any tears left, I would have been welling up right then. “Love you, too. We’ll talk soon.”
I hung up my phone, putting it on the nightstand next to my bed. I thought of all the choices I’d been making, just to make my mom happy. Not just where Bash was concerned, but if I were being honest, with my major, too. How I chose to spend my free time. Where I planned on living after graduation.
Family was important, and they would always be important to me, but it didn’t mean I had to sacrifice my own life like I was some modern-day reincarnation of Joan of Arc. History had enough martyrs; I didn’t need to add myself to the pyre.
It was time to break free. To not run away or to hide behind obligations and responsibilities. And to figure out how to redefine all of my relationships.
Especially the potential one with Bash.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BASH
I wasn’t able to sleep. The idea of losing Ember . . . it went from a faint fear to all my brain could think about. It whispered that I wasn’t good enough for her. That she’d never love me; nobody could. That I should just give up now and stay in my bed for the rest of my life. Ember would be better off without me. These thoughts were like parasites, trying to infect me.
I’d been so good recently about keeping the darkness at bay. Even when I talked to my mom, something that could have easily set me off, I was okay. I knew how to take care of myself.
But this thing with Ember . . . this was different. Scarier. Which made it easier for my lying self-critic to sneak in and make me doubt myself. Make me doubt us.
I took in a couple of deep breaths. I decided to go for another run later since exercise seemed to help. I also held on to the fact that Ember had texted she loved me, too. She was just a person who needed time to process her emotions and make decisions. I could give her that.
I found Logan in our shared room, getting ready for the day. “You were up early today,” he commented.
“I went for a run. Things have been a little hard lately. With the whole Ember thing.”
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