Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 84952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
But it’s not him. Not even close.
I groan, getting comfy again. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, sweetie. I wanted to see if you had fun last night at Siggy’s.”
I lean my head back and fake cry.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
“Just … bad timing, Mom.”
“Okay.”
“Is Hollis there? Should I let you go?” she asks. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
I sigh. “You’re not interrupting, and he’s not here. Just Bellamy.”
“Just Bellamy,” Bellamy mocks me. “Like I’m chopped liver.”
I ignore her. “What’s up with you?”
“I’m actually doing laundry. Can you believe that? Laundry on New Year’s Day.”
“Life goes on.”
I frown, realizing how true my words are and how much I hate them. I don’t want them to go on.
They’ll never go on the same way they’ve gone on over the past week.
It was a taste of something that I’ll probably never experience again—something fun and playful and feel-good. There were no expectations between Hollis and me. Just a pact to pretend to have a relationship that I ended up believing could be real.
The tears come again from nowhere. They’re silent and wet and hot as they slide down my cheeks. Bellamy watches me from the couch.
“Are you crying, honey?” Mom asks. “Oh, Riss. What’s the matter?”
“Well,” I say, my voice shaking, “apparently, Hollis and I are done.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Do you want the bullshit answer he gave me or the real one?”
“Bullshit first.”
“Well, he thinks he has nothing to offer me.”
“I saw him. I talked to him. I danced with him, for crying out loud. That’s not true.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the truth, then?”
I think of his sweet smile—the shy one I only got to see a few times. I remember the moment of true happiness at the piano and the soulfulness of his voice singing Adele.
“The truth is … he doesn’t know that it’s okay to be happy. He doesn’t know how to trust people.”
“Oh, honey.”
“There’s nothing I can do,” I say, feeling helpless. “I confronted him. I went to him. And he just pushed me away.”
The phone clicks, and I know I’m on speakerphone again. I roll my eyes at Bellamy.
“What’s your next step?” Mom asks.
“I don’t know. Tacos?”
“Larissa!”
“What? What the hell am I supposed to do, Mom? I can’t force him to want me.”
A faucet turns on, and I can hear a glass or a kettle being filled up. And then, finally, she takes me off speakerphone.
“You’re not giving up that easy, are you?” she asks me.
“Don’t start.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m not going to chase him down and beg him to be with me. And for heaven’s sake, don’t you even think about trying to set me up with someone else!”
She gasps. “Why would I do something like that?”
“Are you serious?” I deadpan. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not kidding. I only set you up with men who I think you might like so that you can find your soul mate. I don’t want you to wait too long to find him. It turns out, you didn’t need me for that at all.”
I move around in my chair to try to get comfortable.
“You have to go after that boy, Riss. He’s The One.”
My eyes well up with tears. “And do what? Cry? Beg? I’ve already done both.”
Her voice drops. “Have you learned anything from me?”
I don’t know what she means by that question, so I don’t answer her. There are so many directions it could take.
“Larissa, darling, listen to me. You have to fight for love. If your heart is hurting, and I know it is, that means something is worth your time to fix it.”
“But I can’t make him listen to me!”
She sighs. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told you. Okay? And I don’t want to talk about it. It’s private, and it causes me a lot of pain.”
“Mom …”
I sit up in my chair, my heart racing. I have no idea where this is going or if I even want it to go there.
“When your father left me, he had his reasons. They weren’t great, but he did what he thought he had to do in order for all of us to be happy,” she says, her voice unnaturally even. “But the reason we got a divorce? That’s my fault.”
This is news to me. I’ve never known what caused their breakup, but now? I don’t know if I want to know. I have too much to process the way it is.
“I don’t know if I can deal with this right now,” I tell her.
“Larissa, I didn’t fight for us.”
It’s a simple sentence, all of six words. But something about it, about the way she says it takes my breath away.
“Mom …”
“I didn’t. There was some pride involved, I guess. A lot of it was me being hardheaded and refusing to compromise with him on a few important things. I just let him go because it was easier than working through it and being patient. I cut the ties and moved on … and I’ve regretted that every day since.”