“How . . . um . . . is . . . he?”
“A mess,” she states truthfully. “You did a number on him, kid.”
I’m about to defend myself until Mom interrupts. “I meant.” She points to my heart. “In here.”
“Mom, I don’t know how to fix us. We’ve kinda always been a broken unit. It’s just so hard.”
“The two of you never saw eye to eye. You were constantly fighting for Ash’s attention. Both headstrong and extremely competitive.”
“And that’s what got me into this mess to begin with. I signed up for the show because they were doing great things. I wanted to be better and look at the mess I created for myself.”
“And look at where it brought you . . . here.”
“I’m sorry Mom. I hurt you and lied and just wasn’t thinking about anyone else but that moment.”
“I get it, kid. You had that moment. We’ve all had it.” She pauses, then drives her mouse around the screen. “I want to show you something.”
I scoot off her lap to allow her to navigate on the screen without too much trouble. She clicks out of the word document she’s in, then opens another. There’s a title on the screen that says Bad Romance.
“What’s this?” I ask, unsure of what she’s trying to show me.
“My next book. You see, for a while now, I had this story in my head but it wasn’t right. Something just wasn’t flowing. Then, I started to witness something. Something I had never witnessed before. A bad romance. One that I knew would end up with broken hearts.”
I still didn’t quite get what she is saying; my exhausted mind barely functioning.
“I knew long before it broke out that you and Logan were in this bad romance. I watched, I observed, and it became my story.” She smiles, touching my hand. “Don’t worry, names and places have been changed. But I wrote this, for you. I wanted you to look back at this one day and remember a time in your life when loved consumed you. When nothing else mattered besides this one man.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll read it?”
“Of course I’ll read it but how did you know?”
“How?” She raises her brow with a grin. “Because you’re my children. I know everything. Remember when you were seventeen and told me you went to the shop to buy Mrs. Cambridge a going-away present because it was her last day working in the library? I knew you went to the drugstore and bought rubbers for Ashley.”
“Mother!” I raise my voice in amusement.
“I was just grateful your brother was being safe. Plus, I was glad he ran to you for advice on girls and not me.”
We both laugh, letting out a sigh as we finish.
“Thank you, Mom. For putting up with me. For writing this so I could see it from the eyes of the world rather than my own.”
“I love you, kid. No one can ever change that.”
“Ditto.” I smile.
It’s late; the darkness settling in with no lights surrounding us but the few street lamps and the moonlight. It’s eerily quiet, not even the sounds of the summer cri
ckets pounding my eardrums. There’s only one sound dominating the space around us, the constant echo of a bouncing ball.
Logan’s standing in the middle of the field, dressed in a pair of white training shorts and black tee, dribbling the ball with his feet. I watch on the sidelines for a while, admiring the way he concentrates on his footwork. His face scrunches up when he’s concentrating, blinking repeatedly until he aims the ball which lands straight in the net.
My footsteps feel like lead weights; heavy and dragging across the grass. I’m terrified he will tell me to leave him alone, exactly what I had done to him in my apartment.
“You’re here.” My voice is barely above a whisper.
“You’re here.”