Running Back (New York Leopards 2)
Page 107
“Thank you, Mom.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. And I think I look great.” I held out my tan, muscled arms. “Look how gorgeous these muscles are. I’m in great shape. And my hair is all sun streaked.”
“And you have the saddest eyes in the world.”
Not quite true.
“What happened with this boy? I don’t understand why you’re not with him.”
I don’t understand why you’re not with Dad. Except that wasn’t fair, and I did. “Because.”
“Because what?”
“Because.”
She stirred her tea and apparently decided to give the subject a rest. “Have you seen your father yet?”
“No! I don’t want to.”
Her face collapsed. “Natalya...”
“Just... What’s the point of falling in love if you’re just going to fall out of it?”
“Oh, honey.” She sat down next to me, letting out a deep breath of old, stale sadness as she wrapped her arms around me. “You can’t let what’s happening between Dad and me affect you.”
“Yes, I can.”
She smoothed my hair back from my head. “No. Look at you. You’re so successful—you have a good career, and good friends, and this boy who seems like he loves you very much...”
“But you had all of that and you ended up in an awful marriage.”
“Your father...he’s not always very good at emotions. I don’t think he ever really learned to develop them.”
I drew back so I could see her face. “What if I’m like that? What if I’m—romantically stunted?”
“Why would you think that?” She sounded horrified.
“Because I am. I have this different world view than everyone else, and everyone sees love as this perfect, beautiful, rainbows-and-puppies emotion and I just can’t see that. Or I couldn’t, but now I do, now I feel it, and I don’t trust it, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t you just follow your heart?”
“Mom.” I swiped at my eyes. “That is so unrealistic and nonsensical. What does that even mean?”
“It means I want you to be happy.”
I didn’t need love to be happy. “What about you? You left all of that. But now what? Will you be happy here, all by yourself? Won’t you be lonely?”
“Natalie. You don’t have to take care of me.”
I pressed my lips together. “But then who will?”
“I will.” She pulled me into her arms. My mother would never be soft and warm, physically or emotionally, but she was still my mother, and I loved her. “I will take care of myself. And right now, I want you to take care of you.”
* * *
That afternoon, Jane Ellington’s article on Mike and me came out.