Page 23 of Dirty Play

Just answer the question.

Gwen

No.

Ok. I was just making sure you had a ride.

Gwen

Thanks, but in the future, you can waste your time worrying about someone else. I’m a big girl.

With that, she tosses her phone in her bag and turns back to the girls. I can’t help but feel like I just got dismissed, leaving me jealous they have her undivided attention.

But this is what I chose. This is what’s best for her.

That doesn’t mean I’m okay with her hating me.

Chapter 9

Gwen

Mom

Are you available for a phone call?

Yeah, I don’t work till four tonight.

Seconds later my phone vibrates in my hand, my mom’s picture popping up with a FaceTime call. Quickly answering it, I smile when her face shows up on my screen.

“Hi darling,” my mom says sweetly into the phone. “How are you?”

“Hi mom, I’m doing well. Just been busy with work. How have you and dad been?” I ask as I finish putting the laundry away.

I don’t mind working nights. It’s just a downer when you have to spend your days sleeping and doing chores instead of being outside enjoying the nicer weather. Being the beginning of May, the weather is starting to get warmer and the days longer. The seasonal depression is slowly starting to leave my body. I feel like a plant seeing the sun for the first time in a decade, trying to soak up as much of the goodness as possible until it disappears again.

“We’ve been good. We just helped open the new teaching hospital down in Florida and spent a week or two on the beach after that before heading back to Connecticut.”

My parents work at one of the leading teaching hospitals in the country, so occasionally they are put in charge of setting up a new hospital and helping to get everything running smoothly before they go back to their regular jobs in Connecticut.

My parents have always been workaholics, never having “normal” jobs—they’ve always been married to not only each other but also to their work, leaving very little time for me. These phone calls, while making me smile, also remind me just how clinical our relationship has become, and it fucking sucks. Like, dammit, I just want one day when my mom calls me and wants to hear the gossip or talk about a guy. Hell, even just to check in with me on how I’m doing, anything outside of the damn hospital.

“—but besides that, we haven’t been doing much,” she continues, snapping me out of my thoughts and back into our conversation. “We were actually thinking about stopping by one of these weeks to see you and the hospital.”

“Oh? Do you know when?” I ask, already annoyed it can’t just be about me—it has to be about the hospital, too.

“We aren’t sure. It depends on where your father wants to go and if he wants to visit any other hospitals. We’ll let you know, though. I’m sure you’ll be able to get the time off?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem. Just let me know when you can.”

“We will, darling. Now, I’ve gotta run. I have a meeting at five,” my mom says, her typical short conversation well evident.

“Of course, talk to you later.”

“Bye,” she says before I hear the click of her disconnecting the call.

“Love you, too,” I say to an empty line.

Why am I surprised? We’ve never been an overly lovey and affectionate family, but at this point, I don’t think I’d know what to do if they gave me comfort, or hugged me, or even said I love you because it’s been so few and far between my entire life.

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