Page 29 of Holding On

"I already ate."

This is strange. Sitting here eating the food she brought while she sits there watching me. Why would she do this for a guy she just met, who wasn't exactly nice to her?

"Why'd you come over here?" I ask. "It's Fourth of July. Shouldn't you be out with your friends?"

"They're going to the fireworks and I didn't want to go. I didn't feel like being around all the crowds."

"So you thought you'd pay a visit to one of your cleaning customers?" I chuckle to let her know I'm not making fun of her, just joking around.

"I thought maybe you could use some company. I mean, the cast kind of limits what you can do, and since you can't drive, you're kind of stuck here."

"Why do you care?" I look at her, curious, and wanting an honest answer.

She shrugs. "We had extra food so I thought I'd share."

"Because you think I don't know how to make anything?"

She sighs. "Why do you have to question it? Why can't you just say thanks for the burger?"

"Sorry." I smile. "Thanks for the burger." I take a bite, and we sit in silence for a moment. But the question keeps nagging at me because I know she's not telling me the truth. I set my burger down. "What's the real reason?"

"For what?"

"Why you came over?"

She looks away. "I just told you. We had extra food."

"That's not the only reason. You could've just saved the leftovers or brought them to someone else. So why me?"

She doesn't answer right away but I keep quiet, knowing the uncomfortable silence will eventually make her talk. And it does.

"I don't like people being lonely," she says, still not looking at me.

"Who says I'm lonely?"

"No one." She shakes her head. "Forget I said it. It's an assumption I shouldn't have made. I just thought being alone all day might make you lonely. For me it would. A few years ago, after my dad died, I was really lonely. Mike was overseas and I'd just graduated from high school and all my friends went off to college and I was stuck living in a crappy apartment with two strangers who couldn't even remember my name. The one girl kept calling me Bella." Becca shrugs. "But in her defense, she was obsessed with those Twilight books. I'm pretty sure she thought the characters were real. She even asked me if I had a boyfriend named Edward."

I laugh but then feel bad for doing it since Becca is telling me something personal.

"Sorry," I say. "The whole Bella thing was kind of funny."

She smiles. "Yeah, it was. It wasn't at the time, but it is now. She had Twilight movie posters covering all four walls in her room and she'd read those books over and over again. And no matter how many times I told her my name was Becca, she wouldn't stop calling me Bella. After a year of that, she was starting to freak me out so I got the hell out of there."

"Is that when you were going to school?"

"No. I was working, trying to save money for school. My dad didn't have much when he died and the little money he had went to pay for the funeral."

So she lost her dad. That's tough, especially at that age. But what about her mom? She hasn't mentioned her.

"I don't know if I should ask this," I say, "and don't feel like you have to tell me if you don't want to, but what happened to your mom? Is she..." I don't want say 'dead' but that's what I'm guessing.

"She's alive," Becca says, "but pretty much dead to me. She left us when I was 13. Decided a husband and kids wasn't the life she wanted. Guess it was too boring. I don't know. She never really said. She just took off."

"And you never heard from her again?"

"She called about six months later just to check in. That's what she said. To 'check in', as if her checking in made it all better. As if it meant she cared about us when it was clear she didn't. She never even tried to come back. She didn't call us on our birthdays. Didn't send a card."

"She never gave a reason for leaving? Not even to your dad?"

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