Page 36 of Forgotten Pieces

She looks over at us and grabs my favorite whiskey off the back of the bar. “Mac, what are you having?”

“A mint julep,” he says, laughing.

She grins back at him but brings him back a beer. “Hope this satisfies your taste for a mint julep,” she says as she places the glass in front of him and throws a mint leaf on top.

I smile at her and she winks back at me as Mac howls at the gesture.

The snobbish woman next to me scowls at Tacoma as she walks away.

The bar finally dies down about an hour later and I can tell Tacoma is drained but she keeps moving, keeps up her appearance that I know is fake. I’ve seen her do it so many times before.

Mac gets up to go to the bathroom and I find myself watching her again. I know that Mac will give me shit when he returns but I can’t take my eyes off her. She is beautiful even when she is broken. And I can tell she is broken now. And I think she has been keeping it to herself. I’ve seen the way she is around other people. I even see it when she is with her friends. It’s almost sad because they don’t see it.

“Can I get you another drink?”

She startles me and I knock my empty glass over. “Nah, I’m fine. Should head out soon.”

“You sure you’re okay?” She looks around as she says it. We never talk about our problems when others are around. Neither of us would say seven for a secret if someone was near. It was ours, our thing. And maybe it will be again.

My words come out before I can hold them back. “How do you do it?”

She looks at me perplexed. “Do what?”

“Pretend everything is okay when it isn’t.”

Her face changes from curiosity to anger instantly. “I—I don’t know—”

“I thought you knew everything,” Mac jokes as he sits back down. Relief washes over her face at his interruption.

I take it as my cue to leave. “Shelley is supposed to be home tonight. Better head back.”

Mac nods at me, Tacoma ignores me. So I leave to go home to my fiancée.

Chapter Thirteen

Eight Years Ago

Ryder

I turn the light off to my mom’s room and shut the door behind me. I am worried about her. I thought that her moving in with her brother would help her disease or at least slow it down, but it seems to be getting worse.

I hate that we didn’t catch it sooner. I hate that we didn’t realize her symptoms were because of a disease, not because of the abuse she went through.

I carry her soup bowl to the kitchen and rinse it off and place it in the dishwasher. I head to the garage and grab a beer out of the beer fridge.

“She already asleep?”

I turn at the sound of my uncle’s voice as he walks into the garage from the outside door and nod at him.

“You take her to the doctor today?”

I raise my brows at him. “No. I went down to Atlanta yesterday to see my buddies who used to serve with me. Just got back an hour ago.”

“She told me you were taking her to the doctor today,” he says.

“I didn’t know she had an appointment. She never told me.”

“Dammit,” my uncle says as he slams his fist against the wall. “I feel like she is giving up.”

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