Page 100 of The Facade

“Mom.” I shook her arm harder. “Mom, Mom. Are you asleep?”

Still no reaction.

“No, no, no, Mom.” My hands shook as I tried to get a response aside from her shuddering breaths. “No, please no.”

I touched her face, her arms, her sides. I shook her harder.

She had to wake up.

Just wake up.

I was only gone for a minute. Two minutes max. She couldn’t have slipped away in that short amount of time.

But when she still didn’t open her eyes after another few seconds, I knew she was gone.

And she wasn’t going to wake up this time.

32

Cambrielle

I was sittingby the fireplace in my family’s library with my dad and Ian on Friday night, halfway listening to them talk business as I read fromWuthering Heights.

Ian was just bringing up the value of merging one of my dad’s companies with a newer tech company when my dad’s personal phone started ringing.

He checked the caller ID and said, “It’s Brendon. I better answer this.”

I watched as he walked to the other end of the room, wondering why Mack’s dad might be calling.

“Hello, Brendon,” Dad spoke into his phone with his back turned to Ian and me. And as he said, “Uh huh” and “Oh no” and “I’m so sorry,” I tried to piece together what they were talking about.

Had Mrs. Aarden died then? Was that what had happened?

I sat still, my heart pounding hard as I listened some more and watched the way my dad was running his hand through his blond hair.

“Let me grab Dawn and we can take care of all that, okay?” Dad said. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

He hung up, and when he turned back around, his expression was grim.

“Is Mrs. Aarden gone?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

“She went into a coma about thirty minutes ago,” Dad said. He looked at Ian. “Will you tell Nash and Carter? I’m not sure if Mack is up for the company, but I figure they should know.”

Of course he’d want my brothers to know, because as far as everyone at my house knew, Carter and Nash were the ones who were closest to him. Not me. Not the girl who had been his secret girlfriend for all of five days.

Five glorious days before Mack’s world fell apart.

“I’ll go find them.” Ian stood from the black leather armchair he’d been sitting in and left the room behind my dad.

Once I was alone, I grabbed my phone from the end table beside me and scrolled through my messages to find the message thread I had going with my contact named Alfred.

Yes, I hadn’t had the heart to change his name back to Mack after he’d broken things off with me. Part of me hoped that if I kept his name as Alfred, it meant that we actually had shared something special enough to come back to when Mack was ready.

I typed out my text.

Just heard about your mom. I’m SO sorry. I want to be there for you. Please let me know if you want me to come over or do anything. I know I acted weird when I was over this week, but I promise I’ll be normal. I’ll be whatever you need me to be.

I pressed the send button and held my breath, hoping he would let me at least act like his friend during this. I knew he tried to put up a strong front sometimes, but I didn’t want him to feel like he needed to go through the next days and weeks alone.

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