Page 31 of Come Break My Heart Again

“So, you just woke up one morning and decided to start drinking tea?”

Another shrug.

I’m not sure why I’m so focused on this. But something about the way my mom is avoiding my gaze makes me feel like I’m missing something. It’s just … strange. Something that’s changed, amid a whole lot that hasn’t.

“Where’s the tea from, Mom?” I ask.

Those tin boxes in the cabinet looked too fancy to be from Wegman’s, the supermarket chain where she works. They look like something that would come from a store that sells nothingbuttea.

No response. No eye contact, which only increases my paranoia.

“She visits Mom,” Cormac tells me.

“Cormac!” our mom snaps.

“He should know.” Cormac shifts in his chair, the confident spread of his limbs another reminder of how much he grew up in my absence.

And I’m … stunned. I don’t need to clarify whosheis. There’s only one person Cormac could possibly be referring to.

It never ever occurred to me that Elle might keep in touch with my family.

“How often?” My tone is all overdone casualness, which they can probably hear. It’s my best attempt to combat the furious pound of my racing heart.

It’s been seven years. I’m over her, and I’m sure she’s over me. So, what does Cormac mean that shevisits?

Cormac’s lips are pressed into a thin line. My mom’s hand twitches toward the spot where her box of cigarettes used to sit, then falls into her lap.

More than once or twice then.

“How often do you see her, Mom?”

“Once a month.” She pauses. Glances at Cormac. “For the past seven years.”

Eighty-four visits. My brain does the math automatically, but is too surprised to manage anything else.

A light breeze could blow me out of this chair right now. I’m flabbergasted. I would have been shocked by once ayear.

My mom is unfriendly. She doesn’t try to get to know people or care what they think about her. She’s brash and opinionated. I can’t picture her and Elle sitting at this table a single time, let aloneeighty-four times.

Shock ebbs into anger. My hands curl into fists under the table. But I can’t act on it—can’t expel—the hot rush of rage. Because my mom is sick and because I was gone and because I’m not supposed to care how Elle spends her time.

I hope it haunts you—how you ended things.

Elle must have already started these visits when she sent me that letter.

Thankfully, my voice is calm as I ask, “Why?”

I need more of an explanation. I need some part of it to make sense.

“She’s a good person,” my mom tells me. “You two were young, and she grew up differently. Don’t hold how things ended against her.”

I stare at my mom, a fresh wave of shock spreading through my system. I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel any more surprised, and I was wrong.

She’sdefendingElle. She’s defending Elle without knowing the whole story. Defending her, thinking thatEllewas the one who abandonedme.

Meaning … Elle didn’t tell her. Eighty-four fucking visits, and she didn’t explain how we’d ended. It makes me wonder what theydidtalk about.

“You should have stayed away,” I state.

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