Page 22 of After Tonight

Jake was watching them, seeming curious as well. But he was still chewing.

“The waffles,” Erika finally finished, as if she truly was speechless at the idea of someone not wanting her waffles.

“I know. But I have to be somewhere.” Where, she wasn’t sure, but she’d figure that out after she was out of this house. This place that was comforting and cramped at the same time. Yes, she felt pathetic about moving back home and now living her own version of Groundhog Day—a fabulous and horrifying movie. What she’d done for the past week, okay month, was pretty much what she’d done all the weeks of her summer vacations at age fourteen. With the exception of hanging out at the Come Again.

Which brought Derek to mind. And the other thing she had definitely not done in high school—giving someone advice about relationships.

Yeah, for all her rebellious tats and piercings and black clothing and hair dye, she hadn’t known crap about anything other than video games and exasperating her mother.

She was pretty much full circle here.

Except that Derek Wright wanted her to make him a better man.

She could do that. She had to do that. Because the alternative was waffles with her parents and—

“Good morning!”

Riley groaned internally. Waffles with her parents and her perfect, life-on-track brother.

“Hi, everyone.”

And his perfect, shit-together fiancée, Hannah.

“Good morning!” Erika was clearly relieved that someone was going to be eating waffles and bacon since Riley was letting her down.

Was she rebelling against waffles? Fuck yeah, she was. And normalcy and clichés and following in the perfect footsteps in front of her.

Why?

Well…because she always had. And she was happy. And…yeah, that’s all she had.

She escaped the kitchen and headed downstairs to get dressed. Okay, another difference in living at home compared to high school was that her bedroom had not been in the basement when she was a teen. She’d slept upstairs. In a room that was yellow and lavender. Now she was in the basement, where she had her own bathroom and living area and…that was it. This sucked.

She got dressed, pulled her hair up into a bun, washed her face and brushed her teeth and was back upstairs within fifteen minutes. “Bye!”

“Will you be home for supper?” Erika called to her from the kitchen table, where she was happily seated with her husband, son, and future daughter-in-law in the most normal, most cliché, most all-across-Sapphire-Falls-at-this-very-moment way. They were, of course, drinking coffee and eating the waffles. The delicious, I-can-easily-trick-you-into-feeling-like-this-is-enough-forever waffles.

Riley gripped the door handle tightly, so desperately wanting to say that no, she would not be home for supper. But where was she going to be? “Yeah. I’ll see you later.”

“Cheesy chicken and broccoli casserole,” Erika said with a big smile.

Riley groaned and pulled the door shut firmly behind her.

Her mother’s cheesy chicken and broccoli casserole was amazing. Climbing those basement stairs to eat that once a week for the rest of her life wouldn’t be horrible.

Fuck.

---