Page 68 of Taking It To Overtime

An itch starts at the base of my spine. The feeling from that first day coming back full force. It feels like a horror movie, but not one about ghosts and vampires. The kind with psychological twists and turns. The kind that feels ominous and heavy, like a discordant pause in an otherwise familiar tune. I want to plug my ears and close my eyes, hiding under the covers until the moment has passed.

Instead, I reach around my mother and pick out the cups and the collection of measuring spoons.

Mom blinks at me.

“I can make them,” I tell her.

That seems to snap her out of whatever fog she’s in, and Mom gets the heavy non-stick pan and sets the front burner to medium heat.

The batter comes together quickly, even if I don’t normally make pancakes for myself. I’m more of a savory girl in the mornings, but there’s something nostalgic about stirring in the wet ingredients while Mom turns up the Chordettes on her speaker.

I get the blueberries out of the fridge, waiting for the pan to heat. I always move too quickly and the first batch is always undercooked.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Vera,” Mom says, squeezing my upper arm as she passes behind me to put away the milk. “I feel like we never get a chance to see you anymore.”

Shame floods me because she’s right. I moved away at eighteen and never looked back. It wasn’t my parents’ fault. Iwasn’t running from them, but that doesn’t change the fact that I put distance between us besides miles.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I say, and it’s true.

The whole reason I’m here is to spend some time with Mom and Dad, so that I don’t get a surprise phone call from the executor of their will informing me I’ve run out of time. And okay, Tandy’s relationship with her parents is nothing like mine—she purposefully put space between herself and her hometown in Texas after her brother died—but I still sometimes catch the sad look on her face, especially when she thinks no one is watching. I can’t help but wonder if she regrets not being able to fix things, or maybe she regrets that she’ll never see him want to change.

“How’s Robbie?”

I catch my secret little smile in my reflection in the microwave.

“He’s good.”

Mom’s smile matches mine. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately.”

I nod. “I’d say I’m sorry but—”

“You’re not?”

I shake my head. “Not even a little. We don’t have a ton of time.” Less than forty-eight hours, to be exact. Even if we keep things going after I’m back in L.A. and he’s back in Quarry Creek, it won’t be the same. I feel like I need to soak up every spare second with him while I can.

“I know, sweetheart.” She brushes my hair out of my eyes. “I just want to make sure you’re going to be okay when he leaves.”

I might be fine, I might fall to pieces. I’m not entirely sure. I do know that I’m willing to take the risk.

“We’re going to take it day by day,” I say around the lump in my throat. “I’m not sure what I’m doing next, but I know he’s worth the risk.”

“Hockey’s an intense sport, honey. It could take up a lot of his time. I don’t want you to get your hopes up and then crushed. You know I love Robbie, but you’re my baby. You will always come first.”

That was the whole reason he broke things off the first time, the assumption that we’d both need to focus on our dreams and not our relationship. And who knows if he was right or not? All we know now is that we both got everything we wanted. Except each other.

“He’s been playing hockey for a long time, Mom. Just like I’ve been modeling. We’ve both given everything to our professions. When do we get to take something back for ourselves?”

“Vera.” There’s an edge to Mom’s voice and I rear back like I’ve been stuck or electrocuted. “I know you want to strut the runway, and I know you love Robbie, but have you even thought about college? About your future?”

“Wha—”

“I believe you can do anything you want to, honey, but you need a back-up plan. Following Robbie—Maria says he’s most likely going to go at least to the juniors—isn’t fair to you. I don’t want to see you put yourself second to a boy. Even if it’s one as wonderful as Robbie. If he’s the one…”

“He’ll wait.” I finish for her.

Because we’ve had this conversation before, except I was sixteen. I was a teenager smitten with her swoon-worthy boyfriend and I didn’t speak to my mother for almost a month following the big blowout. I only spoke to her through Dad for weeks.

My mother isn’t concerned with right now. She isn’t expressing her worry about what I’ll do when I head back to Los Angeles and Robbie goes back to Quarry Creek. She’s stuck somewhere over a decade and a half in the past. Something is wrong here. It’s been wrong.

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