Page 23 of The One for Me
“Everything okay with Oliver?” Dad asks.
“Yeah. He’s . . . he’s moving.”
My mother’s eyes meet mine. “He’s what? Are you going? Did he propose?”
Oh, this is going to go over like a load of bricks. My mother thinks Oliver is the sun and the stars. He was her only hope of getting rid of me. “Oliver and I broke up, Mom.”
“Excuse me?”
“A couple of weeks ago, we ended things. It was very amicable, and we’re better off as friends.”
Dad shifts a bit. “Did he hurt you?”
“Of course not,” Mother speaks quickly. “We all know who is at fault here. This was your chance, Devney. The first time for you to find happiness since . . . since all of the mistakes you made.”
“Oliver and I weren’t happy.”
She throws her hands up. “What do you think life is? Rainbows and unicorns? Get your head out of the clouds, little girl! There aren’t many men like Oliver Parkerson.”
No, there isn’t. And Oliver deserves a woman who will fall at his feet. One who won’t dream of a singular kiss and has butterflies fill her stomach. I’m not that girl. I’m the one who thinks of him as a warm cup of milk—settling, steady, and reliable.
That was appealing, and I would’ve been happy with that had I never taken a sip of another drink after him. One that sent fire through my veins and an ache in my chest.
One that was similar to one I tasted before, only that one damn near destroyed my life.
Daddy leans forward, facing my mother. “She isn’t a little girl anymore. Devney has made mistakes, but we aren’t saints either. It’s time to let go.”
“Mistakes? Is that what we’re calling her choice?” My mother rails and gets to her feet. “Yes, I have made mistakes, but I’m not the one who slept with my married professor and had to deal with the fallout of that.”
Finally.Finally,she’s said the damn words. “Yes, I slept with my married professor, Mom. What a shameful whore I am, right? Not that he took advantage of a nineteen-year-old girl,liedto me,usedme, and then discarded me, right? It wasmyfault. It had to be me because I’m just a complete disgrace in your eyes.”
“I taught you better!” she yells as she turns her back on me.
“I wasyoung! I believed him, and I am the one who was hurt by it all!”
“Lily,” Dad says, but she glares at him.
“I am not the one who is wrong here. I’ve done my best for her! All the headaches this family has endured because she couldn’t be the girl I raised.”
She must get pains in her neck from having to look so far down from the pedestal she’s perched on. “I am that girl. I believe in all the values and beliefs that I always have. I loved him, and I thought he loved me. He lied to me about being married. He swore he was going to quit the university and marry me. All of that tore me apart, but the worst has been how you’ve treated me since then. I wasn’t proud of what I did. I was mortified and ashamed, but you’ve spent the last six years since I finished school, making me relive it. I transferred schools. I moved farther away from him and my mistakes. Why can’t you just see my side?”
“You act as though we can just move on from it all.”
“What the hell have you had to suffer from?”
“The lies!” she yells.
Right. The fact that when she walks into church on Sundays, she has to pretend that I’m the perfect child. God forbid.
“You think that the women you’re so close to don’t have skeletons in their closets? Aren’t forgiveness and acceptance covered in the sermons you listen to on Sunday mornings while you all sit around and discuss the ways you’re going to save the town?”
My mother huffs and looks away.
Dad shakes his head. “This has to stop.”
Mom’s eyes meet mine. “If you want forgiveness, you have to atone for your mistakes, which you clearly haven’t done. You’ve just blamed the situation on your professor like you weren’t involved.”
“I don’t blame solely him! I just say the reality. I was a freaking sheltered teenager who was desperate for my first boyfriend and he paid me attention, made me think I was special!”
