Page 69 of Legacy of Lies
What did she bring to the table? The need to leave this town and create a fresh, new life, untarnished by debt or her own past history.
Even if their evening ended with her pride in shambles piled on top of a heaping scoop of Garrison’s regret, she didn’t blame him.
As the bell rang, she shook the fog of unhappiness weighing her down, and pushed through the endless day.
After she got home that evening, Sara couldn’t avoid her friend anymore. Time to fess up to Izzy. She thumbed the vibrating phone.
“Hi, Izzy.”
“What the heck happened to you? It’s like you dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Long story.”
“I’m listening.”
“So when did we last talk?”
“Tuesday!” Yowch, her anger came through the phone crystal clear.
“I’m so sorry, Izzy. It’s been a long week. You want to hang out?”
“Give me the highlights. I have to stay here with Mom tonight.”
Sara left out the part where Hank came to her house and tried to break her arm. Izzy didn’t need more stress with her already dysfunctional family life. Besides, knowing Izzy, she’d ream Hank out, and he’d make Sara’s life even more hellish.
Still, the story flowed smoothly until Sara got to last night’s wild ride.
“You didwhat?”
She held the phone away from her ear until it was safe to continue. “Yeah, well, yeah. We did it.”
“Details. I’m almost a nun over here.”
“It was very good. Too good. Okay, awesome.” Stupid tears pricked at her eyelids. Not again. She’d been an emotional mess since meeting Garrison. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re done.”
“What happened?”
How could she explain the ten-second implosion of everything good in her life?
She couldn’t.
“It just didn’t ... work out.”
“As in ‘tab A doesn’t fit into slot B’ kind of didn’t work out?”
Sara laughed despite herself. “No. It’s not like a do-it-yourself project.”
“Hey, don’t knock it. Some of us have no problem doing it ourselves. No choice, either.”
The tears rolled but not in sadness. “God, Izzy, you’re so wrong.”
“Sometimes a gal has to be her own boyfriend.”
Air. She couldn’t breathe for laughing. It was a small price to pay for this mood elevator. She hadn’t laughed this hard since one of her students shared that inappropriate joke for show-and-tell last week. “Well, now you’ve burned a totally new and equally as uncomfortable image into my brain to mull over tonight.”
“Happy to help.” Izzy sighed. “So what are you going to do?”
“Do? There’s nothing to do.”
