Page 61 of Lovesick
“It doesn’t feel right to move on it.”
“You mean ask her out.”
“Yes.”
“Well, why not?”
“That’s what I don’t know.”
She frowned. “Something to do with me and your father, maybe? Afraid to fail like we did?”
That was Mom. Blunt to a fault. My hands rested on the counter because I didn’t know how to respond. Maybe she was right, maybe she wasn’t. It hadn’t been my first thought. Mark popped into my head, but I didn’t know why. Mark was pushing me to make a move on Lizbeth too.
“I don’t know.”
She put a hand on my shoulder. “Your father and I are different people, JJ. Our fate isn’t entwined with yours.”
“I know that.”
“But do you really?”
No. Not really.
Which might have been why I asked the next question. The question that had been burning on my tongue for the last five months. My ribs expanded as I took a deep breath. I tried to force all my frustration out with it so it didn’t leak into my voice. With everything going on at work, Mom didn’t need more stress.
“You told Mark about the problems you and Dad were facing when your marriage was crumbling,” I said. “He knew that divorce was a very strong possibility.”
Her hand fell away from my shoulder. She drew back a little bit. “Yes.”
I straightened to see her better. “There were big problems between the two of you when you separated. You confided in Mark and in Megan at different points. I had my suspicions that things had turned a corner, of course, but I had no idea just how much of a corner. Later I found out that they knew and I didn’t. I was ... boxed out. Why?”
It felt like something white-hot inside me had just been plucked. Now it vibrated, hissed, filled my chest with its ricochet.
“That’s ... that’s not what we meant, JJ.”
“I know.”
“We love you.”
“I know that too.”
This was the first time I’d ever asked her. The first time I’d aired the words that had rubbed under my skin like salt for months. Her complexion had gone a little pale.
“Are you angry with us?” she whispered.
I took a moment to think the question through. “I’m hurt.”
“JJ, I promise that wasn’t the intent,” she rushed to say. “At least, not mine. I can’t speak for your father anymore.”
An edge of bitterness cut through those last words. Also nothing new, but it still made me flinch.
Was this what relationships came to? It had certainly been true of Stacey and me. With a shake of my head to clear those thoughts, I asked, “How did you meet Dad?”
“How did I meet him?”
“Yeah.”
Disoriented by the quick change of subject, she took a few seconds to respond. Her frown deepened. “Through a friend in high school. She introduced us at a football game after-party. He was quiet and calm and not like most of the other guys I’d dated. I liked that about him. At the time,” she tacked on.
