Page 81 of Some Kind of Forever
“Chase, what happened?”
“You already know what happened, Mom!” I snap. The frustration in my voice comes out quickly, my head pounding at the surge of adrenaline.
“I want to hear it from you. Tell me.”
We stare at each other for what seems like forever before I look down, sighing. Maybe she put something in the pancakes—some kind of truth serum—because I tell her everything. It all comes out, from the moment I picked Kayla up for lunch until the instant she walked away from me on the porch, with a side plot of scheming Maggie. By the time I’m finished, my eyes are red and my voice is shaky from reliving it all. This is infinitely worse than falling from a tree.
“I don’t know what to do to fix it,” I say, shaking my head.
“I don’t know that there’s anything more you can do. Sometimes, life throws you two conflicting truths, and youjust have to figure out how to live with the discomfort of it all. She experienced it her way, and you experienced your version.”
“So I just let her walk away? I just let her believe what she saw?”
“Yep. You do it because that’s what she asked you to do. If you love her like you say you do, then you have to respect her decision. I know you’re looking for the solution to the problem, but you can’t fix this right now because there’s nothing to fix. You just keep moving—one second, hour, day at a time—until you move on.” She comes around to my side of the island and wraps her arm around my shoulders, laying a kiss on my temple. Before walking out to the deck, she stops at the door and says, “Just remember, life has a track record of working itself out.”
I nod, and she turns to leave. With a deep breath and a bleak foreseeable future, I head to the shower to drown out my thoughts and watch my last shreds of hope circle the drain.You can’t fix this because there’s nothing to fix. It doesn’t matter.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
KAYLA
Hunter
Dad’s parking. We’ll be in shortly.
Me
I’m at a booth in the back.
Hunter
*thumbs-up*
Ituck my phone in my back pocket, craning my neck to look at the door. The first few weeks of school have flown by, and Labor Day weekend came up way too quickly. Pretty soon, it’ll be October and I’ll be starting my internship with Patti.
“Kayla!” Artemis yells from the door, running between the tables. I stand from the booth bench just in time for her to wrap her arms around my waist.
“Hey, Artie.” I smile, rubbing her shoulders. “How’s your new school?”
“It’s so awesome! I don’t have to wear a uniform, and they play music over the speakers at lunchtime.” She shakes excitedly, her curls bouncing behind her as she looksup at me.
Looking back toward the door, I give Hunter and Kendall a little wave as they walk toward us.
“Hey, little sis!” Hunter gives me a side hug as I roll my eyes at him. He always finds a way to throw in the fact that he’s older, I’m younger, or some combination of both.
Kendall beams over at me, keeping his distance. We’re not at the hugging stage yet, he and I, but our conversations are a lot smoother than they were before. “This place is pretty cool. I like the underground vibe,” Kendall says.
“Yeah, it’s one of my favorites. I found it my first year and come here about once a week.” We’re at this little basement pizza place called The Wall where the lighting is dark, the music is loud, and the walls are covered in customer-made graffiti.
“Why don’t you come help me order?” Kendall asks, and we leave Hunter and Artemis at the booth. “What are your favorites?”
“Definitely the cheese bread, tortellini Alfredo, and this white sauce pizza with chicken and olives called theOwl’s Nest,” I say excitedly. He chuckles as I rub my hands together at the thought of my favorite pizza.
“Alright, let’s get all of that and a large garden salad,” he says to the guy behind the register. We move over to the pickup counter and wait for our food. “So tell me about this new internship. Hunter was saying it’s different than the one you were initially going for.”
“Different, but better!” I fill him in on all the things Patti revealed to me at the shareholders’ event, trying to ignore the pinging in my heart that happens whenever I think about that night. “I start next month, planning a Halloween party, and the internship runs through May. Then I have a provisional position the year after graduation.”
“That’s amazing, Kayla. I’m so proud.” He pauses, scrunching his face a little. “Is that okay for me to say?”
