Page 6 of Any Second Now
Maybe.
Maybe I can’t get that damn kiss out of my head.
Maybethatwas the moment I realized I was 100% not in love with my ex-husband.
Just one kiss to get it out of his system. That’s what I’d said to him. Who was that woman on New Year’s Eve? Not me. Not the twice-divorced cross-stitching old cat lady, minus the cat—which is probably the best part—and only thirty-four years old.
My second plan is to cross-stitch my brains out. When my mother offered to teach me to do cross-stitch a year ago as a distraction after I filed for divorce, I reluctantly agreed. But with true millennial hobby energy, I took to it so fast and it became my new obsession. I think she regrets ever teaching me as she claims it’s distracting me from my real life. But I find it calming and extremely satisfying. I love the quantitative and precise nature of the simple stitches that turn into a beautiful design.
And I can’t seem to stop.
I even started an online shop three months ago, and have been posting on my cross-stitch social media accounts daily and tracking everything carefully. But I had zero orders until two weeks ago whenI posted one of my finished hoops online and it finally got beyond a few hundred views. The image that went viral was of my favorite cross-stitch creation which was pretty flowers in various shades of pink around the phrase:Ask yourself: would swearing help?I got five orders that day and another few over the following week. Luckily, I have hoops already completed and another stack with flowers stitched on them just waiting for the right phrase to be added.
I go through the rest of my shift—my last one for eight weeks, apparently—like a daydreaming zombie, then book it out to my car and head home.
Holy shit, it’s happening.
I auto drive the familiar route and mentally go through my to-do list. Most importantly, I need to contact the couple I’m buying the pink RV from and see if I can pick it up this weekend.
Yup. I’m buying a pink RV.
I owe the second half of the price soon anyway, and the couple agreed to store it for me until my plans were solidified.
The problem is, Lucy leaves this weekend for a six-week trip to Europe with her hockey player boyfriend. My original idea was to head to Colorado once they got back and spend time in Fort Collins. But I can’t sit around in Connecticut for that long waiting for her to return. My sabbatical will be three quarters over by then.
I groan and think about spending my eight weeks here, and how much Jacob would harass me if I weren’t even at work.
He’s going to be so mad about me buying an RV. That was his dream, not mine.
Maybe I’ll just get in it and drive. I chuckle to myself. That issonot me.
I turn onto my street and realize there are two cars parked in my driveway, where there should be zero.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Jacob and Mom.
I turn off the engine and pray forstrength.
They’re not even outside waiting for me like normal people. They areinsidemy house, because both of them have keys.
“I’m going to kick their asses,” I mumble to myself as I stride up the walkway to my front door. I glance over and a neighbor is watching me with narrowed eyes, crouched down in front of his sprinkler. “Hi, Jack!” I wave to the older man who scrunches his face and turns back to his lawn.
Suburbia is killing me.
I have my key out, but I don’t need it as the door is cracked already.
I shove the door all the way open and step inside.
“Are you kidding me?” I stand with my hands on my hips in the foyer, glaring at my mother and Jacob as they argue with each other insidemyhouse. They freeze comically.
“Honey. Hi. Sorry, I let myself in,” Mom says. “I brought you some takeout. I know you had a long shift today.” Mom nods toward the kitchen, hands clasped and with a look on her face both defiant and loving.
I glance over at the kitchen table, where the white plastic bag filled with multiple different dishes from our favorite Chinese restaurant sits, and my stomach rumbles.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Mom didn’t have it easy when I was younger. Dad disappeared suddenly when I was little, and after staying home since I’d been born, she had to get a job to support us. She fell apart for a handful of years, but she went back to college, graduated at the top of her class, and got a job as a project manager. She didn’t want me to make the same mistakes that she did—not that any of it was her fault. There was always a plan for me. A roadmap laid out of exactly what I needed to do and when.
