Page 9 of The One Who Got Away
I gave a strangled laughed as the burn intensified. Did I accidentally kick it up a notch? She wasn’t even breathing hard. “What about your dad?”
Her face went blank. “It’s just Mom and I.”
I frowned. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.” Shit, was her dad dead?
A little bubble of laughter escaped her as she switched the machine into a cool down. “He’s not dead. They split.”
“Really?” I’d always thought her parents were as tight as my own. “Shit. I didn’t hear.”
“It’s okay. It’s a relatively new situation.” She picked up her phone with a curse. “I have to do a closing shift at Bite Me.” She turned the machine off and hopped off. “We’ll play story time tomorrow. How’s six sound?”
I slowed my machine to a stop as well, my whole body screaming thank you. “I can bring wine.”
She grinned. “How adult of us. Bring a red.”
“I can handle that.”
“Good.” She blotted her face. “It’s a—” she cut herself off. “I’ll see you then.” She quickly jogged across the gym leaving me alone.
Itwasa date.
There was no doubt about that.
I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of that, but it felt right.
It was the first thing that felt right in a damn long time.
Chapter 4
Eloise
“Mom, please go.”
“I think I should just stay home. I haven’t seen Gus in so long. I’d love to visit with him.”
“Mom, you have plans.”
She wrung her hands together. Her once beautiful nails were now bitten to the quick.
I’d convinced her to pull a few of her old clothes out of the back of her closet. She’d definitely dropped some weight since my father had taken off. Lucky for my mother, she never threw anything away. The fact that she’d already lost enough weight to go down to her clothes from when I was in college was concerning.
My father asking for a divorce out of the blue had rocked my mother’s foundations—mine too.
And now I was back here.
Sitting in the past that my mother wouldn’t let go of.
In fact, it was even worse now. I’d tried to paint my bedroom to get rid of the dingy yellow of my childhood and she’d melted down for three days. So, my old Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers, and Linkin Park posters stayed where they were.
Her hair trigger was even more sensitive right now.
The townhouse was stuck in a vortex of old memories and pain.
Just like my mother.
Guilt piled on each time my mom flinched over a phone call. Heck, even changing the channel from the pre-requisite schedule of television shows she’d always lived by with my dad could send her spinning.
It was even worse than a death.
