Page 78 of Love, Untangled

So she thought and considered and created. And grew lonelier.

“Hey, hon,” Joanna said with a small smile. “Want a glass?”

Pen blinked, refocusing her attention on her friend and the cute shop filled with fabulous bottles and a wide variety of glasses. “I’m not legal.”

Joanna shook her head. “I keep forgetting how young you are.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Carlo never does,” she muttered, aware she sounded petulant but unable to stop the tone or the words from pouring out of her. “He never lets me forget I’m ‘too young.’” She didn’t want to be this woman. She dropped her chin to her chest and heaved a breath. “Sorry. It’s not your fault. I’m…”

“Hurt.” Joanna laid her hand on Pen’s shoulder and squeezed. “He hurt you and you are processing. Trying to deal with the fallout of your mother’s actions. What happened to her, anyway?”

“She’s in the county jail, awaiting her first hearing.”

“And you got back the money she stole from your grandmother’s account?”

Pen shrugged. “Yeah, but my first priority is to make sure she can’t get out of prison. After that, well, I guess we’ll see. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to go sit with Leon.”

Joanna shook her head. “I can’t believe you two have become friends.”

Pen’s smile turned bittersweet. “Nothing’s really gone the way I’d planned, but Leon’s a good man. Gruff and easily misunderstood. Well, except for the fact he likes to shoot squirrels and would have shot Alpaca Man. I can’t condone that behavior no matter what he says.”

Not unlike Carlo. Except Carlo had hurt her much more than Leon ever could.

Joanna seemed to read Pen’s mind. “And Carlo? Isn’t he gruff and misunderstood?”

Pen’s chin wobbled. “He shoved me away. Like I was nothing. For the second time.”

“And he’s the person who found you, who made sure you got home safely, and has done everything else he can think of to make sure you’re safe and well cared for.”

Pen shoved her fingers through her hair. She needed to cut it. She hated how it blew in her face, got caught in her lip gloss.

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” Joanna asked, tone measured. “Because I have to tell you—that man’s doing what he can within the parameters you set for him. That’s a tight box, Pen. A very tight box.”

“He shouldn’t have pushed me away!” She shuddered, hugging her arms tight to her chest. “I hate those memories.” Because they proved how fragile life was—the very thing Carlo feared. If Leon hadn’t been a better person than Serena thought him to be… If her mother had loved her, even a little… Any of those variables could have changed the outcome of the ordeal. But instead Pen had to live with this reality. One she didn’t like.

Maybe that was part of why Carlo returned to therapy. She knew he hadn’t been in a while before heading out to help fight that fire. And she knew he’d started seeing his therapist again after the night when she nearly died.

From what Hattie told her, Carlo was still processing Cora’s death. That was a given. But he was also working through his emotions related to the victim’s smoke inhalation and the fact that he didn’t want to return to the job that had once been central to his identity. Granted, Carlo should have been the one to tell her that, but Pen hadn’t given him the chance.

She felt as young and untried as he’d once accused her of being. She wasn’t sure how to let him back into her life—if she could handle being just a friend or acquaintance. The two of them had been through so much together, but those experiences weren’t the type to build a future, a life on.

She refocused on Joanna, who spoke after a long pause, as if she’d been pondering Pen’s comments.

“I can understand that. But sometimes we have to face certain things in our lives. It’s the only way we can see them for what they are.”

Pen placed the last skein of yarn in her tote. “Impediments.”

Joanna shrugged. “Could be. Or opportunities. Or…I don’t know…garbage that needs to be cleared out. Whatever else that day was for you, it changed the course of your life, right?”

“Yes.” Pen remained quiet, staring down at the multicolored fibers. She’d spun Alpaca Man’s fur and dyed it to make something new out of what was, to him, an annoyance. But to Pen, his fur was her future, her passion. She lifted her head, meeting her friend’s steady gaze. “And I get to decide what direction I go.”

She smiled, dipping her head. “If you want to.”

“I do.” The words were forceful, as were the fists she clenched around the tote’s handles. “Because otherwise I’ll just…float along. Like my mother did. And when she wasn’t floating, she was manipulating and hurting others. She never really cared about how her actions impacted those around her because she never stopped to think about them.”

Pen swallowed down the bitterness threatening her. Her mother had actively wanted to hurt her, and that was a whole new level of shame that Pen wasn’t ready to accept.

And, anyway, she was Penelope Davis, not Serena Davis’s daughter. She was her own woman. One forging a path she wanted. At least, that was what she wanted her life to be.

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