Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
As it was, I got back home to Denver without hearing a single whisper or catching the brunt of an exploding flashbulb. Home to Denver wasn’t entirely accurate though. I’d never been to the three-bedroom house my mom had just closed on. It already had pictures of the two of us hanging on the walls, and it had one of my Teen Choice Awards on the mantle–the only nod to my career–but it was still unfamiliar.
I sat down on her new couch–gray microsuede–and pulled an afghan off the back. It was thick, white cable-knit and it felt heavy across my legs. I pushed it off. My mom was making us tea in the kitchen, but the idea of being in there with her, not knowing which cabinet held the mugs and the tea bags and the little pots of sugar, was overwhelming.
I wished I’d never left LA.
I wished I’d never left Denver all those years ago.
I missed Garrett, and that was a problem because even as I missed him, a vital, white hot mixture of shame and anger eclipsed the longing. He hadn’t thought I was good enough. He hadn’t had enough respect for me to think I could get this part on my own merit.
He’d have never done this to Noemi.
I knew that in my bones.
Beautiful, extraordinary Noemi. The woman he’d followed to LA. The woman he loved even after she left him. The one whose mother had two Oscars to put on her mantle instead of a silly silver surfboard and the category Teen Choice Award for Best Hissy Fit engraved on the base below her name.
Grief poured itself into the mixture of shame and anger. I hadn’t had the bandwidth to think about Noemi until now, but now that I did, it hurt almost as much as thinking about Garrett. She’d know everything by now. What did she think of me? Did she still love me like the little sister she always thought of me as, or was I disfigured in her eyes?
Had I betrayed her?
I honestly didn’t know. Until I’d seen her standing under the archway of lights and flowers, hand in hand with David, I’d unconsciously put Garrett in the category of things that belonged to her. But after…it hadn’t felt like betrayal anymore. More like she’d set him free, and he’d found his way to me.
My mom walked in slowly, holding the mugs by their handles. Steam stirred above the rim as she set mine down on the coffee table in front of me. I reached over and picked it up,
“Do you want to talk about it?” my mom asked quietly.
I shook my head. I really, really did not. “Not yet,” I said, because no, not ever would sound too harsh. “I need to process it all.”
She nodded understandingly and reached out to squeeze my leg. “I’m here if you do. I’m not picking up any sub jobs until you feel better.”
She’d moved home too late to get hired for the year, so she’d been subbing. When she told me about it, she put a positive spin on it—she was getting to know all the schools. It would help her decide where she wanted to work next year. I’d taken her at face value, but now I wondered. Did she ever wish we’d just stayed put? She’d be established at a school. She’d have colleagues who had become friends. A classroom to decorate. Years of students who came back and told her how much she meant to them.
Fresh tears pricked my eyes, but I blinked them back. If I cried in front of her, she wouldn’t let me slink into “my” room with the comforter I’d never slept under, and the framed flower prints I hadn’t picked out.
“You can go to work; I’ll be fine,” I said. I didn’t try to fake a smile. It would have been overkill. I kept my voice grave and my eyes sad but not teary. I raised my chin and put back my shoulders, the picture of a girl who was down but not out. She’d been hurt but not devastated. She was set back but not counted out.
It would have worked on a casting director or an audience, but this was my mom. She said, “Oh, Dez, baby,” in a voice that broke my heart. Before I could stop her, she’d plucked the mug out of my hands and set it on the coffee table beside hers. Then she pulled me in like I was thirteen again and convinced that I’d never get another part ever, that I was a has-been at puberty.
I cried then, even though I tried every trick in the book to hold it back. I cried in embarrassment and anger. I cried for my mom and Noemi. And then, finally, I cried for Garett.