Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 29029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Still, she’s pretty. She always was. She and my mother, Harriet, were never close friends, only thrown together because of Jenna and me. My mom is gorgeous. She was a model when she was in her early twenties, but Susanna Holland is an easier pretty. That’s what I always thought, anyway, in my pre-teen vernacular.
“Max.” Susanna smiles. Sort of. “Come in.”
I step inside. The dog—a black Labrador Retriever—jumps up on me.
“Lexi, no!”
“It’s okay. I love dogs.” I lean down and scratch Lexi’s soft ears.
“Yes, I remember. Lexi is still a pup trapped inside a full-size dog. We’ve only had her for about a year. After Lucy died, we had a hard time. She was a link to Jenna, and we couldn’t replace her right away.”
I’m not sure what to say, so I give Lexi another pet on the head. “That’s a good girl.”
“Jenna’s out on the deck,” Susanna says.
“How is she?”
“Quiet. But good, I think.”
“I wish I knew what to say to her.”
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. She understands that people have problems knowing what to say.”
“But it’s me. She and I could always talk about everything.”
“I don’t know that she’s going to want to talk about this,” Susanna says.
“I don’t want to talk about it either. I can’t even let myself think about it.”
She nods, sniffling a bit. “I know exactly what you mean. She’s my baby. And she…” Susanna sniffles once more.
“I’m so sorry.” I reach into my pocket, but I don’t have a tissue. “Can I get you something?”
She shakes her head. “Those are beautiful roses.”
“I hope she likes them.”
“She’ll like them because you brought them, Max. She’s been asking about you.”
“Has she?” My stomach flutters the way it used to when I was sixteen.
“Yes. She asked us about what you’re doing, and she asked about Mimi.”
I nod, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.
Mimi. Mimi, who’s innocent in all of this. Mimi, who’s wearing an engagement ring I gave her, and here I stand, about to give another woman the piece of jewelry that I’ve been saving for her for nearly a decade.
I love Jenna. I always will. But I’m no longer in love with her. I had to let her go years ago.
I had to for my own stability. My own peace.
“Go ahead out back,” Susanna says. “I’ll fix some iced tea for you, just the way you like it. Take Lexi with you. She likes to run around in the backyard.”
I nod and walk through the house—the house I’ve known since I was four years old. The same photos still grace the walls. The Jenna shrine is in the sunken family room, and I make it a point not to look as I walk by the small stairwell. I make it to the kitchen, where Susanna’s chicken and rooster theme hasn’t changed, and through the sliding glass doors that lead to the Hollands’ stamped concrete deck.
Jenna is standing on the deck gazing into the yard. She turns…and…is that a smile?
God, yes. Her smile.
I drop the bouquet of white roses as she stands and runs into my arms for a hug.
The coconut scent of her hair… It’s the same.
It takes me back.
Back to that day when I first realized I was in love with her. I had just passed my drivers’ test, and newly minted license hand, I borrowed my mom’s car and drove to Jenna’s. She grabbed me and said, “You got it!”
And the waft of tropical coconut drifted into me. Her hair. All of her. Such a constant in my life for fifteen years, and I knew then that I was in love, that I couldn’t imagine life without her I my arms.
As she is now.
Until she pulls away quickly and stoops to pick up the flowers. “For me?”
“No,” I joke. “I brought them for Lexi.”
She chuckles. “You’re the same old Max, aren’t you?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
Because I’m not the same old Max, and she’s not the same old Jenna.
If possible, she’s even more beautiful. Her hair is still long and dark, and her figure is still lean with just the right amount of curve. Her lips are full and pink, and her eyes…still so beautiful.
But her cheek…
I reach toward her, and she flinches.
I snap my arm back to my side. “I’m sorry. I just… Your cheek…”
“It’s a scar. From a knife.”
I gulp back the nausea that threatens to explode from me. A scar on her beautiful face. It begins at the side of her eye and slices downward until it curves toward her chin. What other scars might her clothes be hiding? It’s early December, and though it’s a warm day, she’s dressed in a gray long-sleeved sweater and jeans.
I can’t bear the thought.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go inside and I’ll put these in a vase.”