Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 83211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
My heart squeezes, and I blink back a wash of red-hot tears. Don’t be emotional, dammit. Dad would be appalled that you don’t feel welcome in his home.
Why does Sabrina pulling out an air mattress feel so temporary? My breath catches. Because that’s all I am to her, to the life within these walls.
I steady myself against the feelings welling up inside me—ones that I go out of my way to keep down. I can’t focus on how alone I feel when I’m here. How this place reminds me of all I’ve lost … and can never get back. The loneliness that permeates my soul when I look around and everything I know, the things that made me who I am, are all distant memories. And the house, the people who are left—the stairs I raced down in the mornings and the wooden floor I mapped out to miss all of the squeaky boards when I came home late—it’s all moved on. It’s like I never existed. And that hurts so intensely that I grip the armrests to keep from keeling over in pain.
Stop it, Sara. Stop allowing emotions into this moment. It’s ridiculous.
“Thank you,” I say, widening my eyes so the tears absorb and don’t overflow down my cheeks and humiliate me. “But I’m good.”
She’s relieved. “I’m sure you’ll be happier there—or with Gretchen. How is Ashley’s mother?”
Sabrina’s words sound nice. They are nice. But they aren’t meant to be nice.
Gretchen was my mother’s best friend, and she promised my mom that she’d take care of me when Mom died. I was three, so I don’t remember that. But Gretchen and my father both agreed that this conversation took place, and they both operated as if this were the law. By the time Dad married Sabrina when I was ten years old, Gretchen was my pseudo-mother, and it drove Sabrina out of her mind.
My new stepmother resented me; I was a stain on the perfect life she wanted to create. And I was unwilling to accept her role, pretend to enjoy her cold hugs, and I wasn’t about to let her introduce me as her daughter in public.
“She’s great,” I say. “She’s really happy Ashley is back in Kismet Beach.”
“I bet she is. I can’t imagine Bethany moving away. I’m not sure what I’d do with myself.”
I give her my best smile. It’s not much, but it’s all I can muster.
“Speaking of your sister,” Sabrina says. “She should be home soon. Want to stick around and say hello? I know she’d love to see you.”
My spirits rise. “I’d love to see her too.”
She smacks her palms off her thighs and stands. “Well, I’m going to get back to the kitchen and finish getting ready for a bake sale tomorrow. Bethany’s choir group is selling goodies in front of Mugger’s in the morning. You should come out and support the girls.”
“I’ll try.”
She smiles, pausing like she wants to say something more but stops herself. “Great. Let me know before you leave, okay?”
“I will.”
She nods and slips out of the room and down the hallway.
Baking trays rattle in the kitchen. It’s the only sound in the house. I sit in Dad’s chair and look around, rocking back and forth gently.
Our Christmas tree used to stand in the opposing corner. Dad would always let me put the angel on top. And on the mantel over the fireplace used to sit framed pictures of me with my mother and one of me with both of my parents. Those haven’t been up in a long time.
I wonder vaguely where those things are. I’ve never asked. Questioning my stepmother while my father was still alive was out of the realm of possibility, and since he passed away, I haven’t felt like dealing with Sabrina, the conversation, or the flurry of emotions that is likely to bring with it.
Nah, it’s just stuff. I can live without stuff.
I stand and head toward the garage. There are no pictures of me—just images of Bethany with my dad and Sabrina hung in the places my elementary school pictures used to hang. The spot in the corner of the wall that I scribbled on when I was a toddler, right after Mom died, has been painted over. I pass the spot my high school graduation photo used to be—the one with me, Dad, and Sabrina. She took that down too.
It’s like my mother and I never existed in this space at all. That this was never my home. Everything of my life here has been erased like none of it mattered.
The garage is hot and sticky. I open the door to the outside to get some air and light. My boxes are lined up along the back wall with labels such as kitchen, bathroom, and who freaking knows?
I find the one marked clothes and sort through until I find a few pairs of shorts and tops.