Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“I’m so sorry.” My hand rises so that I can hold both cheeks in the palm of my hands. “Do you ever see her? Talk to her?”
“In the beginning, she would send a card or two a year, but then the contact tapered off.” His brow furrows. “Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I heard from her. It has to be more than a decade.” He shakes his head as if even he can’t believe it.
My chest constricts until it becomes difficult to breathe. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have one of my parents walk away. I feel terrible for poking my nose where it didn’t belong and forcing him to talk about something that has dredged up so many painful memories.
Colton’s hand rises to my face before his thumb carefully feathers over the delicate skin beneath my eye. Only when it comes away with wetness, do I realize that tears are streaming down my cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat. Not only for his mother walking away but also for forcing him to share something so painful.
“Don’t be. You can’t miss what you never had.”
He swipes at my other cheek before locking his hands around the sides of my head and pulling me close until our foreheads are able to touch. Our gazes stay fastened as the fragile connection we share continues to flourish.
“I’m really glad you came home with me.”
“Me, too.” It means more than he can possibly know. More than I’m afraid to acknowledge, even privately to myself. “Thanks again for the invite.”
For a moment, the only audible sound that fills the room is our breathing.
“I’m going to kiss you, Lys.”
“Okay.”
As soon as the word is released, he tilts his head until his lips are able to slant across mine. Unlike the kiss in Bang Bang’s parking lot, this one unfolds gradually as if we have all the time in the world to explore each other. When his tongue sweeps across the seam of my lips, I immediately open, allowing him entrance. That’s all it takes for the world to fall away. And then it’s just the two of us.
The Colton I’ve unearthed this evening has managed to do the impossible. He’s ripped down the walls I carefully erected between us, one brick at a time. It’s exactly what I was afraid would happen. Even though I’m scared of being hurt again, that knowledge isn’t enough to stop me from tumbling head over heels in love with him for a second time.
Or maybe I never fell out of it to begin with.
Chapter Thirty-One
Colton
I stare at the ceiling with my arms folded behind my head as everything from earlier this evening crashes around inside my brain. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s dwelling on Candace. She’s like Beetlejuice. Say her name three times, and she magically appears inside my head, taking up residence like an unwanted squatter.
And that, on top of everything else I’m going through, is the last thing I need. The woman abandoned me, walked away without so much as a second glance. And now there’s a giant void in the place that once belonged to her. It’s one that Jenna has diligently tried to fill over the years.
Everything within me softens as I think about my stepmother. Truth be told, she’s so much more than that. The title doesn’t do her justice. She’s the mother Candace never could be—or, more to the point, wanted to be.
I’m not embarrassed to admit that I love Jenna. I appreciate everything she’s done for me over the years. She drove my ass around town before I had a license and helped with homework when I didn’t understand a concept. She wrapped her arms around me in the middle of the night when I would cry, missing Candace. Instead of badmouthing my mother, Jenna tried to explain that sometimes people weren’t able to be what we needed. And that was neither of our faults.
The few times Candace allowed me to tag along with her to the studio stick out vividly in my head. Probably because they were such a rarity. She would set me in the corner with a few toys while she became absorbed in her artwork. Hours would pass by, and I would try to be as quiet as I could. Even then, at age four, I realized my silence was the only thing that could win her over. In the end, it wasn’t enough. No matter how quiet or how good I was, she still chose to leave.
Even though Jenna and I have become close over the years, and she has done her best to make up for Candace’s lack of interest, my biological mother’s rejection is still there, eating away at me.
It’s fucked up.
Why isn’t it possible to forget about her and move on? I want to bury all of the painful memories so deep down in my subconscious that I forget she was ever part of my life.