Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 118(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 118(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
“Eating mediocre grocery store cake?”
“Yes. We would. And that would be terrible.”
I lean in and pull her close as everyone claps and cheers, shouting their thanks and complimenting the taste of her work.
“See? They’re ready to accept you for who you are, Lavender. We love you for who you are. I love you for who you are.”
Lavender is as red as strawberries, but she’s smiling. She’s happy.
And I want her to remain that way forevermore.
TEN
lavender
Another morning in Hawk’s arms.
Another reminder of how sweet he is.
I feel happy. Warm. Protected. Everything anyone could ever want.
Yet I deal with that creeping dread in the back of my head.
There’s only a few days before my mother’s ultimatum. It makes all the happiness and joy I experience with Hawk feel like some fleeting vacation, something doomed to end.
My mother seems to believe that happiness isn’t something that can be eternal. That it's only there for brief seconds. An orgasm, a chocolate chip cookie, a minute burst of adrenaline at a theme park.
That happiness can’t be persistent.
But I know it can be.
It’s feeling safe. Content, knowing everything is going to be fine. The idea that this feeling is going to keep going for as long as it can. That problems may interrupt it, but you can always hold it together, that you’ll have someone there to hold you up and keep you going during the toughest of times.
My mother should feel that too. She’ll never know what poverty is. She could never make another dollar in her life, and survive wholly on caviar stuffed full of gold flakes, but she would feel despair at the fact she could have more.
Perhaps my father wasn’t the right man for her. Perhaps she was always doomed to be unhappy. Who knows? I can’t fix her. She’s not my problem.
I just dread being forced into a position where I follow her exact same troubled path.
I’m awake, but I just linger, lying on Hawk for a little longer. Running my hands through those little hairs on his chest. Enjoying the firmness of his muscles. This is what I want for the rest of my days. For richer or for poorer, for sickness or in health, I want Hawk there for all of it.
Does the world really care what I want, though?
“Lavender Van Schneider!” I hear a loud, feminine authoritative voice yell. It’s followed by stamping against wood as she storms through the chalet.
And here I am naked, lying on top of a naked Hawk. He snaps awake.
I start to get up and reach for a shirt, but it’s too late.
My mother is standing there in the doorway to the cabin’s master bedroom.
I clamber under the covers, Hawk right there beside me.
“You indecent little harlot,” she yells. She’s alone this time, my father left behind. “I knew you were enticed by that white trash of a man.”
Hawk glares at her and is about to get up to say something. I stop him. This is my fight, not his. He supported me the best he could. He’s shown me what life could be. He’s done more than enough, but at the end of it all, this is between me and my mother.
“Mom, I see you still haven’t learned to knock.”
She’s walked in on me naked in some form or another, like, four times. Most parents learn to show some caution after their first mistake.
“This is my chalet. I’m paying for it. I shouldn’t have to knock if I don’t want to.”
“Then you enjoy seeing your daughter naked, which says something incredibly weird about you.” Hawk snickers at my words.
She glares daggers at me. “Get up. Get dressed. We’re leaving, now.”
“It’s not the first. What are you doing here so early?”
“You don’t get to make terrible mistakes. You’re coming with us. We need to put on the happy family act for a business conference, and as such, you need to be there, Lavender.”
Lying to me again, I guess.
My mother sees the robe on the door and throws it at me. “Get dressed, Lavender. We’re leaving. Now.”
I take the robe. I realize it’s the last gift she will ever give me as I get up from bed and slip it on, trying to give my mother as little of a show as possible. “I’m not going anywhere, Mom.”
“Yes you are. I’ve already canceled the reservation for the chalet.”
“Then I’ll leave the chalet, but I’m not going with you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hawk’s smile grow.
“Are you stupid, Lavender? I said we’re going. So we’re going. Get dressed properly, and go get in my car. We have a flight to catch.”
“No, Mom. I’m not going with you. I’m never going with you again.”
Her rage grows. “This isn’t a decision for you to make.”
“I am an adult in the eyes of the law. I can do whatever I please within that law. And nothing about that law demands that I have to leave with you, Mom.”