Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
And she must have been really worried, because her entire body sags with relief when we trudge into the house five minutes later. She was standing vigil at the front door, the dogs sitting at her feet, like some weird oil painting. I flash her a smile of assurance, and then Fudge rips a dog fart and we all snicker.
“Everything okay with my boys?” Mom prompts, studying our faces.
I shrug. “Getting there.”
A faint smile touches her lips.
“Hope you don’t mind if I skip breakfast,” I tell her. “I’m just gonna go upstairs and change, then head back to the Jackson house. Gotta start cleaning.”
“No problem, sweetie.”
Up in my room, I shuck my pajama pants and grab a pair of faded jeans from my dresser. I shove them up my hips, then grab my keys and phone off the nightstand.
There’s a knock, and I look up to see Mom lightly rapping her knuckles against my half-open door. “Hey. Got a second for me before you leave?”
“Always. What do you need?”
She walks in and sits at the edge of my bed. After a beat, I sit beside her. And then she begins to talk.
CHAPTER 34
CASSIE
“Hey.”
My head lifts at Tate’s approach. “Hey.”
It’s nine in the morning and he’s back from his parents’ house. I was up in my bedroom when I heard his Jeep pull in, and a moment later his text popped up, asking me to meet him down on the Jacksons’ dock.
He looks tired as he lowers his body next to me, dangling those long legs over the edge of the dock.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” I ask.
“What do you think?” he says wryly. “You?”
“What do you think?” I mimic. I let out a sigh. “My mom’s gone.”
He’s startled. “Gone how?”
“Oh, I mean she left. Caught a flight to Boston last night. Grandma told her not to come home, to stay at a hotel. I guess her pride wouldn’t allow her to do that. She sent Grandma a message this morning asking to have her bags shipped to Boston.”
“Did you two talk at all?”
“Oh, we did.” The memory of the confrontation outside the Beacon is going to stay with me for a very long time. Hell, the events of that one night alone will take ten years’ worth of therapy to unpack. “She had her excuses. Claimed she didn’t plan on ambushing them at the party.”
Tate snorts. “Bullshit.”
“That’s what I said. It doesn’t matter, though. What’s done is done.”
He studies my face. “So where did you leave it, you and her?”
“It’s over,” I say flatly. My heart clenches, a ripple of pain moving through me. “The relationship is irrevocably broken.”
“Cass …”
“It is. And now I feel … free. No longer feel trapped by it. I always told myself I had to be in this relationship. I had to take the abuse because, well, it’s my mother. That’s what people always say, right? It’s your mother. They can’t fathom cutting a parent out of their lives.”
I lean closer to him, resting my head on his shoulder. After a beat, he puts his arm around me. His fingertips stroke my bare shoulder. A part of me feared he would show up this morning and announce he wanted nothing to do with me after my mother’s nauseating actions. But he’s here and he has his arm around me, and I’m weak with relief.
“I don’t need to be in that relationship, Tate. Maybe one day, if she has that moment of self-reflection you were talking about. But that’s not happening anytime soon. And in the meantime, I need to live my own life. Without her in it.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“I am. I mean, it hurts. But having her in my life hurts more.”
“I guess that’s the silver lining?” He runs his palm over my shoulder again, a comforting gesture.
“Oh. No. The silver lining would be that if I hadn’t had a complete breakdown after confronting my mom, then I wouldn’t have gone over to my dad’s—where I had another complete breakdown. I was very busy.” I can’t help but laugh. “But enough about me. How did it go with your parents?”
“It went.” His answering laugh is dry. “But you can’t just leave me hanging like that. What happened at your dad’s?”
I peek up at Tate with a self-deprecating grin. “Well, I went to confront him and ended up curled in a fetal position of tears on their front lawn. Nia came outside and we had a moment. A good one, actually. Then I went inside and talked to my dad. I did what you told me. Shared my feelings. Vocalized my needs and all that crap.”
Tate snickers.
“I told him I want a relationship that involves more than lighthearted banter and turtle shopping. That I want to be able to come to him when I need him and not worry he’ll push me away. It went well. I feel very grown up now.” I tip my head, smiling again. “You’ve changed me.”