Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
The word actually hurt. “You can’t ever let Kala hear that. She loves you. You’re one of the only people she actually will listen to, and if she knows you don’t like her…”
“I didn’t say that,” her mom argued. “I love Kala. I adore her, but I wonder where you would be without her.”
“Alone. Lonely is what I would be. I have no idea where this is coming from.”
Her mom stared at her for a moment. “If you’d never met Kala, you would be working at a university and you would have met a nice man and started your life.”
Her mother was forgetting a few facts. “If I’d never met Kala, I wouldn’t have figured out what I want in a man because I would have curled in on myself and become everything my grandmother wanted me to be. Do you honestly think Dad would be the same person if he hadn’t worked at MT and become part of that family? What about you? You have friends. You never had friends. You didn’t trust anyone, and now you want to wish that away so you know where I am twenty-four seven? You think I would be some successful professor you could point to and be proud of? I would be lonely. I would be sad. I would never have learned how to be a sister to Jayce because I would never have seen it, been surrounded by it. I’m sorry my friends annoy you, but I am who I am because of them. You and Dad had a lot to do with it, but so did they.”
Her mom sank down to the couch, her expression going a careful blank. “Does the ‘they’ include TJ?”
“Of course it does. He’s been my friend since I was a kid.”
“Excellent. Now do him. Tell me where you would be without him because I personally think your life would be so much better if you’d never met him.”
Never met him? “He was one of my first friends. I didn’t know you were so into rewriting history. Do you remember who I was at that age?”
“You were a brilliant child who didn’t fit in anywhere and who wanted so badly to have people she could count on because the ground never felt stable to you.” Her mother’s tone went soft.
“He was stable ground. He didn’t care that I was weird and talked about things he didn’t understand. He didn’t care that some of his friends thought I was a nerd. When they came at me, he wasn’t their friend anymore. I can’t tell you how often he’s protected me.”
“And yet you’ve cried over him more times than I can count.”
She didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Anger was starting to build, and she was never angry with her mom. “Because I loved him. Because I didn’t want to lose him. Because even when he didn’t want me physically, he still showed up when I needed him. Yes, I cried because I didn’t get what I wanted, but he was still my friend. So you can shove your judgment, Mom.”
A low smile crossed her mom’s face, and she realized her mom was playing chess. “Then why is your brother wrong? Are you telling me you and TJ finally got together and you’re…what? Playing around? Please don’t try to tell me this is all for an op or something. And like I said, I adore Kala and know damn well you’re better for having her in your life. I will admit there are times I wondered about TJ, but you can’t blame me for questioning the kid who made my daughter cry. Even if he didn’t mean to.”
She slumped on the couch beside her mom. “He didn’t. I don’t think he ever meant to make me ache the way I do sometimes. I think that’s the price of unrequited love.”
“Well, if what Big Tag says is true, it feels pretty requited to me,” her mom shot back. “Also, Marley was talking about something happening at the club last night, but she was getting it secondhand from her brother. Something about you and TJ playing games in a privacy room. She wasn’t sure if the games were board games or something else.”
So at least one of her plans had worked. Her friends were unsure if she was making a fool of herself or working.
And she needed to go over the meaning of the word classified with her boss.
“We were running an op last night at The Hideout,” she replied.
“Really?” Her mom sounded like she didn’t believe her.
“Really.”
“And the stuff in Germany?”
“Was a mistake.” Lou wanted to wrap it all up and send her mom on her way and go back to work, forgetting everything except the task in front of her.
It was always her first instinct—to satisfy her brain and leave the rest of it locked behind some door she never had to open.