Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 654(@250wpm)___ 545(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 654(@250wpm)___ 545(@300wpm)
“It’s nothing; I’m just happy.” Now he was the one wiping my tears away.
“You don’t feel happy; you feel sad.”
“It’s a happy sad; I’ll tell you about it later,” I whispered the last sentence before he kissed my forehead and got back to his feet to return to his seat, ignoring the fact that everyone was now looking at him and jumped right back into the conversation he’d left.
That, what he just did and the way he did it, coupled with those images that were still fresh in my head, filled my heart with warmth and eased some of the ache left by my mother’s tears. And the way she and dad were beaming at his display assured me that they weren’t playing a game, weren’t planning to snatch me away in the night once I’d let my guard down.
This was real; they were finally letting me have something I wanted, something I’d chosen myself. And it was the most important thing at that. I dared not let any more tears fall because Cody was still looking as if he were ready to take me out of there, but I held those warm feelings in my heart to take out later and inspect.
Mom took my hand and squeezed it before leaning in. “Your guy just cemented his future.” I looked around the table at her words and noticed that there was a slight change in the body language of the men in my family. They’d accepted him into the fold; Lord help us.
LISA
Until that moment, I didn’t realize that I’d been holding my breath since they descended on us. This was the most important time in my life to date, and the people I dreaded most, the ones who could put an end to it, had finally come through.
I guess there’s some truth to Cody’s words after all, or maybe I’m just quick to forgive because they’d allowed me to have the one thing I wanted more than I’ve ever wanted anything before. Or maybe, somehow, through their network of spies, they’d come to learn that Cody was the one thing I wasn’t willing to give up, even if it meant losing them.
Now the thought of losing the people sitting around the table, any one of them, made me feel empty. I wanted more days like this. The only thing missing was Cody’s parents, which hopefully wouldn’t be true the next time we all come together like this.
I figured with the intermittent distraction that mom wouldn’t go on with her story since it obviously made her upset, but I was wrong. “I’m sorry for upsetting you, baby; that was not my intention. I just wanted you to know why it may seem like I go overboard sometimes when it comes to your wellbeing. When you lose someone close, the pain is visceral, and contrary to popular opinion, you never really get over it. Time may dull the pain, but it doesn’t heal; nothing can heal the pain from the loss of death.”
I reached over and took her hand in mine because it seemed that she needed it. I’d never seen my mom look this human before, and I was almost tempted to tell her to stop, not to reopen the wound that was still so raw to her. But before I could, she took a deep breath and plunged on.
“She was my best friend. We met my second to last year in high school. The school had been doing one of those feel-good drives, as I used to call them, where we’d go into underprivileged areas to do something for the needy. That time we were building a basketball court for inner city kids.”
There was a winsome smile on her face as she reminisced, and I held my breath waiting for her to realize this was me she was talking to and stop. Mom never divulges much about her youth to me. And even though she’d said she wanted me to know, it was still unbelievable to me that it was really happening.
“I remember the first time I saw her; she was so brash and uncompromising. My rebel without a cause, that’s what I started calling her after we met and got to know each other. Most of the others were afraid to approach me, even some of my peers kept their distance because they knew who I was and what would happen if I got so much as a scratch in their presence. Your grandmother wasn’t the crazy that she is today; back then, she was someone to be feared with just a look.”
I can’t believe she just said that. What is going on? I covertly looked around the table, but everyone else was still busy with their own conversations, and no one was paying any attention to us. I wasn’t exactly panicking, but it was close. First the tears, and now this. It was too soft, too un-mom-like.