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"You sure you're in the mood to talk?"
"It's not a we have to talk kind of talk, is it?"
"We're engaged now."
"Really? I almost forgot." She nearly squeaks. "It's only been a few days."
"Have you thought at all about a wedding."
"Like I said. It's only been days."
Something about her voice sounds off.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Tired. Long night, lots of performances."
Tension knots in my back. "Ally, you do know you can talk to me about anything."
She swallows hard. "I know."
I shift, moving the phone to a different hand. Is there an easier way to get her to open up? There has to be something I can do... "There's no rush. Both my parents are dead, after all."
"That's awful."
"No, it's just how it is," I say. "But what about your mom?"
"What about her?" Her voice drops, completely void of even a hint of enthusiasm.
I could let it go, offer to talk about this when Alyssa has more energy.
But I won't. She's my fiancée now. Just thinking it fills the room with color. Alyssa is my fiancée and we're going to have an amazing life together.
And I'm not going to bullshit her or handle her. I'm not going to pretend everything is okay the way I did with Samantha.
I'm going to tell her the damn truth.
"If you want to stay estranged from your mom, I won't force you to reconsider," I say. "But if not, I'd love to have her at the wedding."
"That's not a good idea."
"Why not?"
"She loved Ryan," she says. "Every other thing out of her mouth, when we were still talking, was why can't you see that Ryan boy cares for you? Why don't you give him a chance?"
"You did listen to her eventually."
"She doesn't know what happened," Alyssa says. "She'd hate me even more if she found out."
"Are you sure that she hates you?"
"Maybe not hate, but... You wouldn't understand." She says it with such resignation, like it's hopeless, like no one ever could or will understand the things she keeps locked up.
"But I want to. I want to understand everything you ever felt."
"I thought we were talking about the wedding," she says.
"Do you want to invite your mother?"
