“Fake it until you make it, baby. You should feel proud.”
I mumbled something unintelligible as I opened the freezer to take out the dessert. It occurred to me that I had been one of the most consistent things in Collette’s short existence so far. I spent almost half of her life with her, but it was impossible to take any sort of credit for it.
“Still no word from Joey?” Brooks asked softly, glancing toward the door.
“No.” I sighed, and the tightness grew. “She hasn’t sent any papers. She won’t respond to the lawyer.” A very expensive lawyer. “After six months of no contact, I can file abandonment charges,” I said flatly.
Wesley’s lawyers had prepared everything. The moment it hit six months of no contact, Joey would no longer have claim over her daughter. It was for the best, but the facts still gnawed at me. Still made me question everything.
“That has to be soon,” Brooks said, brow furrowed.
I nodded, arms wrapped tight around my middle. “Next month.”
“Wow.” Brooks stepped closer to me. “And then? Are you filing for custody?”
There was a twinkle in her eyes that looked like hope.
“I-I don’t know. I want her to have a family. A real family.” My thoughts were all mushed up, and I couldn’t even say what I dreamed about in the deepest, darkest secret chambers of my heart that I thought had long been sealed over with scarred tissue.
Brooks glanced out the window and back to me. “I think she has a real family.”
My head shook back and forth.
“Have you thought about maybe staying here in Sandia?” she asked softly, eyes gleaming with hope. “You all make a pretty good trio, if you ask me. And maybe I’m being selfish, but I would love for you to stay.” She carried on speaking, but I could hardly hear her for the ringing in my ears. “… You’ve had one foot out the door since you got here. You won’t even call me your best friend. Even though I totally am because there is literally not another single person on this planet I would answer a call for. Even my own mother. You’re always looking out windows, dreaming of far-off destinations. I get it. Some people are just rolling stones.” She frowned with a final shrug. “I don’t want you to go.”
I gripped the edge of the counter hard to keep myself from tipping over. The air around me wasn’t working right. I couldn’t seem to pull it into my lungs, and it was making my fingertips go numb. People didn’t stay. Harrison couldn’t stay. If his week away had shown me anything, it was that this needed to end sooner than later. I had become so reliant on him that I couldn’t function without him when he was gone.
But I knew I was already lying to myself. Things were already too deep. That inability to breathe were those same roots that had spread through my body, pinning me to this place.
“Hey, hey.” Brooks placed her hands on my shoulders, and I flinched hard. “Frankie. Look at me. It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to figure it out at this exact moment. Just enjoy this party. One step at a time. One day at a time, okay?”
I was biting my bottom lip so hard that I tasted blood, but I nodded.
“Take a breath for me, okay? Big one in and out,” she demanded. “There you go. One more.”
Tears balanced on my eyes. Humiliation spread through me. All I could see was the image of my mother driving away one last time, blurring over this moment, making them indistinguishable from the other.
“It’s okay. You know you aren’t alone, right?” she said. “You aren’t alone,” she repeated.
I nodded, breathing until the tingling sensation left my fingertips and gravity righted itself. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s okay. You have time. Let’s change the subject.” She hugged me and then moved to grab the plates and napkins. “How’s the book going?” she asked, and I stumbled.
It was like she could see all the many worries currently swirling through my brain and plucked them from thin air. One after the other. The publisher had called again and all but demanded that we send what we had so far. They needed to start promo. They needed as much as we could provide to start on auditioning audiobook narrators and a hundred other things I didn’t understand about the publishing process. And didn’t want to.
“What d-do you mean?” I fussed with the cake on the table.
“George’s book?” She leaned against the sink to look at me. “It’s all the whole world is talking about. I haven’t heard this much buzz about a book. Probably ever. I’ve already gotten dozens of preorders. I think they’re hoping he’ll sign some. Him being a local and all.”
I swallowed the panic that had gripped me and released slightly. The secret was still safe. “I think he’s almost done. He sent some of the pages off to the publisher.”
“Great news! And you’ve made a ton of progress around here. See, everything is going to be okay,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said tightly.
“Speaking of things abuzz on the interwebs, I saw that video of karaoke night.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Oh yeah, I heard about that.” Someone said something to Collette, which was exactly what we were trying to avoid. I’d been avoiding watching it. Some part of me still rejected the reality of his other life. I was putting on blinders, and that wasn’t the best way to handle the situation.
