Page 204 of One Wild Wish

My first Wonder Woman comic—his gift when I’d won my track meet.

The Die Hard DVD he’d sent over when I’d been holed up with mono.

Every homemade birthday card he’d slipped into my locker.

He righted the box and returned the escaped items, but paused on each one. My throat closed. They were damning, hard proof I’d never gotten over him. The longer he lingered, the hotter my neck burned. Mortification over my obvious obsession with him winded me, along with hope he’d understand how important he’d been in my life.

Seeing as we’d never unleashed our monolithic sexual tension, his flirting made sense. A quick fuck could offer him closure, even though it would ruin me. This evidence wasn’t simple flirting. This was proof of a deep emotional scar, years of missing him nurtured and splayed on flagstone.

I expected him to stand, make some excuse about a forgotten appointment or meeting. Flee the scene of the crime. Instead he placed my mother’s journal over our memories and stood, facing me. “I have a picture of you on my laptop, from our trip to the zoo, with you making faces at the chimpanzees. I’ve switched computers over the years, had plenty of opportunity to delete it. I never could.”

He smiled a sad smile, his gaze traveling over my face and landing on my lips. He licked his, a slow slide of his tongue. Then he turned and jogged to his car.

My heart jogged in time.

6

5 p.m., 31 Hours…

Gwen

A frosty shower later, I pulled on dark jeans and a white tank top, ready to meet my friends for a drink. Not continue obsessing over a certain someone who’d be joining me. I would not admit to modeling five different outfits beforehand, when I should have been analyzing my mother’s journal. I had not applied two different shades of lipstick before settling on a rosy gloss. I also hadn’t performed these neurotic acts while listening to August’s latest album.

Nope. Not me.

God, I was pathetic.

Looking in the mirror now, I barely recognized myself. My ruffled bangs swept to the side like usual, my chestnut waves as ordered as I could get them. My cheekbones still stood out, my right eye slightly rounder than the left, and the rock climbing scrape on my forearm still lingered. Put the facts together, and I hadn’t changed one iota. But since adulthood, I’d never lost my mind over a man.

Here I was, cracked out over August.

Before this year’s dating hiatus, I’d made an effort when meeting men, trying to look pretty, putting my best foot forward and all that jazz. Never had my efforts involved a frustrating fashion show and clothes-littered floor. It was time to get my act together.

I used my last half hour to curl on my couch and pore over my mother’s journal, the analytical work more calming than I’d have thought. It was methodical. It gave my mind something to latch onto, other than the fact that August had saved a photo of me. Did he look at it often? Had it haunted him the way my keepsakes of him had haunted me?

I growled into my empty apartment, annoyed August had thwarted my focus again.

I focused harder and flipped more journal pages, frustrated when some stuck together, causing me to miss sections. Not that all my mother’s random entries were gems. Her “I hate my mom” rant could have been written by me and most kids during their teen years, but Mary Hamilton’s malice had stemmed from forced church attendance, a strict dress code, curfew, and TV limitations.

Partway through, a cutout of a ballerina stopped my flipping. A quick browse showed more dance pictures and corresponding entries, my mother writing things like:

Dancing is everything.

The music makes me feel alive.

I would rather die than not dance.

Those jazz shoes must have been her prized possession. I suddenly wished I hadn’t left the suitcase at her house. I wanted to wear her shoes, experience that passion. The possibility puckered my mouth. There was no point searching for something that had died long ago. There was only the here and now. This reality.

Journal in my lap, I glanced around my small apartment. It was generally neat, the open kitchen and living area decorated in shades of blue and gray. My leather couch was comfy, the closets big enough to store my rock climbing equipment and diving gear. The slate walls were bare except for the surfboard and mountain bike taking up real estate. There were no family photos. No snapshots of birthdays or weddings or celebrations. My mother had only ever visited my place once, because I’d asked her over. That painful hour had involved both of us checking the time repeatedly.

Mary Hamilton may have had interests and passions as a teen, but that wasn’t the woman she’d become. The only thing I wanted to find in these pages were clues to the man she’d slept with, a visual that turned my insides to ick .

Eye on the time, I studied the dance pages for a hint. A partner she’d waltzed with? A boy who’d picked her up from class? Assuming she’d taken classes. That part wasn’t clear. What did repeat was the acronym TASC.

Tucking my legs under me on the couch, I searched my phone for the term and gawked at the landing page.

Tenderloin Arts and Spiritual Center: a community space in the Tenderloin district where art and culture and spirituality come together.