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With the last sentence, she took a pause, the memory clearly potent enough to give her a thorough shudder. But when the moment passed, she took a deep breath and went on.
“Kelsey stopped talking to me, obviously. Her mom too. Everyone treated me like a pariah. Parents, teachers, neighbors. People would literally only talk to me if they had to, for as many words as they needed to. They didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing to me and having to deal with my mom. Kind of like Dad and Adam on a daily basis,” Holland snorted, making me frown despite the fact that she seemed genuinely entertained by the connection she made just now. “Anyway, Mom doubled down on her protectiveness after that, and I went the rest of high school without any friends,” she finished with a bitter laugh—or what I assumed was a bitter laugh, though it didn’t sound as bitter as I’d expect. Taking a bite of her toast, Holland looked at me as she chewed, waiting till she swallowed before asking, “What?”
Stunned, I blinked, needing a second to gather my thoughts and figure out which of my many reactions I wanted to express first.
“That’s… fucking rough, Holland,” I finally said, feeling like I’d had the wind knocked out of me, because I was still reeling myself from the levels of sheer self-absorbed insanity that Jeannie Maxwell could apparently reach. I’d spent years witnessing her selfish narcissism, but this had to be the worst case of her treating her daughter like a prop rather than an actual human being.
Rubbing my jaw, I tugged on my lower lip, letting the profanity for Jeannie pass before I spoke again.
“Your mother’s a piece of work,” I finally said, making Holland snort like she knew I had more colorful words in mind. “And I don’t know if I’m more confused or impressed that you can laugh as you tell this story.”
She cracked a smile. “Yeah, well. It was miserable and it was my life for so long that I didn’t think it would ever end, but it did. It’s over now. And I’m just thankful for that,” she said earnestly. “Obviously, I wish I could know everything that happened in my family before I was born. What exactly Adam did to drive my mom this level of crazy. But in twenty-two years, no one’s given me anything close to the full story and I’ve learned that if you can’t get closure from others, you just have to find it within yourself. Some way, somehow.”
My eyebrows lifted at her maturity, and I was quiet for a moment as I felt an array of ways. Proud. Perplexed. I admired Holland’s strength and her sheer force of will. Though admittedly, I didn’t understand it.
Probably because I’d foregone the idea of getting closure in my own life a long time ago. It was something I knew I’d live forever without. But I wasn’t quite as at peace with it like she was.
“You’re looking at me like I’m crazy,” Holland finally said, making me laugh.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I said honestly. “I’m just… amazed that you don’t hold resentment for her.”
“Oh, I do. But I don’t carry it with me on a day-to-day basis anymore. It’s just constant pain that way, and the fact of the matter is that you can’t control what other people do. You can only control how you react, and I don’t want to spend any more time reacting with hurt and anger, and feeling like this is unfair and I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t. But I don’t deserve to keep torturing myself either. To keep waiting for answers. I’m never gonna get them, and if there’s any lesson I’ve learned it’s that life is really precious,” she said with a passion so contagious I could feel it in my bones, despite the fact that at my core, I disagreed with her. “I only get one, and I just want to live it every day to the fullest. You know?”
She said that to me a lot. You know? And I never knew. But this time, thanks to the little sparkle in her eyes and that perfect little grin on her lips, I wished I did.
She laughed as I looked at her.
“Yeah… you think I’m crazy,” she nodded.
“Only a little,” I lied for the fun of it.
“Well, If you keep looking at me like that, you can think I’m crazy all you want,” she smirked, her eyes still glimmering as our gazes stayed locked for a few moments of peace that I ruined with a question I didn’t even realize was brewing in my head.
“How did you get there?”
“Where?”
I stared, taking a moment to figure out what the hell I was even talking about. “The place where you weren’t angry anymore,” I finally said.
She smiled as if to say gotcha. “Me time,” she answered, and so smugly I had to laugh. “I mean it. My ritual. My things. Making a habit of it. I know I sound like an informercial, but it works,” she said. “I mean, yes, it’s definitely hard to get to this place, but you owe it to yourself. Just so you can have a fighting chance at being happy. You know?”
I nodded, once again struck by those two words.
They were seemingly innocent, but the way she said them this time made me feel like she was talking to me. About me.
And suddenly, I considered that she had pieces to my puzzle too. That she’d overheard things growing up. Knew more about me than I ever would’ve thought. And considering how vigilantly I guarded my past from almost everyone I knew, I should’ve been displeased. Unhappy about this.
But I wasn’t feeling any of the things I was supposed to feel today.
Including a need to go to work. To do the things I normally did on Sundays.
I hadn’t necessarily known I’d be taking the entire weekend after flying back from Boston yesterday morning, but as Holland and I cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast—as she whipped off her juice-soaked T-shirt and forced me to watch her rinse dishes in just her panties—I decided to say fuck it and let myself keep enjoying the day. I took work calls when they came, but I found myself unable to give quite as many fucks as usual, and I knew why that was.
Because slowly but surely, Holland Maxwell was unraveling me.
And the only thing more concerning than that was the fact that I was powerless to stop it.
22
