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Another time. Another life. Another Gabe. “Wax poetic with someone else. I’m gone in two minutes.” I stretch my other calf.
She holds her phone out to me. “It’ll take you less than that to call The Oasis and approve my visitation request.”
Her words echo across the water and down the dock. My bent knee gives, and I hit the railing. “You followed me.”
“The first day you went.”
Tension tightens my face, and no matter how hard I try to blank my expression, I can’t make it happen. You’re a freaking actor, Gabe. Put on a better show.
“No comment?” She touches my shoulder, her eyes narrowing.
I tense every muscle in my body as a barrier against her. Since I can’t seem to call up neutral, I paste onscrew you. “I have a comment. It starts withfand ends inoff.”
“Is that on the record?” She slips into full-on reporter.
“So you can quote me when you release the story? I’m not that stupid.” I’ve worked so hard to keep my mom’s secret. For. Absolutely. Freaking. Nothing.
“Gabe.” Gretchen touches my arm.
I smack her hand away. Slam my fist on the railing when I want to slam it into her. “What’s your silence going to cost?”
“A pass to visit.”
“Not happening.”
“You might want to rethink. It’ll take thirty seconds of airtime to release that one word—Alzheimer’s.”
A thousand needles prick my skin. “Can you not be a jealous bitch for once? So Mom got a big-deal show in LA, and you got stuck here. I’m sorry. At least you still have a life. Mom doesn’t.” The snarl in my throat is pure Jax. “Let. It. Go.”
“Can’t do that.” She casually lifts a foot, slips on a heel, then does the same for the other. Using the railing, she navigates the dock with baby steps until she reaches the shore.
“You used to be her friend, Gretch.” I yell after her. “Think about that before you shit all over her.” Vibrating with a hundred times the energy I just ran off, I kick the broken pillar at the end of the pier.
The wood doesn’t give. But my toe feels like it does.
chapter 47
Jess
T brought overAmerican Werewolf in London. I don’t get the werewolf thing, but I wasn’t paying attention either. I was too busy watching him watch the movie. I’ll never get enough of his deep laugh, his funny expressions, or how he quotes his favorite lines along with the movie.
~ from the diary of Elizabeth Sara Thorne (age16)
Gabe and I are movie-marathoning tonight. His suggestion. He laughed when I told him he could pick what we watched as long as it was moreSupernaturalthanLittle House on the Prairie. It’s after ten when I head to his room. Makeup-free, hair braided over one shoulder, I’m wearing my chill-out attire. Also his suggestion. Due to the lack of clean clothes in my suitcase, he’s getting me in a purple tank, fuzzy socks, and a pair of sleep shorts I’m wishing were an inch longer.
I push open the adjoining door with my shoulder, reading the last text he sent. “So, apparently, my life is in serious danger of suckage if I don’t experience the cult-classic horror of all theFinal Destinations.” I glance up.
Gabe’s slumped on the floor against the bed.
Sinking sink in front of him, I put my hands on his forearms.
Somehow with minimal shifting, he puts me on his lap and curls my legs around his waist so we’re chest to chest. Latching his arms around me, he buries his face in my neck.
“Gabe?” I whisper.
“Gretchen knows about my mom.”
I hug him back, kneading the stiffness in his shoulders. “Is there any chance she’ll keep it to herself? She used to be your mom’s friend, right?”
