AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He smiles, nose brushing my cheek as he speaks against my lips. “I love you, too.”
We stay like that, wrapped in each other, bringing each other to the edge over and over until we tip into bliss.
chapter twenty-seven
MOVING FORWARD
Kitty
Life shifts after the interview with Brit. My ideals shift along with it. I love what I do, and I love my authentic fans, but I need separation from the social media onslaught. So Fancy takes over posting on my socials, which means I can focus on taking care of my clients. I still interact with my followers, but I don’t want that part of my job to influence the way I feel about myself, or what I do, so I try to let go of some of the responsibility. I take on what I need to and give myself space from the rest.
A few weeks after the interview, I help move my sister into her new apartment in the city with the assistance of Miles and Josh. It’s a busy day full of lifting boxes and unpacking, but it’s totally worth it to see my sister so excited for her future.
Once we’re finished, Miles and I head back to his place, which is only a few blocks away. Prince Francis and Wilfred appear at the end of the hall as Miles ushers me inside the front door. They come in for pets and love, then head for the kitchen. I’ve taken to bringing Prince Francis along when I stay at Miles’s place, since he and Wilfred get along so well. We’ve found that adding Herman to the dynamic isn’t as seamless, since Prince Francis gets jealous. But it’s a relationship work in progress.
I follow Miles down the hall, and we feed our fur babies before he grabs a beer for himself and glass of wine for me. We should probably shower, but a drink on the couch seems like a good way to decompress.
“How do you think your mom is going to handle Hattie’s move?” Miles asks as he takes the cushion beside mine.
“She had friends over when we called to give her a virtual tour of the apartment, and that feels like a big step in the right direction.” I sip my wine, considering how different things have been over the past few months. How my mom’s social life has flourished recently. “I think . . . I’ve been using my mom as a crutch.”
“How do you mean?” Miles stretches his arm along the back of the couch and fingers the end of my ponytail.
“My mom isn’t the one who had a problem moving on. It’s been me. I didn’t want things to change, or maybe I made it difficult for her to feel like she could change, so nothing did. But over the past few months she’s started to live again. She’s spending more time with friends. Doing different things, developing new hobbies. I feel like I’ve been holding her back this whole time.” And recently she stopped setting a place for Dad at the table. The first time it happened I was shocked, thinking maybe she just forgot. I didn’t set the place, though. And then it happened the next time we sat down for a meal, and the next, and the next.
Miles strokes my cheek with a single finger. “It’s not fair for you to shoulder the blame for that. Or for you to take responsibility for your mother’s lack of action until now. Maybe the changes in your life have inspired her to make changes in her own. From what I’ve seen, you’re a very tight family, and it seems a lot more likely that it wasn’t one-sided. You were all holding each other up, and sometimes when people lean on each other too much, they can’t step back and see how it’s impacting them. But your career is taking off, and Hattie is starting hers, so I’m guessing your mom saw you taking steps forward and maybe realized she could do the same. You can only make your own choices, Kitty, and the ones you’ve been making since I met you have all been in line with supporting the people you love, and learning how to give yourself permission to live your own life.”
“How do you always know exactly what to say?”
“I don’t. I just know what I see in you, and that’s an amazing, caring, selfless woman who has spent a lot of time putting her family’s needs ahead of her own. I get that some of that was based on guilt over what happened to your dad. But you were a teenager who was trying to make dinner and not step on your family pet. If you’d had any idea your dad was in trouble, you would have dropped everything.” He sweeps his thumbs under my eyes, wiping away tears.
