AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I want to put my foot on the gas and speed right to her, but something tells me to turn the other way and head back to my place. I get the feeling that if I don’t respect her wishes, I’ll lose her.
* * *
I hop up, not bothering with my leg, and hop over to my front door when I hear someone knocking a few hours later. I leave the door open and turn away disappointed when I see that it’s just my mother and my two sisters wearing apologetic smiles and carrying plates of food.
“We’re sorry, O,” my youngest sister Willa starts off.
“Truly, Hon,” my mother adds, “If I knew you were bringing a friend home I would have told you Ava was going to be there.” When I bark out a laugh she rushes to add, “I never would have invited the Palmers over.”
“It would have been pretty easy to pass that information along. And even if I wasn’t bringing someone home, why were you trying to get me alone in a room with Ava and her family? Are you all playing matchmaker or something?”
“But why don’t you like Ava?” my sister Nan whines. “She’s perfect for you!”
“She’s not,” I tell all of them as I take the foil off one of the plates and dig into my mother’s noodle pudding. “I’m not getting back together with Ava so you’d better get over it.”
“Grace seemed very nice,” my mother offers up cautiously.
“And she’s prettier than Ava.”
“Willa, that’s a crappy thing to say!”
“Shut up, Nan. You were laughing behind Grace’s back before, cracking on her clothes.”
“Girls!” They both stop, and even I turn to look because my mother sounds downright apocalyptic right now. “Go out to the car and wait for me.” When they don’t hop to it, she all but screams, “Now!”
She comes over to join me at the island and then sighs when I go on ignoring her. “You never told me why the two of you broke up. I never understood it.”
“I’m thirty-five. You’re not entitled to updates on my love life and you don’t have to understand.”
“Ava just seems so crushed over it.”
“She’ll survive. And what she said back at the house?” I look up from my plate. “Sorry, but you’re not about to be a grandma.”
“Oh, Owen.” She shakes her head. “Are you sure she’s not in trouble?”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “I’m sure. And that little performance? Typical Ava. I know you think Ava’s a saint, but she’s not. She’s manipulative, and for the life of me, I don’t know what drove me to get involved with her in the first place. I was never really into her in high school, and I—”
“But life has changed since then…Life has changed for you.”
I get up, hop over to the sink and slam the dish in with force, not giving a damn if it breaks. Making my way over to the couch where I left my leg, I tell her, “I get it. You still see me as a cripple. Like I should be grateful that Ava or any other woman would want to be with me.”
“I do not!”
“You do.” I’m boiling with rage, madder still when I acknowledge that the feeling is fueled by a deep-seated shame that I haven’t confessed to in years. “You worry about me all the fucking time. Look around,” I gesture to nothing in particular, “I have a home, a good career, friends...I don’t deserve to be pitied.” When she goes to speak, I stop her. “Ava might come off as well-meaning, but she’s the same. I think in her warped mind she believed moving in with me was some act of benevolence on her part or something...Like she was going to be my very own Florence Nightingale.”
“Isn’t it possible that she simply cares about you?”
“She lied about needing a place to stay for a few months, played on my sympathy. And I hate to break it to you, but her ex-husband isn’t the monster she’s made him out to be. Ava cheated onhim. That’s why he kicked her out. So now she’s on the hunt for a new husband who can provide her with the lifestyle she’s become accustomed to. She saw me as an easy mark.”
“I’ve known Ava for most of her life. I can’t believe—”
“I’m not asking you to believe me, and I’m not asking you to sever ties with Ava or the Palmers. I’m justtellingyou that if you want me in your life, you need to respect me and the choices I make.”
Her voice is barely above a whisper when she says, “I think it’s best that I go now.”
Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.Those words are on the tip of my tongue, but I hold back. What she did today was wrong, plain and simple, but both of them, my mother and my father, have made sacrifices for me and they’ve been in my corner since the day I was born.
“Owen.” I turn to see her standing in the doorway looking defeated. “Believe me when I say that I never meant to make you feel that way. I’m proud of you and I always have been. I hope you know that.”
