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“What does your mom say? And your dad?”
I drop my hands. “Dad says I should forget Tate Ramsey for the rest of my life and put this entire thing behind me. Mom just offers me comfort and lets me cry on her shoulder. She’s given me no real advice besides letting me know it’s going to get better eventually.”
“What if he never does anything? Never reaches out, never makes a public statement, just... disappears. What then?”
I ponder her words for a moment, hating how my stomach churns at the probability of Tate doing exactly that.
It could happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if it did fall out that way.
“Then I know he never cared about me in the first place, and I’ll let him go. I’ve already let him go. If he wants to come back to me, he can.” I glance out the window, at the bright-blue sky with white puffy clouds.
That’s the weird thing about sadness. About losing someone who was so important in your life, even for such a short time. Life goes on. Nothing stops, while you feel as if your world just ended. It might’ve stopped for me, but everyone else is carrying on like nothing happened. To them, nothing did happen.
I’m the one suffering. And it feels like I’m doing this all alone.
I hate that most of all.
* * *
Monday night. It’s late, past eleven, and I still haven’t heard a word from Tate. The gossip seems to have died down somewhat. It helps that there’s another scandal already happening. Another singer getting in trouble for saying something rude about his ex-wife, who’s also famous.
I don’t know how celebrities manage keeping up this sort of thing for years. I can barely handle what just happened to me, and Tate and I were together for almost a month. That’s it.
My parents have tiptoed around me, and I know that’s my mom’s doing. Dad would be in here giving me a lecture on the daily if she hadn’t told him to leave me alone. It’s been nice. Peaceful.
A little lonely.
There is a rapid-fire knock on my door, and before I can say anything, it’s opening, my mother sweeping into the room clad in a pale-blue silk robe, elegant as ever.
“Darling. You need to come out to the living room and watch TV with me,” she declares, standing at the foot of my bed.
I haven’t left it much since I came home, and I’m starting to get sick of it. Sick of myself.
“Why?” I’ve been trying to avoid any sort of media at all costs, except for bingeing a bunch of movies. All of them romantic comedies full of the tropes Rachel told me about. They’re comforting. Though they probably also leave me with too much hope. Like everything between Tate and me is going to work out in the end.
My rational mind says no way is that going to happen, but my hopeful heart?
It’s holding out for a miracle.
“There’s something coming on that I think you should see.” She clasps her hands together in front of herself, watching me. “Just... come out and watch it with me.”
“Is Dad out there?” I really don’t want to hear it from him. I love my father, and for the most part he’s been leaving me alone since I came home, but I know he’s dying to give me a speech.
I’m not ready to hear it yet.
“He fell asleep about an hour ago. It’ll just be me and you. Come on.” She waves a hand. “Join me.”
“Okay, give me a minute,” I grumble as I throw my covers back and slide out of bed.
“Don’t take too long. It’s going to start soon,” she tells me before she leaves my bedroom.
I brush my teeth and pull my hair into a topknot. I don’t bother changing, though. I at least took a shower today, and I’m wearing a silky pajama-shorts set that’s a pale-pink color. A step up from the old ratty clothes I had on for the previous twenty-four hours.
When I enter the living room, I see Mom is perched on the edge of the couch, hunched over and staring at the TV. The moment she notices me, she aims the remote at the screen and pauses the commercial, a faint smile on her face.
“You look good.”
I shrug, settling into an overstuffed chair. “What do you want to show me?”
