AllFreeNovel
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“Are you okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine.” She looks up again. I know she’s lying, and so does she. She’s not ‘fine’ at all.
“How’s Dad?”
“Exhausted. Eating does that to him sometimes. He’ll be a lot better when he’s rested.”
He only woke up an hour ago, but I don’t comment.
“I know I’ve asked this before, but I’m gonna ask it again… would it help if I moved back here?”
She tilts her head, frowning at me. “Are you asking that because it would provide you with a good excuse for not working things out with Hunter?”
“No.” At least, I don’t think so. “I just keep thinking about how selfish I was to leave you. It’s hard work, looking after Dad.”
“Yes, it is. But as I told you the last time you asked me that question, he’s not your responsibility. Neither am I. You have a life of your own, Livia, and you need to live it. Don’t get me wrong, you’re welcome to stay for as long as you need, but if you want to go back to Boston or find a place somewhere else, then you go right ahead and do it.”
“Where would I go?” I sit opposite her, and she reaches out, taking my hand in hers.
“Are you saying it’s over between you and Hunter?”
“I don’t know. If he hadn’t come calling today, I think the decision would have been a lot easier.”
“It would?”
“Yeah. I think I’d probably have stayed here for a while, licked my wounds, found a job in Portland, and maybe moved there… so I’d be close by.”
She narrows her eyes, but doesn’t repeat her point about living my own life. She doesn’t need to. The look on her face says it all.
“The thing is, he did come calling…” she says, leaving her sentence hanging.
“I know.”
“And that complicates things?”
“I knew where I stood before.”
“And where was that?”
“In the wilderness, broken… on my own.”
She squeezes my hand. “You’re never on your own.”
I smile at her. “I know… but can’t you see? Now it’s so much harder.”
She sucks in a breath, letting it out slowly. “Do you want to go back to Boston?”
“I enjoyed living there. I liked my apartment. But if I went back, would Hunter take it as a sign?”
“A sign of what?”
“That I wanted to re-kindle things between us.”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know what I want, other than to talk to him… to understand what happened. But I can’t do that. I’m still too angry with him to think straight.”
“Anger rarely lasts very long. You’re feeling bruised and hurt. Is there any reason you have to decide straight away? Like I said, you can stay here for as long as you want.”
