AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No?” She hesitated. “I’ve been pushing Gus away for the past year in hopes that I’ll fall out of love with him, and leave him for real, but it’s not working.” She looked at me. “You saw Alex the other night. This is hurting him. I need to make a decision either way.”
Minty lay a cool hand on Amber’s knee. “I don’t know all the details but let me ask you one question. You don’t have to answer it out loud. Are there decisions you made that make you less of a victim, too?”
“The short answer is yes. I just don’t know what to do about it.”
I grabbed a plate and filled it, going heavy on the olives, and passed it to Amber. “In a perfect world, what would you want? I mean, if you weren’t worried about what people might think, if you could make yourself forgive the past, if you could change decisions you made, decisions he made, but couldn’t change anything about who he is, what would you want?”
“Him,” she answered immediately. “But I don’t know if I can get past what he did, even if I understand it.”
Minty slapped her hand down on Amber’s leg. “That, my friend, is a question for another day. Today’s answer is a start. Admitting what you want is one step closer to getting what you need.” She paused. “Now drink up. I brought movies that we’d never be able to watch with Jace and Alex in the house.”
Only Amber made it into a bed, stumbling into her room at two o’clock in the morning. Minty and I passed out on the couches, and I froze half the night with only a lap blanket. In the morning, Minty woke me up and pushed me to get into the shower. She was already showered, dressed, and ready to go.
“Ugh, how are you functioning?”
“Here.” She handed me a glass of water and a pain killer. “This and a hot shower will help. I’m going to get Amber moving. Getting her out of bed in the morning is like trying to wake the dead.”
I could hear Amber complaining from my perch on the edge of the couch. I remembered that both Vander and Gus were coming to Yiayia’s for dinner.
I ran into Amber’s room and jumped on her bed. “Get up, lazybones. Today is the start of a new era. An era where we are not victims, where we captain our own ships, lay down our own road, charter our own voyage, and plough our own row!”
Amber held out her palm. “You’re too much this early in the morning.”
Minty smiled. “I, for one, am not in favour of a lifetime of ploughing my own row.”
Amber lay back with a groan and covered her eyes with her forearm, and I chortled which made Amber laugh.
“Who’s ploughing your row? Do I know about this?” I demanded.
Amber peeked out at Minty from under her arm, waiting for her answer.
“No one. But that doesn’t mean I’m content to leave it that way. All our talk yesterday about being victims and owning our decisions made me realize I’ve got some bad decisions of my own to claim, and maybe some decisions to unmake.”
“Well! Alrighty, then! Let’s go ladies! We’ve got mountains to climb!”
“Oh, god! Enough with the metaphors!” Amber grumbled, and Minty laughed her tinkling laugh, then dropped a pillow on Amber’s grumpy face.
