“What did you ask?” Mom said as she re-entered the kitchen. Tory sat in the doorway behind her, tail swishing as she watched us. Tiddles had no such shame, he was already sitting on one of the chairs at the table and eyed the food as I served out my portion. He wouldn’t get on the table, but he’d definitely mastered the “I’m starving and wasting away to nothing” expression.
Fortunately, I’d mastered ignoring it. Glancing at my mom, I said, “I asked what the occasion was…” I motioned to the chicken. “Thanksgiving isn’t for another couple of months.”
Mom said, “Does it have to be a special occasion?”
That wasn’t an answer. “I guess not.”
“Maybe I just felt like doing something fun to celebrate.”
Yeah. Okay. “Mom, if we’re celebrating, then it’s a special occasion.”
Rolling her eyes, Mom glanced at me and then turned to open the fridge. “True. Do you have time to talk?”
The dread curling my stomach suddenly developed volcanic properties, and my appetite evacuated. “I was doing homework, but—yeah.”
“Don’t sound so thrilled, I wouldn’t want your excitement to overwhelm you.” The dry teasing probably had the opposite effect of what she’d hoped for. I nudged Tiddles off the chair and sat down, then took a bite of the chicken. It was crispy perfect and a little greasy. The rich flavor turned to ash on my tongue, but I kept chewing.
At least if I was eating, I didn’t have to say anything.
A bottle of water in one hand and a Coke in the other, she sat back at the table and put the Coke in front of me while she opened the water. “I met someone.”
Oh. Please don’t tell me. Please…
“I met him a while ago,” she said. “He’s—amazing. We’ve been dating since early last spring.”
I almost choked. At my cough, Mom frowned but waited for me to take a drink before she continued.
“We kept it quiet, personal. I think he was as concerned as I was about whether this would work out. I haven’t been the luckiest, you know.”
Yeah.
I knew.
Blotting my lips with a napkin, I nodded.
“But he went with me these last few business trips…”
“Okay.”
“Frankie—he’s everything I ever wanted in someone. He’s smart, accomplished, and he really respects me.”
Were we talking about the same married man? Or had I missed something?
“Don’t look at me that way, I know you don’t understand. You can’t. You don’t have the best track record yourself.”
Wouldn’t she be surprised? “I haven’t really had the time to date, Mom.” Did that come out too bitchy?
“Fair. You’re very driven. You remind me of me at your age.”
The chicken sat like a rock in my gut, but I made myself take another bite as she served up her own dinner.
“Anyway, this last week…we made some decisions. That’s why I called and told you part of me thought I needed to be there.”
“So it wasn’t a work thing at all, just a guy thing.” Yep, that came out dismissive because her eyes narrowed. “Look, sorry…it’s been a long week. You guys were trying to figure out what was the next step?”
Early last spring to now? That was probably pulling into the six-month category. We’d been there before.
That meant I got to meet him.
I so did not want the new introduction when I already knew him.
Hadn’t Mrs. Standish still been wearing her wedding ring? The bright, shiny diamond ring?
“Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “It’s totally fine. Just had a long week.”
“Oh, how was the party?” Her lips curled a little higher as she smiled.
A number of thoughts danced on my tongue, but none of them made it out of the wings. “It was okay. I didn’t stay late.”
“No? That’s too bad. I thought you might be staying over.”
“So did I.” I shrugged. “Came home instead.”
Her eyes widened. Yeah, Mom. I know you weren’t home.
With a grimace, she reached over to cover my hand. “This is why I wanted to try and have dinner with you. I’ve just been gone so much, and I wouldn’t have been, but this was important.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t going to argue the point.
“Frankie, Edward and I…”
I was going to throw up.
“We’re going to move in together.”
They were what now?
“Edward is the boyfriend?” Yeah, that was exactly what came out of my mouth.
“Yes,” she said, then she took a deep breath and braced her shoulders. “Edward Standish. Archie’s father.”
Fried chicken had just become the ultimate bad meatloaf.
“It may seem fast, I know. But you know Edward, and it really isn’t—we’ve been so happy together. Oh, please be happy for us, Frankie. I know this is going to change things. But we’ll have a bigger place…”
Bigger—we were leaving the apartments?
I stared at her.
“Isn’t he married?”
All of the animation in Mom’s face faded. “Okay. So we’ll tackle the challenging part.”
“Married isn’t a challenge, Mom. It’s a fact.”
“I’m aware of that,” she said, her lips compressing. “It’s not like we planned to fall in love.”
She went there. Oh God. “Or to lie to everyone in your lives?”
Because she’d definitely been lying to me.
“You can be upset, I respect your right to be angry about my choice to not involve you, but you know better. I don’t involve you in my relationships if I can help it.”
Except to break up with them…
Or to leave me covering the house and the cats while you do whatever…
Or when you want to catch a guy’s eye…
But I didn’t say any of those things.
“Archie’s my friend, Mom. Mr. and Mrs. Standish,” yes, I said both their names. “They’re his parents.”
“You and Archie are almost eighteen. I’m not going to discuss Edward’s relationship, but suffice it to say, it’s not been well in some time. He made the decision to divorce her this week, and he’s asked us to move in. I told him we would.” She clutched at my hand again, which was fine cause I wasn’t using it. If I tried to eat anything, I’d probably be sick. As it was, I had to keep down what I’d already swallowed.
“So, done deal. They’re divorced and we’re moving.”
“Frankie,” she said with a sigh. “Please don’t play dumb on purpose. You have an opinion, say it.”
“You don’t want my opinion.” I pulled my hand out from under hers, and I rose to put up my food in Tupperware. No way I was finishing it.
“Of course, I do, this affects your life.”
“If you wanted my opinion, Mom,” I told her carefully, and I kept my tone even. “You wouldn’t have kept him a secret for months. If you wanted my opinion… you wouldn’t have lied to me.” Sealing the lid, I turned around and met her gaze. “If you’d wanted my opinion, you would have asked before you committed me into leaving the apartment we’ve lived in for most of my life to move in with some guy who may or may not divorce his wife, but will certainly have some complicated legal process to jump through. Oh—and the guy in question just happens to be the father of one of my best friends, who will now have to deal with his parents going through a divorce.”
I hadn’t meant to yell, but there it was.
“If you’d wanted my opinion, you’d have told me you were having an affair with a married guy. But you didn’t. You hid it.”
My breath came out in panting little explosions of air. Did she really think he was going to leave his wife? Maybe he would. But—if a man cheats on one wife…
“Are you done?” She asked, all trace of the joy in her expression gone.
And I’d done that.
I’d rained o
n her happy parade.
“I guess,” I said. Because I didn’t really have anything else kind or good to say. My mom was the spoiler in a marriage, and she wanted to move in with the guy.
“Marriages,” she said in the closest thing to a lecturing tone I’d ever heard out of her, and I had no idea how I didn’t roll my eyes, “are complicated relationships. More complicated than you know. It takes being willing to compromise on both sides and valuing the happiness of your partner, sometimes above your own. They can also create ruts where you just stay because it’s the only thing you’ve ever known, and it’s scary to put yourself out there. You can be miserable and be married.”
She sighed.
“I wish I could explain it to you. Eddie—he’d been deeply unhappy—”
“I don’t care,” I found myself saying as I held up my hand, and you’d have thought I slapped her. “I don’t care about him or his feelings. I care that he’s married. I care that you’ve been cheating and lying and sneaking around. I care that you’re about to upend our whole life, and the only assurance you have is he told you he would—guess what, Mom? He told her he’d love, honor, and cherish her for the rest of their lives. How is that working out?”
I don’t know which one of us moved first, but her hand cracked across my face and it stung like hell. Horror flickered in her eyes, but not enough to chase away the rage.
“You don’t like it, fine. Don’t like it. But you still have a few more months here, young lady, and you will be respectful.”
Covering my cheek with my hand, I sucked in a breath and then said, “May I be excused?”
All of the fight went out of her. “Frankie…”
But I didn’t capitulate. All she wanted was respect. Fine. If I wasn’t supposed to care about her setting herself up for failure, then I wouldn’t. We’d been down this road, and it wasn’t like she’d ever been married.
She turned away from me and said in a shaky breath, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have slapped you.”
Yeah. You shouldn’t have done a lot of things. But I kept my opinion to myself.
I waited her out.
“Yes,” she said finally. “You’re excused.”
I grabbed my Coke and walked back to my room. I didn’t slam the door—but God, I wanted to. No, I crossed over to the desk and picked up my phone.
No messages.
Tears burned in my eyes, and I unlocked the screen and did a swipe down to check the notifications. Sometimes when it was in do not disturb, it didn’t display them all. There were numerous notifications from their messages. I cleared those—most of them I’d read, but a couple of them were apologies that I hadn’t.
Nothing recent. Not since that morning.
There were—good lord, a hundred notifications from Instagram. I’d been tagged in a bunch of photos?
I’d check that in a minute. There were some Reddit thread updates, and a Snapchat from Cheryl. I hit that first because I had no idea how old it was.
“Hey girl! What color for the dress? I don’t want to match. I want to do silver. I think.”
I literally had no thoughts on that whatsoever, so I just closed snapchat out and went back to my messages. Tabbing into Jake’s, I scanned to where I sent the hey.
Read. The timestamp was for less than a minute after I’d sent it.
But he hadn’t answered.
Okay.
Thumb hovering over the keypad, I debated what I wanted to say. A hundred sentences entered and discarded immediately.
Finally, I went with the truth.
Me: I need to get out of here. Are we still on?
Maybe it was selfish. I’d shut him down the night before, and if he wanted to blow me off, fine. I had my car. My stomach hurt, and I stared at the homework I still needed to finish. The math was mostly done, I just needed to log in and do it online.
I’d take my bag with me.
Flopping back on the bed, I stared at the ceiling. My bedroom door was still open, but it was quiet beyond my room. Tiddles had followed me inside, and he jumped up to demand attention. I stroked his back as I stared at the message.
No read receipt.
The group chat was quiet, too.
I scrolled to Archie’s text.
Me: Hey
Archie: Hey you. How you doing?
Me: Not great. Talked to Mom.
Archie: Do you want me to call?
What did I want him to do?
Me: She’s still here.
Even if I hadn’t heard her in the last few minutes, it didn’t matter. My face hurt.
Archie: What can I do?
Me: I don’t know.
How much did I tell him? I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
Archie: I can be there in fifteen. Pick you up. Ice cream?
Archie: We can walk around the lake.
It wasn’t raining out there.
Archie: Frankie?
I scrolled back to Jake’s text message. Still no response. Still no read receipt.
Me: Do you know where Jake is?
His answer was a long moment coming.
Archie: He had to run an errand. I’ll text him that you’re with me.
Archie: Let me come get you?
I should say no, I shouldn’t be selfish, and at the same time…
The television turned on in the living room.
Me: Yes please.
Archie: On my way. 15 mins.
I rolled off the bed and got changed. Clean leggings and an oversized shirt along with a bra, and then shoved my feet into my running shoes. Not that I planned on running, but better for going around the lake. I dug a hoodie out of the back of the closet—it was one of Ian’s old ones. I borrowed it in sophomore year and never gave it back. I didn’t think it was that cold, but better to have it than not.
Finger combing my hair, I pulled it up into a ponytail before I stuffed my homework and laptop back into my backpack. Wallet and keys in the bag, I flicked off the light and grabbed my phone before I headed out. I didn’t bother making eye contact with Mom as I swung through the kitchen and headed to the back door.
“Leaving,” I told her. “Back later.”
“Frankie,” Mom called, but I played the deaf and dumb card.
“Gotta go, in a hurry, bye.” And I was out, I didn’t bother to the lock the door. She was capable.
Down the steps and on my way to the parking lot, I wanted to be away from the apartment, and I didn’t want her to catch me up.
Me: Walking up the hill. Be at the sign when you get here.
The sun seemed almost too bright, and as soon as I got to the apartment sign, I dug out my sunglasses. I still had at least six more minutes, so I checked Jake’s message.
No read receipt. No answer.
Hopefully, everything was okay.
Flipping to Instagram, I half-expected to see pictures from the party. The first one—a close up of Ian hitting Archie made me wince. I scrolled past it and then my stomach bottomed out.
It was a black text box with letters in it.
Smart is the new dumb.
It was a story, and it had me tagged. The next image was Ian and Sharon making out at a party. His hands were down her pants, and she was on his lap. All it said in the caption was Back to school party, 2 weeks ago. The next image was Ian kissing me by my car. Smart? The image after that was Ian with Sharon again, only she was clearly topless, even if there was no boob showing. Probably not.
The next image was Archie and Patty, and based on the image—it was the same location. Archie’s house. The swimming pool was visible. At least she wasn’t in Archie’s lap, though she was wrapped around him from the back with her hand down his swim trunks and his head tilted back to look up at her. 2 weeks ago. The next image had to have been taken when me and Archie got to the football game, he had an arm around my shoulders, and he’d been telling me a story, whispering in my ear. A week later. Then another of Patty and Archie, only he had his hands covering her ba
red boobs, and she was laughing. It was a close up, but there were other people—in the hot tub with them.
The next image was Coop and Laura, Jake and Maria, Ian and Sharon, and finally Archie and Patty. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Then a series of photos with just the guys and me flicked past. Then back to Ian hitting Archie.
Smart? Nope. Guess the untouchable princess finally started putting out.
The photos were old but—not that old. And I knew all of it…except for the hot tub. The guys had lives before we talked about dating.
I knew this.
Didn’t mean it didn’t sting.
I didn’t recognize the name who posted it, but they tagged just about everyone and hashtagged the senior class.
The number of likes and comments made me ill, and I scrolled away from it. I wasn’t going to read those.
But I wasn’t ready to see another Jake and Maria photo. They were at the wings place close to the high school, and it was posted only minutes before with the #togetheragain? on it.
The gentle honk of a horn pulled my head up, and I met Archie’s gaze. He frowned, then leaned over and pushed open the passenger door. Feet dragging, I climbed in and he caught my backpack and put it behind the seat.
“Hey,” he said, frowning. “What the hell did she say to you?”
“A lot…and then I saw this.” I turned the phone over to show him.
With a sigh, he said, “That’s not what it looks like.”
When I scrolled up to the story, his expression darkened.
“But that is,” I said, then clicked off the phone and leaned my head back against the seat.
“Buckle up,” he told me, his tone almost brisk. “We’re getting you out of here, and then we talk, okay?”
I nodded. At the moment, I’d do just about anything to make this sick, sinking feeling go away. “I’m sorry, Archie… you didn’t have to come.”
Changes and Chocolates: Untouchable Book Two Page 9
