Page 50 of Unlikely
“I always knew she would move for college,” I start. “I’m not really that mom who wanted to cramp her style, but a lot of stuff happened in the eighteen months before we moved, and I kind of used her as an excuse to leave Seattle.”
At this small peek into my past, she squeezes my hand, offering me some comfort. I wait for her to ask for more, because I don’t know if I can bring up Lola all by myself.
“Has it helped?” she asks, completely bypassing the obvious question. “Being here?”
“Kind of felt like being a new kid at school,” I admit. “Making new friends, starting a new job, finding ways to keep myself busy while watching Raine become more and more independent.”
Because I’m not familiar with our surroundings, I don’t know where exactly we are, but I notice she’s parked us across the road from a red brick building that has a huge sign in front of it that says On The Horizon.
“I remember that feeling,” she confesses, staring out the window. “It was like that when I left this place.” She turns to face me, and my eyes shift from the building and back to her. “This is the group home where I grew up.”
The street lights give just enough of a glow that I can see the mixed emotions swirling in her eyes and the sad smile sitting on her lips. My heart squeezes for the little girl who grew up here; what she lost, what she gained, what she endured. Grateful and privileged that she chose to share something so private and intimate with me.
“Do you visit it often?” I ask, curious for her reasoning behind bringing me here.
“I wanted to keep in the line of firsts between us,” she says, referring to my earlier statement about the restaurant. “I visit the kids here once a month. Cook dinner, watch a movie, help with homework.”
“Clementine, that’s am?—”
She puts her other hand up between us, my words trickling back into my mouth. “I don’t want the praise. I’ve just never told anyone before.”
Shifting in my seat, I grab the hand that’s still held up in mid-air and put mine flat against it, palm to palm. “I’m going to praise you whether you want me to or not, because it’s amazing. I have no doubt it means everything to those children, But why haven’t you told anyone else?”
Her shoulders rise and fall. “What’s the point? To get praise? A pat on the back? I’m not doing it for that.”
She deserved all that and every other kind of accolade that comes with her generous act of kindness, but since I know she doesn’t want any of it, I ask the only other thing I do care to know. “So, why choose to tell me?”
Pink tints her cheeks, and she momentarily averts her gaze before raising her eyes to look into mine. “I don’t really want to be the same person with you that I am with everyone else.”
IthinkI know what she means, and yet it still stings, because I want to know all of her. I want to know every side and every version. I want to know what she thinks is wrong with the person she is with everyone else versus who she is with me.
“You know you can be both,” I remind her. “Or you can ditch one and be the other. There’s no hard or fast rule that says you can never change.”
“I think it’s more everyone’s expectation that you’ll never change,” she confides. “That you’re reliable and dependable and always there.”
Her words strike a chord, so deep, it borderline hurts. There isn’t a day where I don’t want to be the person Raine and Jesse and Leo can turn to about Lola, and yet, some days I want to yell and scream because I can’t bear the weight of the wall my own feelings are hiding behind.
“I was a surrogate for Leo and Jesse, Raine’s dads.” The words tumble out of me, like her own self-awareness was the key to unlock my own. “But Lola died at birth.”
She swallows hard as she takes in my words, all her attention on me, eyes full of empathy. Our palms still touching, her skin soft against mine, the current a low electric hum between us. As if the connection is the only way we can exchange truths.
“And some days…” The words sit on the edge of my tongue, second guessing whether or not I want to say the ugliest secret I have ever.
“Some days,” she echoes, her voice a soft, gentle coaxing.
“Some days I wish I could just turn it all off,” I reveal. “Some days I wish I could remind them that I hurt too.”
It’s a mix of both betrayal and freedom to have the confession slip past my lips. I both hate and love it.
“I’ve never told anybody that,” I say, feeling a whole lot of shame. “It makes me feel so selfish to even think it.”
Clementine’s hands drop from mine, and she swoops in, cradling my face, bringing hers to mine, till we’re only a breath apart.
“A first,” Clementine says, the words ghosting over my lips, before she presses her mouth to mine. I kiss this version of her that takes what she wants. I let her absolve my guilt and trust her to keep my secrets.
17
CLEM