Page 43 of Not You Again
I choke on my food, reaching for my glass of water. A few gulps do the trick, and I take in a deep breath as I slouch in my chair. Thank God there are no cameras here to witness this conversation. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything, Kit.” She pushes her food around but doesn’t take a bite. “I want to know everything about the woman who’s stolen your heart.”
I bite my tongue to keep from correcting her—our hearts are definitely not involved. Andie has made that perfectly clear. I’m grateful I never told Mom about Andie when we dated the first time. Four fast and fiery months that went up in smoke; at least Mom didn’t have to witness that destruction too. After swallowing another bit of food, I try to answer. “Her name is Andie. Brown hair, hazel eyes, about your height.”
Mom snorts. “I mean who is she as a person?”
“She’s determined.” I scoop up another bite of casserole. “Proud. Stubborn.”
“Sounds like a good match for you, then.” Mom takes a sip of water, and I eye her shaking hand carefully as it returns the glass to the table.
“What does that mean?” I mumble around a mouthful of food.
“Kit, you and I both know how you get when you’re faced with a problem.”
I bide my time chewing, then chasing it all down with a swig of water. “How’s that?”
“You’ve never been able to sit with it.” She pins me with her stare. It’s too perceptive. Even now, despite how much I want to prove her wrong, my body revs like it needs to run. “You need someone stubborn to keep you in the room long enough to work it out.”
“I’m sorry.” The words tumble from my mouth, and still I want to flee the table. Will I ever feel okay with my decision to leave? “I should have stayed with you when you needed me.”
She waves it off. “You were young and didn’t know how to handle it.”
My foot bounces under the table and my eyes dart to the front door.
“You can stop running, Kit.” She reaches a hand across the small table and grips my wrist.
I don’t know how to explain the storm of emotions swirling in my chest, or the thoughts clattering in my head. How sitting here at this table without my dad still makes me feel so lost. Leaving was the only way to outrun the grief crushing me from all sides—my dad no longer with us and my mom slipping away in front of my eyes, grief eating away at her. Running was the only way I could breathe.
I frown at a pea that’s rolled to the edge of my plate, thinking of Andie yanking open those curtains again. My foot stills under the table.
“When do I get to meet her?” Mom asks, a smile tugging at her lips and a sparkle in her eyes. It’s a ray of sunlight peeking through the storm of drugs that rob her of her energy, and part of me is ready to call Andie right now and tell her to come over if it means it will make my mom feel better.
But that light in my Mom’s eyes will flicker out again if she sees Andie and me together and sees the truth—we’re not in love. And we won’t be falling, either.
I stuff another forkful of food into my mouth. “I don’t know. She’s really busy. Works late a lot.” It’s a half-truth. Andie is incredibly busy, but Cassidy already asked me to pick a date for the “meeting the parents” episode with my mom. She said she needs to scout locations and get filming releases beforehand. I told her I’d ask Mom, but I can’t bring myself to ask her to allow the chaos that is First Look at Forever into her life. Not when she needs peace and quiet.
“Doing what?” Mom puts down her fork and gives up the pretense of eating. My heart sustains a tiny, paper cut–thin tear.
“She runs her own business.” I set my fork down too. My appetite is evaporating by the second. “Making wedding dresses.”
“Can I see?” That spark in my mom’s eyes is impossible to say no to, so I pull out my phone and google Andie’s website. I haven’t looked at it yet, mostly because I haven’t had the time, but now that it’s in front of me, I’m greedy for it.
It’s not pink. I don’t know why I expected it to be pink. Andie isn’t a pink kind of person, anyway. Instead, the website is variations on sunshiny yellows with a clean, modern font and photos of some of her designs. I pass my phone to my mom and let her poke around.
“She’s showing at Atlanta Fashion Week,” I say, just to keep from snatching my phone back to look at the website again. It’s a piece of her, and I don’t know what to do with it.
“What does that mean?” Mom taps on the phone screen.
I scrub my knuckles along my five o’clock shadow and admit, “I’m not sure. She hasn’t told me much about it, but she’s always working on new designs after I’ve gone to bed.”
Mom makes a noncommittal noise, and I make a mental note to look up what it takes to show at Fashion Week.
“She’s beautiful, Kit.”
My eyes snap to Mom, who’s smiling at my phone screen. I know she hasn’t opened my photos, because I haven’t taken any of Andie. The only image I have of her is the one I drew on hotel paper and hung on our fridge.
Mom turns the screen toward me, and it’s like a kick to the chest. She’s pulled up the site’s About page, and right there is a picture of Andie at her workstation, focused on the task at hand.