Page 231 of Promising You
“I won’t be there. I’m spending the summer in California.”
“Without Garret? I thought you weren’t going since you guys broke up.”
“I’m still going. Harper and her boyfriend are renting the place next to mine.”
“Then I guess after Friday I won’t see you until September.”
“Yeah. Probably not.”
We say goodbye and he goes to his dorm and I go in mine. Carson will be the first person to investigate why I’m not here next fall. Truthfully, he’ll be the only one who cares. Nobody else will even notice. Except Harper. I haven’t decided what to tell her yet. But I have all summer with her, so it’s not like I have to tell her this week.
I haven’t told Frank and Ryan my plans either, and I’m not going to until I know for sure where I’m going in the fall. If I told them now, they’d ask too many questions and I don’t have the energy to come up with a story they’ll believe. I’ll tell them later when all this is over.
The week continues with more finals during the day and more campouts at night with Garret. We only sleep a couple hours each night. There’s no time for sleep. As much as I don’t want to believe it, this could be our last week together and just the thought of that makes me want to savor each moment we have left.
Part of our nights are spent being together physically, but most of our time is spent lying in each other’s arms talking. Telling each other things that bring us even closer. Things we wouldn’t tell others. Things we probably wouldn’t have told each other for a very long time, but now time is running out and we have to fit it all in during these last few days. I want to know everything about Garret, even though I may never see him again after this week.
He tells me more about his mom and all the stuff he went through after she died. He tells me a story about when he was 14 and got drunk for the first time. He came stumbling home and his dad pretended to not even notice and that’s when he assumed his dad didn’t care about him anymore. That single incident started the years of drinking he now regrets.
Tonight we’re on the topic of my mom. I don’t know why but for some reason I tell him a story about when I was 8 and had the flu and threw up on the carpet because I couldn’t get to the bathroom fast enough. I was so sick I could barely move, but my mom made me scrub the carpet until it was clean. I hated her for it. Part of me still does. Maybe that’s why I told Garret that story. Maybe by telling him I can move on and not be so angry about it.
“Okay, your turn,” I say. “Tell me something else. Anything.”
We’ve been taking turns telling each other stuff. I wait for him to talk, but he doesn’t. Instead he looks at me like he wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should.
“Go ahead,” I tell him.
“Jade. . . did you love your mom?”
I stare back at him, surprised that he would even think to ask me something like that, especially after I just told him that story about her.
Deep down I know the answer to that question, but I’ve never admitted it to myself because it’s wrong and crazy and makes absolutely no sense. And I’m not sure why Garret even cares. What difference does it make?
“Jade?” He’s still waiting for me to respond, sitting across from me holding both my hands.
I notice that I’m shaking a little as I nod. “Yes. I loved her.” I pick my arm up and use my sleeve to quickly wipe away a tear. “Why are you even asking me that?”
“Because I think you needed to hear yourself say it.”
I don’t respond because now I’m pissed I said it at all.
He reaches for the hand that’s now in my lap. “It’s okay, you know. You can love her even after everything she did to you.”
“No, it’s not okay!” I rip my hands from his and scoot back a little, hugging my knees to my chest while a few more tears manage to escape my eyes. “She doesn’t deserve it. She deserves nothing but hate from me.”
He comes over and wraps me tightly in his arms so I can’t pull away despite my all-out effort to do so.
I’m so angry. Not at Garret, but at myself for saying I loved her. I give up fighting him and just let my body relax into his.
“I shouldn’t have loved her. It’s wrong.” I keep my head down against his chest. “But I did. And I don’t know why.”
“Because she was your mom,” Garret says softly.
It’s true. It seems like the reason should be more complex than that but it’s not. She was my mom and as horrible as she was to me, I’m her child and children love their moms. And I loved her because even as a child, I knew she was struggling with some kind of deep, devastating pain that never went away and I wished more than anything that I could help her somehow. Now I know the cause of her pain and the reason she acted that way, but it’s still hard for me to say that I loved her.
“Jade. Can I ask you something else?”
“Yeah.”
