Page 47 of All of You
We don’t talk and I don’t know how much time passes, but I don’t feel as alone. I don’t feel as desperate and broken as I did. Langdon’s breaths are steady and rhythmic. I like it. I don’t mind him when he isn’t talking. I don’t mind lying next to him like this. My thoughts become less about Mom leaving and more about Langdon and why he’s here and what he wants and how warm he feels.
***
I wake to my alarm.I slept all night?Stretching I stare at the ceiling, feeling mildly more myself than I have this week. I glance out the window. Sunny. Looks warm too. Tossing the covers off me I hop out of bed and get ready for school. A pang of grief hits me as I brush my teeth, but I shove it into the depths of myself and carry on.
Heath has a freshly baked muffin waiting for me.What time does this guy wake up?
“What’s the over-under on today? I have a doctor appointment this afternoon,” he asks. It might be the most words he’s spoken to me all at once this week.
I stare at him briefly hit by an overwhelming moment of kinship. “I’m so sorry,” I breathe.
He waves a hand in the air. “Just need to know which way my day is going is all. Nothing to be sorry about.”
I sling my backpack over one shoulder. “I’m going to stay today and go to work—if I still have a job.”
“Viv’ll be happy to see your face. Don’t worry about that.” He leans a hip against the countertop.
I don’t want our connection to end. Since mom left he tiptoes around me. Barely speaks. Stares at me awkwardly when he thinks I’m not paying attention.
I shoot him a disbelieving look. “Yeah. I’ve just magically been granted three days off.”
He looks at the kitchen floor. “You better get used to the people here. That good things happen and that grace exists. Now hurry up. Bus’ll be here in five.”
I smile at Gramps. It hurts my cheeks. I haven’t smiled all week. It feels wrong to have this little moment of okay-ness together—without Mom. “Thanks. For…”
He puts up a hand and smiles. “Better go.”
Twenty Four
Langdon
Her bedroom smelled like flowers and coconut candles. I never wanted to leave that bed. But Heath stomped up the stairs loud enough for the whole house to hear and I scooted off her bed and went to the door, careful not to wake her. Heath nodded at me as I left and gave me a little pat on the shoulder.
“She’s asleep,” I told him on my way out.
“How is she?” Mom asks when I blow through the door.
“Sad. But still spunky,” I say.
Mom gives me a sad smile. “Just like her mother.”
“What happened? Why’d she leave?”
Mom shrugs. “I have my suspicions but I don’t know.”
“I don’t mean now. I mean why’d she leave before?”
Mom’s eyes dart all over the room. “It’s not my story to tell Lang. Things were different back then, it was complicated.”
I snort. “That sounds like crap.”
“Language,” she snaps. “You’re a kid Lang. You don’t need to know the details of any adult’s lives.”
“Mom, come on, I’m seventeen.”
The tighter Mom’s grip the harder I pull away. I hate that she uses the adult child thing as a cop-out. I’ve lived through plenty that mostkidsdon’t have to experience, yet she treats me like I’m some sheltered toddler.
“All you need to know is that people can figure out how to get by if they can learn to forgive, live with the scars of the past, and accept who they are in the now.”
