"These people recorded your fiancé, their friend, fucking their other friend, who was standing up in your wedding?"
Mom nodded. "Yup." She popped the P at the end.
“That’s trashy in so many ways," I said.
"They were all shockingly shitty people, looking back. My dad never liked Michael, so when I ran from the wedding, he was all too happy to help me get away. He took me to his favorite dive bar near an airfield out in the middle of nowhere, and I got absolutely shitfaced."
I laughed. "Nice. Is there any other way to handle that situation?"
“No, there is not. But then, I got a wild hair up my ass, decided I couldn't possibly stay in Seattle another second, and got into an airplane about to take off. The pilot agreed to just fly away with me, since I was a drunk, spurned bride in the throes of an emotional breakdown. I ended up here in Ketchikan, walked into Badd's Bar and Grille, and met your dad."
"And the rest is history," I said. "What's that got to do with me?"
"I fought my feelings for him for a long time, Dunc. I fought them hard. You take after your father in that sense—he knew what he felt and accepted it before I did." She tipped her head side to side. "Well, sort of. It was a whole back and forth thing. Whatever. The point is, I fought my feelings. I did stupid things in an effort to get away from how I felt for him, and he did the same thing. But I…" she sighed. "He did something that hurt me, the details of which are one of the things you don't want to know about. The important thing is that he hurt me, emotionally, and I tried to run. The only thing that kept me here was that I couldn't find a way to physically leave Ketchikan before he found me. Which he did."
"Mom…what's this got to do with my situation?"
She rested a hand on my forearm. "The point is that I understand where she's coming from. If she had a cheating ex, I'm guessing she's had more than one cheating ex. And that does a number on you. Makes it really hard to trust. And not just men—it makes it hard to trust yourself." She touched my jaw and made me look at her. "We all know what a good guy you are, Duncan. You're not perfect. I'm sure if we interviewed your previous girlfriends and…um, paramours…they'd have things to say about you. But you're not a cheater. You're not abusive. You're good. You're kind. Right?"
I shrugged, uncomfortable. "I hope so? I try to be."
"Right—you try. And you succeed more than you don't. But she doesn't know that. You spent how long together? A few days?"
“Yeah, but—"
She gave me a look that shut me up. "I'm not denying that you can develop very real feelings for someone you haven’t known very long, Dunc. I developed very strong feelings for Bast within days of meeting him, and that's what freaked me out. My question was more about her state of mind. Maybe she did feel things for you, but like me, she wasn’t ready to accept it. Maybe your feelings were just you, maybe you saw or felt something she didn't. The only way to know is to ask her."
“She snuck out while I was asleep and didn't text me until she got back to Seattle,” I told her. “And then she texted me, basically saying thanks and goodbye. It was very clearly a 'don't call us, we'll call you' thing, but without the 'we'll call you' part."
Mom winced. "Oof. Yeah, that's tough, bubbie. I'm sorry." She rubbed my shoulder. "You must have really felt like there was something big there if you're this upset about it a month and a half later."
"I don't know how to put it," I murmured, almost whispering.
"Bluntly."
"It was supposed to be just a fun weekend. A hookup. But then when we actually…you know…it was…" I shook my head. "I felt connected to her on, like, a spiritual level, Mom. No joke. It was incredible. Then there was the wedding itself and we got drunk and when I woke up the next morning, she was just gone. No note, no goodbye, nothing. Just gone. And all I got from her was thanks, goodbye, and sorry it had to be like this. I don't care about the thank you, honestly. I just…I wanted more from her, even just a face-to-face goodbye."
"And what I'm telling you, baby, from experience with almost exactly this kind of situation, is that she may not have been capable of giving you that. She was dealing with big-time hurt from her ex. You don't just get over that. And then she meets a guy like you and feels something? But she's in Alaska, on vacation…"
I nod, sighing bitterly. “Yeah, I see that. It still sucks. And I don't know how to—"
I cut off because my phone was buzzing on the counter next to me—a call, not a text. And except for Elias, no one would call me or text me at this hour.
I frowned at the screen: RUNE.
I looked at Mom. "It's her."
Mom frowned at the clock on the stove. "At almost four in the morning? Answer it, son. She wouldn't call at this hour for no reason." She got up to leave, intending to give me privacy, but I clapped a hand on her shoulder, feeling like I’d need her support for whatever was coming next. "Stay? Please?"
"Of course, baby." She sat back down.
I swallowed hard, dragged the phone across the counter, hesitated with my finger on the slider, and then accepted the call, putting it on speaker. "Rune? You okay?"
Silence.
"Rune?"
Nothing.
