calendar from my purse. 'What days, again?'
She told me. 'You could come for the weekend, you
know. Friday night. We could spend a few days together
before I go.'
'Don't push it,' I told her. 'I've got stuff going on, Mom. I can't just pop over and hang out and get home in ten
minutes.'
'You think I don't know that?'
Shit, now she was crying. What was wrong with me, that I
made people around me so upset? 'Mom. C'mon.'
'I miss you, Paige! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I don't have a big,
fancy house like your dad does,' she said more meanly
than I'd ever heard her in my life. 'I'm sorry we don't meet
your standards. But it's what we have, and you didn't turn
out so fucking bad, did you?'
I might have shouted back at her, except I was tired of
fighting. With Austin, with her. With myself. So I said
nothing and after a few moments of tense silence, my mom
cleared her throat.
'I need to leave the house by 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. Be
here before then, please.'
I held back a groan and reconsidered staying over the
night before. Which would be worse, a Saturday night in
my mom's house in Lebanon, or having to get up at ass-
crack o'thirty in the morning? 'Fine. I'l be there.'
'Thank you,' she said stiffly, and not like my mom at al.
'Thank you,' she said stiffly, and not like my mom at al.
'Arty wil be thriled.'
That was the saving grace to it al. That my little brother
would be happy to see me. I didn't miss living in Lebanon,
and I didn't miss living with my mom, but I did miss being
close enough to see them more often. I'd spent a lot of
time taking care of Arty when he was a baby and a
toddler. He was as much my child as he was my brother.
'See you then.' I didn't quite manage to sound happy.
'I love you, honey,' my mom said, and like the bitch-brat I was, I hung up without answering.
Austin didn't cal me, and I sure as hel didn't cal him. Eric
didn't cal me, either, a fact that pleased me less. I knew
why—I'd nudged myself out of the top spot in his pecking
order. It would have been funny if it wasn't also sort of
sad.
It did prove one thing, that whatever we had, or almost
had, it wasn't exactly what he was looking for. The
question I couldn't stop asking myself, though, was could I
give him what it appeared he wanted, ful-time? And
would he want it from me when he found out it was me?
Most of al, did I want to become in real life the woman I'd
created in those letters?
I took my pen. I took the paper, the soft, fragrant, special
paper. I only had a couple sheets left. Maybe I wouldn't
