The Ex Files (Ocean View #1)(56)

Maybe it’s also her own fault for accepting the scraps he gave her, never demanding more.

Maybe it’s her fault for not shielding you from it better, the librarian whispers, the words so soft I almost miss them as I look to Luke.

“Your mom?” I nod. “You gonna answer?”

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s your mom.” His eyes squint, confused. Of course he is. His family is perfect and normal, his mom sweet and kind and open. But instead of saying that, I nod, swiping to answer and bracing myself.

“Hello, Mom.” Instantly I hear the sniffles.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” I sigh, plopping onto the bed and sinking into the soft mattress.

“It’s not the first, Mom.” I coo the words like she’s a small child or a frightened bird, but I know the inevitable is upon me.

“He was supposed to be mine.” The last word is a wail, and my eyes shoot to Luke. There’s no way he didn’t hear that, no way he’s not listening to the other side of this conversation. Her cries are sobs now, no longer petite sniffles. “He was mine, Cassandra! All those years of dealing with his shit! Of him hiding his family and his money and his mistresses! I deserve the big wedding and the mansion! I deserve to live the good life!”

“Mom, you are living the good life.” Once again, my voice is soft and cajoling. I need to get off the phone. I can feel the anxiety creeping up my throat, suffocating me… putting me in the center of a fight I have no desire to relive.

“It’s not the same, Cassandra. It’s not the same. I’m alone! I’m so lonely. I have no one, nothing at all. He left me for some younger version, and I’m here alone.” Don’t mind me here, your only daughter. Although she lives in Tucson, the last place we all lived together as a family, never once has my mother come to visit me or invited me to stay with her. I’ve offered multiple times, but each time she says she can’t bear the idea of being so close to my father.

“I know this is hard for you, Mom.”

“No, you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t be going to this wedding.”

“He’s my father.”

“And I’m your mother.” This is how it’s been for over ten years, this halfhearted tug of war when it’s convenient, when there’s something to win. But when the interest ends, when my mom doesn’t have my father to bait and my father doesn’t have my mother to antagonize, it’s me who falls into the mud.

“I don’t know what you want me to do, Mom. This is really hard for me.” My throat aches now. Each word hurts as it exits, and, to my humiliation, tears are rising, tears I beg to recede. But since when do emotions obey simple human requests?

“Just like your father. Always worrying about yourself, selfish. I can’t believe this,” she says, and, like most of our conversations, she hangs up before I can say another word. I move the phone to my ear and look at it.

Mom: Call ended, 2:31 seconds is flashing on the screen.

Two minutes is all it took this time for her to get under my skin, to chip another chunk off, her fierce words a chisel to what remains of me.

And then they come.

The tears.

They roll up my throat, into my eyes, and down my cheeks. My elbows go to my knees, my face to my hands, my phone tumbling to the floor as I lose it, crying with the stress of this weekend, the frustration. Of my parents. The responsibilities I shouldn’t have to hold, the disappointment.

I cry the way I do most any time I have to deal with one or both of them—by myself, wallowing for a few brief minutes until I can get it together, clean myself up and move on.

Except this time, powerful arms pull me into a warm lap, cradling me and holding me tight and safe.

Luke.

Luke is here, holding me while I lose it.

“What is this?” he asks once my tears calm. He tugs on my hair tie, releasing my hair before his hand brushes through the hair as my head lies on his chest. My cries slow to quiet sniffles and hiccups, and I don’t want to explain. I don’t want to sound crazy, to feel crazy.

Because I do, right now. I feel crazy. It’s not even my dad or my mom or any of it, not really. Right now, I feel so out of control in my usually carefully crafted life. This man came in and completely tore up everything. And soon it will be over, our time up.

Instead, I give him the easy answer.

“Can we skip this?” The words are muffled into his shirt, but I know he hears them when he answers.

“Of course. We can do whatever you want.” Such a Luke reply.

“I can’t not go.”

“Yeah, you can. You’re an adult. He has little to no influence in your life at this point. You make those choices.” I sigh, rubbing my face into the soft cotton of his shirt smelling faintly of motor oil and cedar, the smell so uniquely and perfectly Luke. Hard work and high class. He dips his knees, arms going from around me to under my knees to lift me as he moves to sit on the bed until I’m cradled in his arms like a small child he needs to care for.

This. This is why it’s getting harder and harder to convince myself ending this is the right move.

It’s also the reason I need to do it.

“I’m dreading this weekend.”

“With your dad?” he asks, and I accept it. Telling him otherwise is too complicated.