The Mistake (Off-Campus #2)(37)

“Oh. No, I don’t. I meant I have a study group.”

Crap, my eyes are starting to sting, and not because I’m tired. Damn it. So much for being numb—I’m seconds away from bursting into tears.

“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about my visit.” My throat closes up, and I take another breath hoping to loosen it. “I changed my mind about the dates. I want to come earlier.”

“You do?” she says in delight. “Oh yay! I’m so happy! But are you sure? You said you might have plans with your friends. I don’t want you to come early on my account.”

“The plans got canceled. And I want to come sooner, I really do.” I blink in rapid succession, trying to stop the tears from spilling over. “The sooner the better.”





15




Grace


May

People say springtime in Paris is magical.

They’re right.

The city has been my home for the past two weeks, and a part of me wishes I could stay here forever. Mom’s apartment is in an area referred to as “Old Paris.” The neighborhood is gorgeous—narrow, winding roads, old buildings, cute shops and bakeries at every corner. It’s also known as the city’s gay district, and her upstairs and downstairs neighbors are both gay couples, who’ve already taken us out for dinner twice since I got here.

The apartment only has one bedroom, but the pullout couch in the living room is pretty comfortable. I love waking up to the sunlight streaming in from the French doors of the small balcony overlooking the building’s inner courtyard. The faint traces of oil paint lingering in the room remind me of my childhood, back when my mother spent hours working in her studio. Over the years, she painted less and less, and she’s admitted on more than one occasion that the loss of her art was one of the reasons she divorced my father.

She felt like she’d lost touch with who she was. That being a housewife in small-town Massachusetts wasn’t what she’d been destined for. A few months after I turned sixteen, she sat me down and posed a serious question—would I rather have a mother who was miserable but close by, or happy and far away?

I told her I wanted her to be happy.

She’s happy in Paris, there’s no denying that. She laughs all the time, her smiles actually reach her eyes, and the dozens of bright canvases overflowing from the corner nook she’s using as her studio prove that she’s doing what she loves again.

“Morning!” Mom waltzes out of her bedroom and greets me in a voice that contains the joyous trill of a Disney princess.

“Morning,” I say groggily.

The room has an open floor plan, so I can see her every move as she wanders over to the kitchen counter. “Coffee?” she calls out.

“Yes, please.”

I sit up and stretch, yawning as I grab my phone from the coffee table to check the time. Mom doesn’t keep clocks in the house because she claims time weighs the mind down, but my OCD doesn’t allow me to ever relax unless I know what time it is.

Nine-thirty. I have no idea what she has planned for us today, but I hope it doesn’t involve too much walking because my feet are still sore from yesterday’s five-hour visit to the Louvre.

I’m about to set down the phone when it rings in my hand, and I’m annoyed to see Ramona’s name on the screen. It’s two-thirty in the morning in Massachusetts—doesn’t she have anything better to do than keep harassing me? You know, like sleeping.

Gritting my teeth, I drop the cell phone on the bed and let it ring.

Mom eyes me from the counter. “Which one? The boyfriend or the best friend?”

“Ramona,” I mutter. “Who, by the way, I don’t care to discuss, seeing as she’s no longer my best friend, same way Logan isn’t my boyfriend.”

“And yet they keep calling and texting, which means they both still care about you.”

Yeah, well, I don’t care that they care. Ignoring Logan is a lot easier than ignoring Ramona, though. I knew him for a whopping total of eight days. I’ve known her for thirteen years.

It’s almost pathetic the way everything went down. You’d think a decade-plus long friendship would end with a bang, but my showdown with Ramona was nothing more than a whimpering fizzle. Ramona had woken up, seen my face, and realized that Logan had forwarded me her message. Then she’d snapped into damage control mode, but none of her usual tricks had worked on me.

The Forgive Me hug? The crocodile tears? She may as well have been tugging on the emotional heartstrings of a robot. I just stood there like a statue until she’d finally grasped that I wasn’t buying the shit she was trying to sell. And the next day, I moved back home, telling my dad that the dorm was too loud and I needed somewhere quiet to study for exams.

I haven’t seen Ramona since.

“Why don’t you hear her out?” Mom’s tone is cautious. “I know you said she didn’t have a good explanation before, but maybe that’s changed.”

An explanation? Gee, how does one explain the betrayal of their closest friend?

Oddly enough, Ramona hadn’t even offered an excuse. No I was jealous, no I was drunk and wasn’t thinking. All she’d done was sit on the edge of the bed and whisper, “I don’t know why I did it, Gracie.”

Well, it wasn’t good enough for me then, and it sure as hell isn’t good enough now.