Sweet Forty-Two(44)

“Shut up. But, that night he played with just CJ on stage, when Willow Shaw came in after? You should have seen yourself. You let go, G. All the way.”

“It was music. What’s your point?” I looked up at her as my cheeks heated.

She took two fingers and ran them across the apple of my cheek. “It was his music. And, for Christ’s sake, you told me he tried to kiss you.”

I thought back to the night that he and CJ dominated E’s for an hour. And I forgot about my life for fifty-eight minutes of that time.

“It was a fluke. And he didn’t really try. It was just that tense, vibrating sort of pre-kiss moment.” I cleared my throat, ignoring my lips’ desperation to have his on them.

“A pre-kiss moment you bailed on.”

My shoulders sank as I pressed my head back into the wall. “I’ll just hurt him. It’s inevitable.”

Lissa grabbed my shoulders. “No, Georgia, it’s not.”

“Genetics are pretty cut and dry, Liss.”

She sighed, keeping her eyes closed as she swallowed hard. “You know that’s not one hundred percent.”

“Whatever. I’m not going to pursue something with someone who isn’t even sure how long he’s going to be here, who has a dead girlfriend that’s sending him mail, only to inform him he’ll lose me when the white rabbit drops his pocket watch down the hole in my brain and I go in after it.”

“You and that goddamn fairytale...” she trailed off in a whisper.

“It’s no f*cking fairytale, Lissa. It’s just the sordid story of a lonely girl. And there’s no prince.”

Lissa dropped her arms from my body and stood back, knowing this was where the conversation ended. It’s where it always ended. She had nothing to say. No charts to disprove the course I was on. No scissors to cut the strings that were tied around my wrists generations ago.

Just a lonely girl.

And no prince.





I remained quiet for the rest of my shift. Head down when behind the bar, smile up when dealing with customers. Lissa didn’t try to smooth over our earlier conversation. Not that she had any apologizing to do, but she knew well enough to leave me alone for the rest of the evening.

When I got into my car, and onto the highway, I had about fifteen minutes to make a decision on which exit to take. Home, to my quiet and comfortable bed, or another twenty minutes north to anywhere but comfort. After a few minutes of indecision, I realized I couldn’t bail on her for the third night.

The staff at Breezy Pointe was beyond accommodating to our situation, and I felt bad when I didn’t use it as set up. Visiting hours were pretty strict and did not encompass three in the morning. But, given I’d be an orphan when she decided she couldn’t take it anymore, they’d always let me work on a schedule with them. Okay, maybe I wasn’t a minor anymore, as I was when I first came out here and started my twilight visits a few times a year, so orphan wasn’t a technical term.

Especially since half of the time I already felt like one.

There was a woman at the front desk I’d only seen a few times before, so it took me a few extra minutes to get back to my mother’s unit. As usual, Daniel was waiting to check me in and put my belongings behind the nurses’ station.

“She’s gonna be pissed,” he mumbled with a slight snicker.

“Did you just curse?” I gasped and dramatically put my hand to my chest.

He shook his head as we approached her door. “You just can’t take no for an answer, can you?”

Actually, I could. I’d heard that word for most of my life. No, things can’t be normal. No, you and Daddy can’t come with me to California. No, I can’t promise you this won’t happen to you, too. Still, for Daniel, I laughed at his attempt at camaraderie.

“I told you not to come here,” my mother’s voice, graciously playful with a hint of discipline, rang from the other side of the door before I even entered.

“Mama,” I sighed, “you’re awake, so am I—what’s the big deal.”

“The big deal, young lady, is you don’t have a life.”

Amanda Hall seemed back to her old self, whatever that meant, and had been getting there over the course of the last several days. She sat on the edge of the bed. No wheelchair, a real smile, and making eye contact with me.

Daniel dutifully stood in the doorway as I walked over to the bed and took a seat next to my mother, laying my head on her shoulder. “You’re my life, Mom.”

“No, Georgia. You’re mine. I demand you go get one.” She nudged my shoulder. “Plus, I’m leaving here as soon as the administrative cats crawl into the office in a few hours.”

Out of habit, when she said something I hadn’t heard from her doctor first, my eyes flashed to Daniel, who refused, it seemed, to look at me.

“You don’t have to check with him, Georgia.” My mother caught me staring. “I checked myself in. I’m checking myself out.”

“No ... I know that. It’s just...”

“You’re scared that if I leave now, I’ll be back here in a few days, like I was last time.”

I nodded, peering up at her as if I were a small child again, and we were in my room for a bedtime story. Those usually had happy endings, though. “Last time you were only out for two weeks, Mom.”