The Space In Between(25)

I found myself falling for her each moment our eyes locked. Each time she caressed my hand. I knew I wanted to fix Andrea, to help her move on. But the truth of the matter was that she was somehow fixing me.
Mom was happy. I hadn’t seen her happy in such a long time. Whenever I asked Iris to come visit with me, she said she felt uncomfortable with nursing homes. And she hated lying to my mom about the time period. She thought it was unhealthy the way I played along with her illness. But I didn’t think of Mom as being ill. I thought of her as being lost. And if I were lost, I would hope to have someone around me who was willing to help me find my way home.
Her eyes shifted to Andrea’s ring finger and she gasped. “Where’s your ring!?”
Shit. There wasn’t a ring. At least there wasn’t until Andrea reached into her purse, pulled out her engagement ring from Derrick, and slid it onto her finger. Holy crap. She was as f*cked up as I was, and I found it pretty damn sexy. I knew it was messed up.
The three of us talked for hours, discussing stories of the past and welcoming Andrea into my history. “You know, I bought him his first camera.” Mom smiled like she was the proudest woman on this planet. It felt good to see her feeling well.
“Yeah, he told me. He said you inspired him to be great.” Andrea leaned near my mom, her expression filled with care and compassion. “He also said you’re the greatest artist he knows.”
“Yeah, well you know. Cooper’s a liar like that.” She winked at Andrea as we all laughed. I couldn’t think of the last time I was able to actually sit down and have what felt like a real conversation with my mom. Sure, she thought the year was 2009, but it was turning out to be the best year of my life. Who said you couldn’t rewrite history?





“YOU WERE BRILLIANT!” I exclaimed as Andrea and I walked out of the nursing home. “I haven’t seen her like that in…forever. Thank you, Andrea.” We walked over to the rental car we picked up from the airport, and before opening the door for her. I stared at her. She leaned her back up against the car and her soft lips curved into an easy smile. I stood close to her and repeatedly kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for allowing me in.” Her eyes shifted to the ground, and I could tell there was something on her mind.
“What is it?”
“Can I ask what happened to her? Or you can still call panda on this situation.”
My foot began to tap the concrete beneath us as I started to relive the accident. It was right after I’d moved my mom away from my dad. I was out of state doing a photo shoot spread for a magazine and I received a frantic call from my mom.
My father had showed up and forced her to take a ride with him in his piece-of-shit pick-up truck. I was sure his breath was drenched in its normal whiskey cologne. At some point on the line, I could hear my mom screaming. She seemed absolutely terrified and she dropped the phone in the car. “I should have been there.”
“You didn’t know. There was no way you knew.”
“Yeah but, didn’t I? I should have moved her out of the state. Away from him.” I continued to tell her how the truck got wrapped around a pole and my mom slipped in and out of coma. My father died on impact. And when she finally woke up, she thought it was 1992. She thought I was her brother, Travis, and she was so deeply in love with my father and hurt that he wasn’t there.
“The doctors thought her mind would start to unscramble itself over time, but after the first year, there was little hope.”
“Is that why you don’t drink?”
No. I didn’t drink because it landed me in the mental hospital. But I didn’t want her to know that. “Part of the reason.”
“I’m so sorry, Cooper.”
Her blue eyes grew very blue, something that happened when she became emotional about a topic. The idea of a car accident still had to tug at her bruised heart. This trip wasn’t about making her sadder, so I needed to let her know it was okay. “Today was a good day. Let’s hold on to that.”
She wrapped her arms around my back, and pulled me closer to her. We stood there for a moment, taking in what we had witnessed with my mom. The nurses glowed with how we left Mom in a better state than she had been in awhile. I planned to return tomorrow. But right now, all I wanted to do was hold on to Andrea.
She pulled my lips to hers, lightly kissed me, and nibbled on my bottom lip. “I’m hungry.”
I raised an eyebrow and felt a sudden twitch in my jeans. “A soda pop hungry?”
She tossed her head back and laughed as she rolled her eyes. “I’m hungry, Cooper. Food hunger.” She climbed into the car and I closed the door for her. Wandering over to the driver’s seat to get in, I couldn’t help but smirk at her reaction to my question. Hell, you gotta try.

Chapter Fifteen

IT FELT GOOD to laugh. I sat across from Cooper in the Italian restaurant and I was famished. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could eat everything around me. The conversation with Coop was so easy; he made me feel comfortable, and he never came on too strong. I glanced at the rings still on both our fingers from earlier with Grace. Holding my hand up to him, he slid off the engagement ring, and I did the same for him.
“So my cousin is dating your brother.”
“Yup. Since middle school.”
“And they are throwing the big Christmas party.”
“Yup.” My mom had been calling me nonstop since I missed Thanksgiving, and now she was getting heavy on my case because I wouldn’t be home for Christmas. I wasn’t ready to return. I felt I was slowly moving to Order, but I knew the moment I stepped back into Derrick’s and my hometown, I would slide back down to Chaos. It was the curse of the small town.