13. Ellison
My phone rings with the theme song for Cruella DeVil and I cringe just like every person in the movie when the villain comes on screen. Every cell in my body begs me to ignore it, but if I do, it will only be worse when she calls back.
I don’t need worse, so I swipe accept and press the speaker button.
“Hello, Mother.”
“For a moment there I thought you were going to make me leave a message.” She sniffs and I roll my eyes. Sheri Ann Mills might live by the rule the higher the hair the closer to Jesus, but there isn’t much holy about my mother.
“I was in the other room and heard it ring,” I lie easily, knowing she doesn’t believe me for a second.
“I still don’t know why you didn’t stay at the house. It’s ridiculous to stay in something so…menial when you can stay at home.”
My childhood home itself is stunning, but it’s beautiful in the way a magazine spread makes a house look and not because it’s warm and inviting. It has been through extensive renovations over the years, wiping away any traces of simpler or happier times.
“I don’t need all that space. Besides, the cottage is closer to the school.”
“And that boy.”
My fist tightens around my water bottle as I try one of those deep breathing exercises I learned when I went to those three yoga classes back in Savannah. It’s no use, and my good mood from the night before starts to wane.
“Montana isn’t a boy, Mother, and he’s still my best friend. I don’t know why you dislike him so much, but we’re not kids, and if you don’t have anything nice to say about him you can keep it to yourself.”
She huffs indignantly like we’ve never had this conversation before.
“Well, let me know when you’re free, and I’ll make a reservation for you and Dustin at the country club.”
“Did you not hear me before I left Savannah?” I say, my voice rising with every word. “I will never go out with him. I don’t care that you think it was a misunderstanding. He tried to put his hand up my skirt after I told him to stop. He deserved more than a punch to the face.”
“You broke his nose, Ellison.” She breathes disapprovingly like I was the one who’d gone too far.
It’s probably a good thing she can’t see the smile spread wide across my lips right now. Montana had wanted to murder Dustin, but once I wrestled his keys from his hands and told him how I’d thrown a punch just like he’d shown me, Montana had settled down.
“And he deserved so much more.”
My mother is silent, and I have to pull the phone away to make sure the call hasn’t dropped because this is a first.
“Then I’m sure I can find someone more suitable for dinner.”
“No, no dinner. No lunches, no trips to the country club, Mother. I am happy not fitting into your world, so please stop forcing me into it.” My phone buzzes with an incoming text and it could be one of those scam “your package couldn’t be delivered” things, but it doesn’t matter because I’m latching onto it like my life depends on it. “Oh I’m getting another call. We’ll talk soon; tell Dad I said hi!”
I click the end button before she has a chance to respond and don’t feel the least bit bad about it. I played their game for too long, and I’d lost so much of myself. I wouldn’t let it happen again.
Blowing out a breath, I look down at the screen and smile at the one good thing I left back in Savannah.
BLAKE: Did you make it home all right?
ELLISON: Yes, and all settled in. How are things back in Savannah?
BLAKE: I have the flu
ELLISON: Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I hope you feel better!
BLAKE: I don’t have the flu. I’m just telling my mother that so she stops trying to set me up on dinner dates with her friends’ daughters
BLAKE: I even called in a favor and got a doctor’s note and took off a few days from work
ELLISON: That’s a hell of a cover-up. You know you can’t keep that up forever.
BLAKE: I don’t need it to last forever—just like ten or fifteen years
ELLISON: I just told my mother off
BLAKE: (head explosion emoji)
BLAKE: How did that go?
ELLISON: About as effective as you’d expect.
BLAKE: So not very
ELLISON: Correct. She tried to set up dinner at the club with Dustin
BLAKE: The guy you punched in the face?
ELLISON: One and the same
BLAKE: Well I hope she respects your boundaries
ELLISON: We both know the odds of that are as likely as your fifteen-year flu
BLAKE: It would be a medical miracle
I snortand type out a goodbye message before tossing my phone onto the counter. Blake Reynolds might be the only real friend I made in Savannah, although our friendship was born out of necessity rather than anything else.
We’d met my senior year of college, bonding over our mutual disdain for overpriced dinners and pompous assholes who thought they walked on water. Our parents had been thrilled at our apparent fondness for each other, pushing us together whenever they could.
He’d been pining over a girl he couldn’t be with, and I’d been harboring the hope that Montana would come to Savannah like a knight in shining armor and whisk me back to Blackstone Falls. It hadn’t happened, and Blake and I seemed to be at an impasse in our lives romantically, so the solution seemed obvious, at least to me.
After one too many drinks at a fundraiser, I asked Blake to be my stand-in boyfriend. He laughed. I hadn’t.
And the more we talked about it, both drunk and sober, the more it started to make sense to him too.
In the beginning, we tried to see if we could do it for real—if we had enough chemistry to make an actual life together—but it just wasn’t there. We were friends with sometimes benefits who then had to dodge questions about marriage and children and a million other things we didn’t have answers to. It wasn’t a perfect setup, but it worked, and I think Blake thought it was a charade we could keep going forever.
But after I came back to Blackstone Falls for Nan’s funeral, I knew my time in Savannah was limited—and Blake did too.
He hadn’t talked me out of it or made me feel guilty for needing to leave. He was perfect in every way men in that world weren’t.
He just wasn’t meant for me.
Five minutes back in my hometown and I knew my heart would only ever beat for one man. A tall man with dark hair and brown eyes, who saw every one of my imperfections and loved me harder because of them.
And while I want to hurdle over any and all reservations and obstacles, I know I still need some time to come to grips with this new chapter in my life—find some balance maybe.
And besides, if years couldn’t lessen this pull toward Montana then nothing would.