Chapter 30
Thirty
N ine days without Mia, and Tori was already over the gnawing ache of missing her. Mia didn’t have an exact date for her return, but she’d already listed her house in Philly and put a ton of furniture up for sale. The overt acts of actually moving were comforting, given that she wasn’t sure Mia had packed a single box at her mom’s house.
But Tori couldn’t help but worry. Worry that Mia could change her mind. Not just about moving back to Miami, but about wanting to be with her. Mia was talking to her therapist every week, and it wasn’t impossible that Mia might discover that she’d chosen Tori as some kind of grief response. That Tori had been an unintentional means to an end. That they’d moved too fast, or taken the wrong path, or confused comfort for the familiar with something more.
Tori tightened her grip on the steering wheel and turned down her parents’ shaded street. If that was the case, she’d make good on her promise. She would still be Mia’s friend. No matter what.
But God, it would suck to be so close to something real, something bright, only to lose it again. She shook off the sad- sack vibes, as Mia would call them, and sat up. Every instinct told Tori to be patient. To trust Mia.
The last to arrive for Sunday lunch, Tori had to park on the street a block away and walk. Before she jumped out and grabbed the bags of ice she was too distracted to drop off at the house, Tori reached for her phone.
Tori: Made it.
Mia: Are you going to partner with Manny for dominos?
Tori: I’m not playing dominos.
Mia: WHY?!
Despite herself, Tori chuckled. She imagined Mia’s exaggerated indignation over a meaningless game.
Mia: You can’t let him think you’re scared. Or, actually. Maybe that’s genius. He’ll forget how good we are and then we can kick his ass when I’m back home.
Chest warming, Tori dropped her head against the seat. Manny’s only tactic was to do what was affectionately called dump the fat ones in Spanish. He just got rid of the highest value tiles without paying attention to anything else. Tori was going to remind her of that when Mia texted again.
Mia: I miss you. I wish I was there with you. And not just because I miss your mom’s cooking so bad I might expire. But I miss them and being there and playing and ugh I just miss you. I can’t wait to be home already.
Tori grinned, fears assuaged. Mia was coming back.
Tori: I miss you more.
Mia: Prove it.
Looking around to make sure no one could see her debase herself, Tori freshened up her freshly cut wavy bob in the mirror. When a neighbor moved on with her yapping Pomeranian, Tori made the most pathetic frowny face and snapped a selfie.
Mia: OMG YOU’RE SO FREAKING CUTE! COME HERE AND LET ME EAT YOUR FACE.
Tori was laughing until Mia sent her own photo back. Lying sideways on a modern gray couch, Mia’s eyes were soft and sleepy. The lips Tori missed desperately curved in a tiny smile. It was like Mia had caught herself thinking of Tori and snapped the picture without overthinking it.
A thousand irresponsible thoughts rampaged through Tori’s mind at once. She opened the calendar on her phone, desperately searching for what clients she could move around, what tasks she could delegate. All she needed was to see Mia. To hold her and inhale her perfume and feel her soft lips against hers.
A knock on her window nearly gave her a coronary. “Shit!”
Her mother, face screwed up in worry and hand on her hip, was peering at her like she’d caught Tori making counterfeit checks.
“Mom, you scared the crap out of me,” Tori said when she opened the door with trembling fingers. “Jesus.”
“Your uncle has nothing to do with this.” She peered at Tori like she could will herself into mind reading. “What’s wrong? Why are you hiding out here? The neighbors will think you’re selling drugs like that awful Ochoa boy.”
Jarred, Tori pressed her palm to her racing heart and tried to make sense of what the hell her mother was saying. “What?”
“What’s wrong?” her mother repeated, worry vibrating off her like a neon sign. “Did something happen with Mia?”
Tori cut the engine and slid out of the Jeep. “What would happen with Mia?” She opened the trunk before slipping her phone into the pocket of her shorts. In that moment, she weirdly missed being able to stuff her things into Mia’s purse. “We were just texting and I lost track of time.”
Her mother breathed a sigh of relief like she’d been bracing for terrible news. Tori waited to grab the heavy bags of ice and turned to her mother standing in the shade. “Why were you so worried?”
Her mother raised her eyebrows and shook her head like it was obvious. “I thought she broke your heart again,” she said, voice thin like she was trying not to cry.
“Ma, she never?—”
“She did,” her mother said with absolute finality. “Although, now I believe she didn’t do it on purpose,” she added as if to herself.
Suspicious, Tori narrowed her gaze. “What does that mean?”
Her mother looked up at her with a guilty wince on her face. “Let’s go inside. We don’t have to?—”
“Ma.” Tori crossed her arms over her chest and sat on the edge of the open trunk.
A deep breath and more muttering later, her mother sat next to her. “It used to devastate me to see you looking at her with so much longing when you were kids.” She took Tori’s hand and rubbed her arm like she had when she was little. “I wondered so many times if she was cruel to lead you on.” She looked up at her, eyes glistening. “But when I mentioned your crush. Well, she’s either a talented actress or?—”
“She really didn’t know,” Tori confirmed.
“But how not?” she asked like she’d been holding that question back for weeks. “Everyone could see the way you looked at each other.” She smiled. “Your father and I kept waiting for you to come in one day holding hands, so nervous, and finally tell us.” She shook her head. “I thought at the very least by prom. I talked to Rosie about suing the nuns if they didn’t let you go together.”
“Rosie?” Tori laughed, chest so full she might not survive to recklessly clear her un-clearable schedule. “She’s a wills and trusts lawyer.”
“Well, the nuns wouldn’t know that,” she replied with a grin before worry returned. “Did I overstep in telling her?”
Tori dropped her head onto her mother’s shoulder and looked out at the residential street. “No,” she decided. “The truth needed to come out sometime, and I don’t know that I would have ever had the guts to do it.”
Her mother patted her hand. “Your guts are plenty good.”
Before her mom remembered that a few yards away a cooler was waiting to be refilled, Tori told her mom about Mia’s divorce.
“What happened? Doctor stray?” her mother asked more angrily than Tori expected. “Women throw themselves at them, you know. Remember Margarita’s grandson? The kid is a podiatrist and gay. Does that matter? Nope.”
“He didn’t cheat,” Tori insisted.
“Well what did he do, then?”
Weirdly protective of a man she’d never met, but of whom Mia only spoke highly, Tori angled herself to face her mom. “I don’t know that it’s my place to say.”
“Now you have to tell me.” Her face flashed with maternal concern. “I love that girl like a daughter.” A smile shone briefly through the worry. “And one day soon it will be official, you’ll see.”
Ignoring her mother’s reference to marriage when she and Mia hadn’t even had the GF conversation, she shared what Mia had told her about her losses. How the fallout consumed her relationship with Eric. Every second that Tori spoke, her mother grew quieter. Stiller. Like she was collapsing in on herself.
“I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know what to say to lighten her grief.” Tori’s emotion rose in her chest like a cresting wave. “You should see her face when she talks about it. It’s like the pain is so fresh.”
“It’s not the loss, it’s the surviving.” She took a deep breath that made Tori hold her own. “The pain doesn’t go away.” Her mom’s voice was a distant whisper. “You just learn to make space for it. Let her know she’s not alone in the making.”
Tori watched her, trying to understand why her energy had shifted. Before she could ask if she was okay, her mom blinked hard and turned away.
“Let’s go,” she said, pretending a lash had fallen in her eye. “The ice is melting.”
It wasn’t.
Her mom walked ahead without waiting for her, shoulders squared like she was bracing for something.
Tori followed, that strange tightness still coiled in her chest, thinking maybe her mom needed a little space too.