Chapter Twenty-seven
Marketing tip: open loops for future books while making them relevant to your current story. Do not close them. (Everyone say bye-bye to Amelia!)
Mars
“I can’t believe I’m doing this. What am I doing?” Amelia’s breaths rake through her lungs while she falls apart in Ceres’s arms, practically hyperventilating. “Moving in with Brian ? The Brian? He’ll hate me in days. Hours .”
“No, he won’t,” Ceres soothes.
“He will. He really will. I’m annoying. I’m terrible. The worst. I just… Everything I own fits in my car. That’s it. Right here. This is everything I have. And…my parents. What have I done to my parents? I couldn’t have told them sooner? I couldn’t have given them more warning?”
“Mellie,” Ceres murmurs, “the last thing you needed would have been more time for them to be passive aggressive. As it stood, that was…rough.”
Rough doesn’t begin to explain the behavior I witnessed this morning.
They got mad. Really mad. Irrationally mad, considering all their grown daughter said was I’ve found a better job than what I’m doing now, but I need to move, and I’ve already been accepted, so I need to start soon… which means…I have to move…today.
Any kind, loving parent might be shocked or concerned at the sudden nature of such a statement, but Amelia’s jumped straight to livid.
There was no communication. No concern. No worry about her.
No interest in what her job even was. Just a point-blank accusation and a violent depiction of selfishness.
How could you do this to us?
You’re leaving?
We’re not getting any younger.
You know how much we rely on you.
What are you thinking?
When things fall apart, don’t assume you’ll be able to just come back home.
That’s what you’re giving up, Amelia. A home. You know that, right?
How stupid can you get?
And on and on.
They made sure she knew she wasn’t allowed to take any of her furniture—a modest twin bed and dresser set I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she’s had since she was a kid.
While we were emptying her closet, her mother stood by, barking about which dresses she could take and which had been bought with not her money .
Pure spite saw to it that half her bedroom stayed in that dismal place.
So, yeah. Everything she owns fits in her car, because until this point in time? I don’t think she even owned her own life.
“Why is this so hard?” Amelia’s voice cracks. “I’m twenty-five. It shouldn’t be this hard to move out when you’re twenty-five .”
It is when you’ve been living twenty-five years in an emotionally-manipulative environment.
Practically angelic, Ceres says, “They didn’t take things well because they’re human, Mellie.
They have a lot of emotions that they need to process on their own, but those emotions are not your responsibility, and even if they were?
You literally cannot process them on their behalf.
I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but this is better for everyone. ”
Writing the behavior we all saw this morning off as human is saintly. Personally, I found it kinda monstrous. But what do I know about monsters? My mother was a saint on earth and now she’s an angel.
“What if they never talk to me again?” Amelia whispers.
Ceres’s silence pinches my heart, and I hear her voice—distant and somewhat hollow—echoing in the back of my mind when we lay curled together on the trampoline and she told me about her relationship with her parents.
In that there wasn’t one.
Not anymore.
She hasn’t talked to them since she left home three years ago.
“If they don’t,” Ceres says, so soft I can barely hear her from where I’m standing beside my car, “you will survive it. I promise.”
Pushing off my charcoal gray driver side door, I approach the two women. “Around what time is Brian expecting you?”
“Um.” Amelia dabs at her eyes and sniffles, pulling herself out of Ceres’s arms. “He didn’t give me a time.
Just asked that I let him know when I’m on the road what my GPS says…
” Pink rises to her cheeks. “He may have said that he works nine to five usually, but if I’m coming in earlier, he’ll take off to meet me at the house. ”
Brain Single. Leaving the mailroom early to make sure his new roomie can settle in well? How positively out of character. I say, “Ceres is great at planning things. She should be your maid of honor.”
Amelia’s eyes bug while Ceres sags. “Can you stop marrying people against their will, please?”
I smile at my betrothed. “You can’t control my headcanons.”
“Someone should.” Losing her ire, she focuses on Amelia again. “Are you gonna be okay to drive?”
Smile shaky, Amelia says, “I have to be. Brian’s expecting me today, which does mean I need to make it there before midnight.”
“Call me if you need to, okay?”
“I will.”
With another hug, we both watch Amelia leave the parking lot we stopped in after getting her things out of her parents’ house and her car out of their driveway. Stillness settles in my stomach as the woman’s vehicle slips from view, up the street, out of Bandera.
“You okay?” I ask once we’ve been staring at an empty road for a minute longer than I believe okay people would.
Ceres’s head dips in what I think is a nod before she turns to meet my eyes. Conflicting emotions wage war in her gaze. Her lips part. Silence passes between them. Childlike lostness takes hold, and I move forward before I know what I’m doing.
My arms open, offering, and she evaporates into them, a perfect weight, a perfect size, made to be here, made to be held, by me .
“Mars…” Her voice breaks, and my heart cracks when I hear it.
“I’m here.” I thread my fingers into her hair, keep her enveloped against the beating in my chest. “I’m right here.”
Strength abandons her, and her forehead falls against my shoulder. Weak, she says, “I think…I should call my mom.”
My throat closes as my muscles tense. For several moments, I don’t know what to say.
Are you sure that’s a good idea? feels stupid.
Of course she’s not sure. If she were sure, she wouldn’t have said it aloud.
She’d have done it without telling me. She’d have mentioned it later.
Casually. Factually. Simply relaying the information if ever it were relevant.
Finally, I manage, “Why?”
Why now?
What’s different?
Why is this something that you’re giving a possibility of life to after three years?
Fragile breath expands her lungs, and all she says is: “People…change.”
People change.
For better or worse, people change.
People. Change.
Life happens, and attentive fathers break.
Life happens, and happy brothers close off.
Life happens , and people change , and we heal, and we grow, and we step forward—past fears, and insecurity, and anxiety, and pain—into a world that is kinder because we are kinder. Because we have changed.
Life has a way of never staying quite as consistent as I would like.
But, sometimes, the inconsistencies lead to love.
And, sometimes, empty houses become full again.
“I love you,” I say, because there’s nothing else I can. “And I’m here for you. No matter what.”
Ceres buries her face against my neck and whispers, “Yeah. I know. Weird choice, but…” Emotion tightens her words. “…I appreciate it. More than you know.”