Chapter Fourteen
S EVEN DAYS AND nothing.
Katie left the shop, her hair no longer sporting the purple streaks she had loved. She’d had them dyed back four days after Chase disappeared, but she was still rocking Becca’s clothes and had even gone back for a hot, short halter dress, shoes, and a new bra/panty set. She walked around with a smile and acted like nothing had changed.
And then she went home and cried herself to sleep.
She was an emotional mess. She missed him, hated him, and loved him all at once. It was like one big, confused mixing bowl in her heart, and she wished she could just scoop out all the good things about him and just hate him, but she couldn’t. She’d seen his CLOSED INDEFINITELY sign and wondered if the note he’d left was just a way to make him feel better for rushing out on her.
At first she’d told herself not to worry, he would be back. Then the third day had passed and she’d found herself constantly checking her phone for a missed call from him. Day five, all her optimism had pretty much dissolved into sadness, and she finally had to be honest with herself. If he was going to call her, if she had meant anything to him, he would have called by now.
Maybe he was getting ready to move on and wasn’t sure how to break the news. It fit what he’d told her. He never stayed in one place for too long.
But this time, she had hoped he would stay.
She stopped at Rico’s for pizza and Hall’s Market for ice cream and a bag of Dove chocolate. By the time she made it home, she had eaten a quarter of the bag and a slice of pizza and was feeling pretty crappy.
A moment on the lips, forever on the hips, honey.
“Shut up, Mom,” Katie muttered out loud, so sick of hearing her mother rambling around in her head. She opened the car door and climbed out.
Hands covered her eyes and Steph said, “Guess who?”
“My best friend pretending she’s twelve?” Katie said.
“Ouch. You’re in a mood.” Steph dropped her hands, and Katie turned to find Becca with her.
“I always know trouble’s brewing when you two are together,” Katie said.
“We’re kidnapping you! You need to get the heck out of that house and away from all junk food.” Becca went around the other side and, before Katie could react, grabbed her pizza and other sweet goodies.
“Hey, thief!” Becca waved the food around playfully.
Katie smiled slightly. “I appreciate the gesture, guys, but I really just want to stay in and watch a movie.”
“No. You are not watching any more movies so depressing they make you feel better. I know your MO, Katie. You’ve probably already watched Beaches , Untamed Heart , and your entire Lifetime Movie collection. It ends tonight!” Steph said.
Katie couldn’t really argue with what Steph said. She did watch depressing movies just so she could say, “Look, your life’s not so bad,” but Steph was wrong about one thing. “I haven’t watched Beaches yet. That’s what I’m doing tonight.”
“No and hell no! You are going inside, slipping into something hot, and we are taking you out!” Becca said firmly.
“Guys, really, I’m fine ...”
“Move, woman!” Steph said, pointing to Katie’s door.
Katie sighed, too tired to fight. Maybe a night off the couch wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Alcohol and girl talk might be just what she needed to stop thinking about Chase for at least five minutes.
C HASE HELD HIS phone in his hands, staring at the picture of Katie hugging a wooden bear. He’d taken it when they were exploring the shops of Hailey. She’d run up to the bear and said, “Take a picture of me!” Throwing her arms around the tall, wooden carving, he had done what she commanded, and it had started a whole round of funny bear pictures, mostly on her phone, but he had snapped this one.
Texting was too impersonal, but he was afraid to call. Afraid that she wouldn’t pick up or, worse, she would. And she’d tell him she was done with him.
“Chase?” Buzz said from behind him.
Chase got up from the hospital bench he’d been occupying outside, trying to clear his head. “Are the results back yet?”
Buzz nodded. “Yeah they’re back, and the doctors are asking for you.”
Chase slipped his phone back into his pocket and followed Buzz back into the hospital.
“W HAT THE HECK are we doing here?” Katie asked as they pulled up in front of a dark building with a bright pink sign that said PURE LOVE ENHANCEMENTS . The girls had decided to drag her to Boise for more choices in food, clubs, and, oh yeah, sex shops.
“We’re getting party supplies!” Steph giggled. “You said this was one of the things on your list.”
Katie cursed her big mouth. After a couple shots of the vanilla vodka Becca had bought, she’d shown them the list. Becca had decided they were going to check off everything they could on her list, and Steph had jumped on the crazy train too.
But what kind of party favors they needed to buy in a sex shop, she had no idea. “What kind of party are we having?”
“An un-bachelorette party!” Steph said, before throwing her door open and climbing out.
Katie and Becca followed her, Katie hissing, “What the heck is a un-bachelorette party?”
Becca piped up. “We dress you up like a bride-to-be, tell everyone you are getting married, and voilà, free shots all night!”
“That’s dishonest,” Katie said.
“Katie, stop channeling your mother and get your butt over here!” Steph said, holding the door open.
Katie walked in after Becca, and the woman behind the desk didn’t look at them. Katie felt her face heat up with embarrassment at the movie posters on the walls and the large section of costumes. Steph walked over to a display of bins and pulled out a pink, sparkly shot glass on a chain. In big black letters it read I’M TYING THE KNOT, BUY ME A SHOT!
“I don’t know about this ...” Katie said.
Becca took her hand and started pulling her toward a black curtain at the edge of the room. “Trust us. This is going to be hilarious.”
K ATIE’S STOMACH HURT, she’d laughed so hard. Between the things she’d seen and the girls’ antics to make her laugh ...
Well, she felt better than what any sad, sappy movie could have accomplished.
They each carried hot pink bags to the car and climbed inside.
“Okay, bride-to-be, you need your veil.” Steph pulled out a big white veil covered in neon condoms and adjusted it over Katie’s blond curls. “There. Oh, and your shot glass.”
“And your sash.” Becca handed her the pink, light-up sash that read BACHELORETTE across the front.
Katie looked down at herself. “Don’t you think this is a bit much?”
“Nope! Oh, we need our sashes too!” Becca and Steph pulled out two brIDESMAID sashes, and Becca pursed her lips seductively. “What do you think?”
Katie laughed. “I think you are both nuttier than a fruitcake.”
“And now, let’s get this party started!” Steph yelled, throwing her bag on the backseat and starting up the car. “Wait until Jared gets a load of what I bought. He’s going to be one happy man.”
Katie clutched her pink bag to her chest, wondering why she’d bothered buying a sexy purple nightie when there wasn’t anyone around to enjoy it.
Stop thinking about him. You are out and you are going to have fun. Forget about Chase!
T HE GIRLS HAD been right. Within minutes of entering the club, a group of guys had started buying their drinks. The guys were all huge, a couple nearly six and a half feet tall, and Katie asked the shortest of the bunch, Dave, “Did you all join a club for tall guys or something?”
The guy laughed. “In a way. We play football for the Boise Grizzlies.” Katie didn’t follow professional football, but it sure explained the mammoth sized muscles on some of the guys.
“So what’s your fiancé like?” he asked.
Her fiancé? Oh right, the veil. “He’s about six foot two, with brown hair and gray eyes. He owns a tattoo parlor and writes comic books for a living.”
“He’s got to be a good guy to get his hands on a girl like you. He’s lucky,” Dave said.
Katie grabbed another shot off the table. I wish someone had remembered to tell him that.
Steph threw her arm around her shoulders. “Having a good time?”
Katie made sure Dave had walked far enough away before she said, “Yeah, but I’m getting kind of tired.”
Steph pulled out her phone. “It’s only 11:13. Are you sure you want to go?”
Katie nodded, and Steph gave her a big hug. Another pair of arms went around her, and she turned her head to meet Becca’s smile.
“Hey! Group hug!” a deep voice said, and tree-trunk arms wrapped around the three of them, lifting them off the ground.
The girls laughed, and when the big guy put them down, Steph, Becca, and Katie thanked the group for letting them hang out.
Dave said, “Tell that fiancé of yours he better be good to you!”
Katie felt a lump form in her throat and thanked him. As they left the club, Becca asked, “So are you glad you came out? Did it take your mind off stuff?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It was fun.”
For a little while.
C HASE SAT AT his mother’s side, watching the pale, thin body that used to be so full of life wince with every breath. She had railed at Buzz for calling him, yelled at him for coming, but when the results had come back that he wasn’t a match for a transplant, she had cried. The doctor had warned them it was unlikely that another donor would come through in time, and Chase had wanted to smash his fist through something.
His mother was dying and he had almost missed saying good-bye.
Buzz had gone to get them coffee, and he watched his mother’s light blue eyes open, bleary and pain-filled. “Chase?”
He reached out to grasp her hands. “Yeah, I’m here.”
She sounded raspy as she said, “I am so sorry, baby. I couldn’t ask you to come. Not after I failed you so badly.”
He had heard her apologize several times, usually when her painkillers kicked in. “It’s okay; you did your best.”
She shook her head. “He left because of me.”
He’d heard this too, several times over the last week, and said, “Mom, it’s okay.”
“It was just once. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t.”
They’d had seven days to hash out the past, and Chase really didn’t know if he was better off knowing or not. His mother had confessed that she had cheated on his dad and when she wound up pregnant, she didn’t think it was possible that he belonged to the other man. It had been a one-night stand, after they’d had a fight, and when she found out, she had tried to forget about it, pretend it never happened. So she had kept her secret, even as Chase has gotten older and his blue eyes had turned gray, not blue or brown like one of his parents. His father had asked her where those dark gray eyes came from, and she had said her mother, knowing full well it was a lie. Only one person she knew had eyes like that and she didn’t even know his last name. For five years they lived happily as a family, but the doubt had finally been too much for his father and he’d asked for a paternity test. When the results had come back, confirming his worst fear, that Chase wasn’t his, he had confronted Chase’s mother. She’d confessed to her transgression, but despite her heartfelt pleas for forgiveness, his father had left, and never come back.
When he’d been five, Chase was in an accident with his dad, and they had both been taken to the hospital, where his mother had met them. His father, as a way to put his mind at ease, asked the doctor for a paternity test and the doctor had told him solemnly, that based on Chase’s, his mothers and fathers blood types, there was no way he was his son. The child he had raised, built Lego cities with and kicked a soccer ball around with, wasn’t even his.
His father had confronted Chase’s mother that night and she’d confessed to her transgression. Despite her heartfelt pleas, his father had left, and never come back.
His mother had been overcome with guilt and grief. She hadn’t felt like she deserved Chase’s love, and his presence reminded her of her mistakes. So she had shut him out and tried to make things right in her own screwed-up way, looking for a man who would love Chase like a father, even if he wasn’t his.
But she had even failed at that. She had been so self-absorbed, she couldn’t tell him she was sick, couldn’t bear to ask him for anything.
It had taken him a day to absorb what she’d told him, and another for him to come to a decision. He’d already forgiven her. It was his father’s choice to walk out on them. It was a reflection of him, not her. And as to her distancing herself from him, he had forgiven her a long time ago.
But she was so doped up on painkillers she kept saying the same things to him. The same apology over and over, and the pain and anguish she felt hurt him more than the rest of it.
“Shhh. Stop. I forgive you, Mom. Just stop.” She started crying brokenly, and he held her hand tighter. “It wasn’t Dad’s leaving that hurt. It was that I thought you stopped loving me.”
She shook her head and squeezed his hand. “You are the best thing I have ever done. I never stopped loving you.”
Chase brought her hand up, kissed it, and held it against his face. He closed his eyes. His mother’s voice, broken and strained with pain, started singing, “‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine ...’”
In a hospital room, filled with the late afternoon light and the sound of his dying mother’s voice, Chase wept for the first time in sixteen years.