Chapter 22
Mia
When I wake up the next morning, I’m still wearing Ethan’s jacket.
I know it’s weird, but I’m not wearing it because it’s Ethan’s, I’m wearing it because it smells like home.
There’s something masculine and clean, minty but herbaceous, and when I breath in deep enough, I’m sure I get a hit of the same laundry detergent we use at home.
That’s all it is, a warm and comforting smell.
When he’s not threatening people at the bar or being an arrogant asshole, it’s a good way to describe Ethan as well.
Warm and comforting. Tugging his jacket up under my chin like a blanket, I replay the moment we shared outside halls last night.
Why would he call Oliver a douche? Probably some chauvinistic Southern hangover, treating me like his little sister.
Unfortunately, it’s physically impossible to get big brother vibes from a six-foot soccer player with emerald-green eyes and thick black hair that curls just so and—
An unexpected trill sounds somewhere on my desk and breaks my concentration, a hot flush running all the way through my body. It’s my mom’s ring.
‘Hello?’ I answer without searching for my earbuds, no time to waste.
Once I’d convinced her how difficult to make and receive calls on campus – and by convinced, I mean she called the school to make sure I was telling the truth – we set up a schedule. This call is not on the schedule.
‘Mom? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?’
‘Right as rain, honey, I am just calling to say happy birthday. I’m sure you have lots of exciting plans with your new friends, I didn’t want to interrupt your day.’
‘I just figured we’d talk tonight like we usually do.’ I turn to check the time on my alarm clock. Ten a.m.. Which makes it five a.m. in Valley Springs. ‘It’s so early.’
‘It is?’ She sounds surprised, like she hadn’t realized. ‘I haven’t been sleeping so well since you left. I know you’re fine, you don’t have to say it, but I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about you and then I can’t get back to sleep.’
‘Oh, Mom,’ I say in a whisper. ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’
‘That’s my job, baby, and it’s full-time for life. Did your birthday card arrive on time?’
I clench my jaw, remembering the large pink envelope in my mail cubby yesterday. The one I didn’t want to take with me to my study date with Oliver and so was still down there in the porter’s lodge right now. I am a terrible daughter.
‘It did, thank you so much, I love it.’
‘And you know I hate to send a check as a gift, but I couldn’t face the post office this week.
It’s not much, just a little something to remind you we’re thinking of you.
Maybe you can buy yourself something nice, some new makeup?
A little lipstick never hurt anyone. You always look so darling when you make an effort. ’
In the background, I hear the sound of a car door unlocking, the double beep of her SUV.
‘Where are you?’ I ask, checking the time again.
‘Home. But a new Pilates studio opened downtown, I’m meeting Jocelyn there. If we make the six a.m. class, we have time to sneak in a Starbucks before I have to come home and get ready for church.’
‘You know you’re forty-two years old,’ I remind her. ‘You don’t need to sneak in a Starbucks.’
‘And you know what your daddy will say about wasting money on coffee when we’ve got your tuition to pay.’
At Marshall, my tuition was covered in full by my scholarship but at Hemden, the same amount of money didn’t even pay for a full semester.
I worked all summer to cover my airfare and doubled my student loan, but they went into their savings to make up the rest of the payments and I feel sick to my stomach every time I think about it.
I sit up, running my hand over the rough, canvas fabric of Ethan’s jacket, and let out a yawn.
‘Mia Meyers, was that a yawn? Are you still in bed?’
‘It was a late night,’ I reply quickly, pushing the jacket away. ‘I have a paper due and lost track of time.’
‘Lost track of time working on a paper or hanging out in bars?’
‘I was not hanging out in bars.’
The Mia who catches my eye in the mirror bites her lip, being extra careful not to tell any outright lies.
I wasn’t hanging out in bars plural, I was hanging out in one bar, singular, and technically, I was working.
At best it’s a lie of omission but if she told Dad I had a job behind a bar, he would fly me home in the cargo hold with all the confused dogs.
‘Why you had to disappear halfway around the world is a mystery to me.’ Mom chokes back a sob then adds on a sniff at the end for good measure. ‘I can only imagine how lonely you must be.’
Guilt is like a parasite. It burrows in and takes root then spreads and spreads and spreads. It’s not really me she’s thinking about and that makes it even worse. I don’t know how to make her feel better about herself.
‘I’m not lonely. Alice, the girl I told you about? She’s planning a birthday picnic for me.’
‘And why would she do a thing like that?’
‘Because she’s my friend?’ I suggest, wishing she didn’t sound so surprised. ‘Because it’s a nice thing to do?’
She makes a noise, the one Kane calls her Marge Simpson impression, but today it doesn’t seem so funny.
‘You always have been too trusting, Mia. You can be very naive, and please don’t get defensive but you have had a hard time making friends in the past.’
And even though it hurts, I can’t argue because it’s true.
‘Oh, what am I saying?’ Mom says with a huge sigh. ‘Don’t listen to me, I just miss you is all. This is the first time any of my babies have been away from home for their birthday. Kane always came to see me on his birthday.’
‘I should let you go,’ I say, breezy as I can be with all this guilt weighing me down. ‘I don’t want you to be late for Pilates. Tell Daddy I’ll call tonight at the usual time.’
‘We’ll be waiting. Love you, honey.’
‘Love you too,’ I say but she’s already ended the call.
Every conversation with my mom is a lose-lose situation.
If I don’t call, I feel bad and whenever I do call, I feel worse.
Does she truly miss me? I can’t say. I know my dad misses the money he spent to send me here.
Neither of them has ever travelled too far and they both grew up in Valley Springs, high school sweethearts, married right out of college.
My dad with his local real estate business, my mom at home with her perfect little family.
It’s the American dream, according to them, it’s what everyone should want.
But it isn’t me. I had to leave, I had to lose them to find myself.
‘And how’s that going exactly?’ I ask my reflection, twisting in bed to stare into the mirror.
Twenty years old.
I search my face, looking for evidence of a new and improved Mia, but there’s nothing to see except the crusty mascara I failed to remove properly last night and a pair of puffy bags under my boring blue eyes.
No flecks of gold or flashes of silver, just plain old blue.
Not the stormy skies of Oliver’s, or Ethan’s glittering eyes with the striking black ring around the irises.
The ones I’d lost myself in, standing in the shadows outside halls at one a.m. this morning.
Nope, just the same Mia Meyers, waking up to her third decade under the boy-next-door’s jacket with last night’s mascara and puffy under-eyes for company.
For a moment, just before we said goodnight, I thought about inviting Ethan in.
All that talk of loneliness and biscuits, not exactly a classic seduction combo but there was something in the way he looked at me that felt different.
Like I was the only girl on the whole planet.
Which, at one a.m. this morning, I was. Sure, he said he wasn’t lonely but that doesn’t mean Ethan Taylor enjoys sleeping alone every night.
He could have gone home with anyone from Members last night but what is easier than falling into bed with your neighbour?
If he was looking at me like he wanted to devour me, push me up against the wall, cover my mouth with his and let whatever might happen next happen, well, that explained it. I wasn’t desirable, I was convenient.
Pulling my hair up and back in a claw clip, I tear off my clothes, tossing them at the laundry basket with frustration because my theory doesn’t quite solve every puzzle.
Maybe Ethan momentarily considered seducing me because it would be easy.
But that didn’t explain why I wanted to let him.