Chapter 13 #2
She continues, “I learned that creativity was also in how I could construct a beautiful world for you. Especially because the one I thought we’d have came crashing down.
Of course, you don’t picture your daughter growing up without a father.
But I also never could have foreseen my relationship with Lottie.
I had so many aunts growing up, her and I were never that close.
But then look how that turned out. She became our rock.
” Her voice warbles, but she blinks and somehow it steadies out again.
“Working at the convenience store was not easy but I loved doing it. That money was mine because I earned it. And what I earned all went to you. That’s how I wanted it to be.
You are mine, baby. If I did it for you, I was doing it for myself. ”
Her words land like a miniature, life-altering earthquake in my body.
I can feel pieces of land I once believed to be concrete shifting.
It was disorienting to learn that the way I perceived certain childhood events didn’t portray them with complete accuracy.
Or at least, they weren’t the full picture.
It was like at Lottie’s funeral when her friends told stories that didn’t sound anything like her.
The adults in my life were more three dimensional than I’d been capable of seeing.
To me, Lottie was my calm, comforting second mother.
She wasn’t a rambunctious teenager who once drank and dated a litany of boys.
But the two didn’t contradict each other.
Had I perceived my mom as this powerless being who needed my help, when in reality she had been living her dream this whole time?
It was so similar to my own dream, and the very reason I stormed out on Declan, offering to support me.
It wasn’t about the support; it was about the gratification of doing it yourself.
“I know my childhood wasn’t conventional, but because of you, it really felt like a fairy tale of an upbringing. I loved every second of it.”
“Ohhhh, Sweetpea,” my mom coos, head dipping as she smiles with warmth in her eyes.
“I mean that. You’re a creative genius in my eyes.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so because you’re just like me.” She winks, defusing the intensity of the conversation in a second and moving on. “Now, you’ve got to see this. Come here.” She walks through the bedroom and back into the living room, pointing at something on the wall.
I follow her to see a small, wooden bookshelf, only a few books wide.
It’s attached to a desk, sitting right next to the TV.
I recognize so many of the books as the ones I read as a child.
Perhaps she had bought the same ones I read to stock the shelves.
My eyes catch on Divergent. One of my favorite YA dystopian series in sixth grade.
I take it off the shelf and flip through the pages.
I see the beginnings of pen scratchings and I smack the page to keep my place, half in disbelief as I bring the book closer to my face.
D + B = < 3
The tiny letters are scrawled in black ink at the top of the page.
I slam the book closed. This was my copy of Divergent.
I remember sharing my love for this series with Declan, teasing him about his similarities to Theo James when the movie adaptation came out.
I frantically put it back in its rightful place on the shelf.
“What?” my mom asks.
“Oh, nothing. I think it’s my old copy from when I was a kid,” I mutter.
“Aww. No kidding!” She takes it back off the shelf and flips through it.
I cringe, waiting to see if she notices the pen scrawls. She does.
“D and B?” She squints, saying the letters in a painfully slow drawl. “Oh! Is that about Declan? That’s too cute!” she squeals, back to her normal self.
“Haha.” I take the book from her and put it back on the shelf.
“You know.” She shakes her finger. “You could ask Declan for help checking this place out. I don’t know anything about houses, obviously, and this one is pretty old. You could get some good advice from him.”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to bother him with that.” I brush past her, moving into the kitchen, which is two wooden steps up and out of the sunken living room.
“I know you think that boy hates you, but I’m telling you, con. Ask that boy to jump for you and he’d ask how far.”
“The saying is ‘how high,’ Mom.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I fiddle with the sink, turning on the tap just to do something with my hands.
“Oh my gosh?” I turn around at the sound of my mom’s surprise. “Is that…?” She’s pointing through the front window.
My heart drops into my stomach. It’s like my Declan radar never learned to turn off.
“Con, oh my goodness, it is! It’s like God heard us!”
I run through the living room to peer over my mother’s shoulder, and look through the window. Sure enough, Declan is walking down the driveway of the house directly across the street. Retrieving an empty trash can from the curb in low-waist jeans and a fitted black tee.
“He doesn’t live there, does he?” I ask, voice betraying how much weight I’m putting in the answer. For some reason I pictured him still living with his parents, in the house I basically grew up in.
“Uhhh,” she starts, a knowing smirk on her face. “Unless he’s dog-sitting, I think that boy lives there.”
I sigh.
“September can’t come fast enough,” I mumble.
My mom gives me a scathing side-eye, but I don’t miss the corner of her mouth pulling up as she looks at Declan, walking back inside his house.
Allegedly, his house.