Page 49 of Willow Vale

I knew Irene had called Delilah a few days ago. If what River was saying was true, then she must have called again today.

I patted his arm and motioned toward the house. “You want go in and eat? I have a feeling that if you ask, Amelia will give you some chocolate.”

As soon as I mentioned chocolate, River slid off my lap and bounded toward the door. He waited for me to open the door and when I did, his hand reached up toward mine.

Surprised, I smiled when I realized what he wanted.

I reached down and took it before we went inside together, promising I’d never let this kid be sad if I had anything to do with it.

CHAPTER 19

Lila

“You’ve gotto be kidding me,” I groaned as I watched the life quite literally drain from my laptop. I brought it with me to work today, hoping I’d be able to get something done on my break only to have my MacBook die on me. It was an older model I bought off another student when I was in college, and it had survived since then. Until now.

I tried to turn it back on, re-plugged the charger, and watched as it rebooted only to turn on for a second before the screen went black again.

I slammed the laptop shut and blew out a deep breath. Tears pricked my eyes and I fought to keep them at bay. After the morning I’d had, I was really hitting my limit of how much I could handle in a day.

My phone rung all night which meant I hadn’t slept at all. It didn’t matter how many times I blocked the number, because another one would pop up and do the same thing.

I was exhausted and frustrated so I answered only to tell my mother to stop calling me.

That turned into a screaming match—on her end—followed by me hanging up on her. You’d think the callswould have stopped after that. My mother, when angry, liked to hurt others. It was a fact I learned the hard way. Last night, she felt like hurting me and it worked.

I hated that it had worked.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I shut my phone off and curled up on bed feeling sick with exhaustion and stress. It wasn’t long before River came into the room to sleep in bed with me. Try as I did to glue a smile to my face this morning, I found myself constantly fighting the tears whenever I thought about the things Irene had said to me.

I stared at the smiley face sticker River had put on the cover of my laptop a long time ago. I shook my head as I smoothed out a corner that had started to curl upward with my finger. The application I’d started to fill out was 50 percent of the way completed when my computer stopped working, and I had no way of knowing if anything saved or if I’d have to start all over again.

Maybe it was for the best.

Maybe this was a sign that it wasn’t meant to be and this whole thing was a mistake.

After years of struggling to keep a job that barely paid enough, I’d considered going back to college. Take a few courses online and see if I could do it. If I could get scholarships or financial aid like I did last time, I could probably get by without having to take out a huge loan.

I was looking at a nursing program I thought I’d apply for once I got all my prerequisites done in college.

Only now, looking at the program—and the tuition—was overwhelming, and I always second guessed myself, putting it off for another day.

I did the math and if I didn’t get some financial help, there was no way I’d be able to afford the textbooks let alone the tuition.

Still…I wanted to try.

Why couldn’t I just try without being so damn scared?

I wiped my face, hating that the tears were still fighting me. I needed to get out of the break room and behind the bar. I had to keep my mind from reeling any more than it already was.

Shoving my laptop into my tote bag, I didn’t realize it was already on the edge of the chair. Before I could catch it, my tote bag toppled off the chair and all of my belongings spilled out. If my computer wasn’t already broken, I would have to say it crashing to the floor would have done it.

I let out a humorless laugh. “Damn it.” I let out a deep breath and dropped to my knees to start picking up the mess I’d made. A lump formed in my throat and this time I couldn’t stop the tears from coming.

I was glad there wasn’t anyone in here since things had started to pick up in the bar. Saul and his band of buddies had been keeping Desi and Jake busy right as the band came in to play for the crowd that would trickle in later.

Once I gathered my things and shoved them back into my bag, I tossed it onto the chair and sat down.

I tried to take deep breaths like I used to when I was a teenager to stop myself from crying, because once the crying started there was no stopping. However, doing that only made tears roll down my cheeks. The crying led to me getting angry at myself for losing control.

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