Page 81 of Love Fast

I get to the bottom of the steps and am about to head to the exit to call a cab when something catches my eye. I turn my head to see Marion at the window. She’s waving furiously at me. When she sees I’ve spotted her, she points her fingers down.

I can hear my mother shouting inside the trailer. Marion drops the curtain and disappears.

I glance down where she was pointing and see something on the ground, outside the bedroom window. It looks like she’s dropped a bag of something—two bags of?—

I race over and realize Marion has stuffed my belongings in trash bags and dropped them out the window. Mom didn’t burn all my stuff. I don’t know if she thinks she did or if she was bluffing, but Marion saved this for me.

As quick as I can, I gather up the spilled items. I don’t stop to examine anything, but it feels like I’m stuffing an entire lifetime of memories into two shopping bags. School pins, greeting cards, the odd certificate. A high school diploma. I pick up the bags and scramble to the exit of the park before I call an Uber. I don’t want there to be a chance Mom figures out I have everything I need from that trailer. There’s nothing more I want from her.

In the car back to the motel, I pull out a dream catcher I made for Marion when she was born. I hold it to my chest. When Mom was pregnant with Marion, I couldn’t wait to have a baby sister. I was desperate for someone of my own. Someone to love. Kitty and Lydia had been born when I was too little to understand what was going on around me. When Marion was born, I used to wake up and feed her in the night. I liked when it was just the two of us in the dark. I’d tell her stories of princesses and knights in shining armor, dragons slayed and fairy-tale castles. I sang to her. I rocked her. I loved her. I was the mother to her I never had.

I have the chance to care for Marion and all my sisters again—to be what they deserve, instead of what they were born into. I can’t hand-feed them freedom, but at least today I got to tell them how it tastes. When they decide to venture past the walls Mom has put up around them—both literally and figuratively—I’ll be there, waiting on the other side.

THIRTY-FOUR

Rosey

On the shuttle bus back to the Colorado Club, I can’t stop looking at my phone. I’m desperate for one of my sisters to call or text me. I just want to know they’re okay, that Mom calmed down after I left. There’s still a glimmer of hope in me that she’ll learn from her mistakes, or be slightly kinder to them if she worries they’ll follow in my footsteps.

I step off the shuttle bus outside the Club and slam right into someone, dropping my bag and my phone at the same time. “I’m sorry,” I say, gathering up my things.

Whoever I bumped into crouches down and picks up my phone. As soon as I see his hand, I know who it is.

Byron.

We stand, and I tip my head back to look at him. I feel myself unfurl and relax under his gaze.

“Everything okay?” he asks, concern in his voice.

I don’t know how to answer that. Everything’s okay and nothing’s okay and now he’s here and he seems… different.

“I just got back from Oregon.”

He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “How was that?”

I sigh and realize how much I miss him. I miss porch swings and hot chocolate. I miss talking and kissing and feeling safe.

Byron never tried to control me. Despite being my boss, he had no agenda other than being with me. Maybe I’m confused. My emotions are running so high at the moment, Byron’s familiarity seems like a safe harbor. But is that all he is?

“It was a lot,” I say.

He takes my bag from me. “Did you see your mom?”

I nod. “Yeah.” I let out a breath. “And my sisters. I feel so guilty for leaving.”

“And Frank?” he asks.

“Him too. I mailed him back the ring, but I had to sign some papers to transfer the trailer back to him.”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “How was that?”

“Frank’s a good man. It was fine. I hope he finds someone.”

“That person still isn’t you?” he asks.

“That person was never me.”

Our gazes lock. I want to tell him how much I miss him, that he came to mean more to me in a few short weeks than Frank ever did.

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