Page 105 of #Moonstruck

I so badly wanted her to comfort me and tell me everything would be okay! “Because he got another girl pregnant.”

She gasped. “Is she going to drop out of school?”

“No, she’s done with school.” It was probably a lot more shocking to think this had happened to a couple of teenagers than to adults.

“He cheated on you, then?”

“No.” I blinked. “Technically he didn’t cheat on me. It happened before we ever met.” Saying it out loud made me realize that my brothers, stupid and awful as they were, had been sort of right. Ryan hadn’t set out to hurt me or betray me. Which just aggravated me more. I tried to justify my anger. “The thing is, my father always does this. He has a bunch of different kids with a bunch of different women. It ruined my life. My mom’s life. I can’t go through that.”

My mom nodded, looking thoughtful. “Do you think you’d feel the same way if your dad wasn’t the way he is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Maybe I would have felt angry or betrayed, but if I didn’t have such a dysfunctional parent, would I have gotten over it? “That’s hard to imagine, though.”

“It doesn’t really seem fair to punish your boyfriend for your hang-ups.”

“I’m punishing him for not using birth control correctly. It isn’t about my hang-ups.”

“Okay.” My mother raised one eyebrow at me, the way she used to do when I was little and she didn’t believe me. It made my heart squeeze. “Whatever you say. I think you should forgive him.”

“What?”

“I go to church with my mom every week. I don’t know if I believe everything they’re saying, but I do think forgiveness is important.”

My mouth literally dropped open. My mother had never once taken us to church. She’d grown up religious? How did I not know this?

Was this why she put up with my father for so long?

“So I just forgive him?” The way she had when she adopted Cole? “Just get over it?”

“Well, yeah. You’d be a lot happier. Like when my best friend and I got into this massive fight junior year over Frank Cadieux. He was my boyfriend, and she kissed him! We didn’t speak for months. I was mad for a long time, but then I missed my friend, and it was all just ... stupid. A waste. So I forgave Elaine.”

I let out a sigh. It wasn’t quite the same thing. “And then everything was fine?”

“Not so much. Elaine was still mad at me. The thing is, though, when you forgive someone, it allows you to let go of your anger. When I stopped being angry, I found a way to fix our friendship.”

I realized she was right. That this could be the answer to my situation. Maybe it wasn’t what I had come here for, and even though she didn’t know who I was, she’d still managed to help me.

Not wanting to keep talking about Ryan, forgiveness, and the doubts that had started to creep into my mind, I said, “Hey, I don’t know if you remember, but I told you about how my family has a secret brownie recipe.”

“Mine, too!”

“Right. Anyway, I found out the secret. It was made from a mix.”

She let out a low whistle. “That must have been a letdown. I would have been furious.”

“It was a letdown. But I’ve been making them, anyway.”

“Are they good?”

I twisted my lips and cleared my throat, making the tears go away. Then I reached over and put my hand on her arm. “They’re good. But it isn’t the same.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Over the next couple of weeks as I got ready to go on tour again, I had nothing but time to think, to keep running my brothers’ words through my mind over and over. I had my groceries and the occasional takeout meal delivered so I could avoid the paparazzi still camped out in the complex’s parking lot. I also ordered some books online about forgiveness.

I found some measure of relief after I confessed to Angie the truth of everything that had happened. She told me she’d be there for me but didn’t have much else to say about it.

It left me even more time to sit and think, and to read advice from a number of different experts. Eventually it dawned on me that my idiot siblings had been right.

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