Page 22 of Going the Distance
“Well, he lost his balls, so no more surprise siblings—oh, shit, you didn’t hear that either. Becca wastotallyplanned.” He shot me a crooked smile. Cracking jokes because that was his way of dealing with things. Not wanting to open up too much about the hard stuff. I got that. Ireallygot that.
In that moment, I really felt for Levi. The poor guy had lost his girlfriend, moved away from all his friends, his parents had lost their jobs, his dad had beenreallysick…No wonder he hadn’t opened up much. I had the urge to hug him tight.
“But, yeah, otherwise, it’s good,” he went on, before I could. “They caught it right in the first stages and it was all resolved really quickly.”
“And I guess it’s good he’s got support groups to goto.”
Levi nodded but was quiet.
“You know, my mom died. Years ago, when I was little. She was driving and it was icy, and she didn’t make it home.”
Now it was his turn: “Oh my God.”
“It’s weird, though, because I’m just used to it now. Like, I’ve spent nearly half my life without a mom, and sometimes I really, really miss her, and then I feel guilty for not missing her all the rest of the time, too, which makes things worse.”
“Didn’t your dad ever remarry?”
“No. Sometimes I think he’s still not over my mom dying. Or maybe being a full-time dad and having a full-time job doesn’t leave a lot of time for dating.”
“But you’re…over it? Okay with it?”
I gave Levi a wan smile. “I don’t think it’s something you get over. You just go on anyway. But I get it, you know? People looking at you weird because of something like that. I think the guys would all be okay with you about it, but…I don’t know. If you want a shoulder to cry on, or someone to vent to…”
Levi gulped, eyes shining. “Thanks, Elle.”
“Anyway,” I said briskly, “I totally forgot to ask you earlier—are you going to Jon Fletcher’s party in a couple of weeks?”
• • •
After my heart-to-heart with Levi, when I got home later that night, I took one of the old family photo albums out of the small cabinet in Dad’s office. He walked past the open door on his way to the kitchen and stopped when he saw me sitting cross-legged on the floor flicking through pages of photos from before even Brad was born.
“What’re you doing, Elle?”
I shrugged, not quite trusting my voice.
Last time I’d done this was in February. I’d had a complete breakdown because I’d forgotten it was Mom’s birthday that day until Dad mentioned going to get some flowers to take to the cemetery. I spent the entire afternoon and evening studying photos of my mom and wondering what she would look like now. I did that when I missed her badly. I tried so hard to think if I remembered her looking like she did in the photos because I really did remember her, or just because I’d seen her photos around the house so many times.
“Missing your mom, huh?” Dad’s knees creaked as he sat down on the floor beside me.
“A little.”
I didn’t want him to stay; I didn’t want him to talk to me about it, or talk about her, and tell me stories, because that was only going to make me cry, and I didn’t want to cry right now. Crying wasn’t going to bring her back, I told myself, just like I’d told myself a hundred times before.
I closed the photo album but didn’t put it back just yet.
“She’d be proud of you, you know.”
I just shrugged again.For what?For still not having written my college application essay? For almost losing my best friend a few months ago because I decided to date his brother behind his back? For not being able to get a part-time job despite the number of applications I’d sent out?
“Don’t wanna talk about her, I take it?”
I shook my head, and Dad took the photo album from me to slide it back into its home in the cabinet.
“How was Levi?”
Now this was a conversation I could handle.
“Good. His sister was cute. We made brownies.”
