Page 108 of The Other Side of Paradise
“—but I should have come right along with you,” Mom finished, wiping tears away. Ryan laughed through her tears, shaking her head.
“Okay, honestly—all of you, thank you, but I’m not making all of you miss your flight. Flights out of here are so small they might just cancel the flight if four of us skip it.”
“I’m not letting them demean my daughters and just taking it lying down,” Mom said, and I made a face.
“Are you just trying to avoid Dad?” I said, trying to make it sound like a joke and not like I was pulled into tight knots wondering what was going through Dad’s head—how he’d frozen up back in the gate, paralyzed at the whole scene. How he wasn’t here. Mom waved me off.
“Your father and I arefine,Stella, relax.”
“Mom, I’m serious,” Ryan said, putting a hand on her arm. “Thank you. But I really just don’t want to cause more problems for more people. I don’t think there’s any use standing up for me in the family at this point. They’ve made up their minds about me, and honestly, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Ryan…” Mom’s voice trailed off, looking down. “I just want to… I want to do better than I have been. You felt like you weren’t loved and appreciated because of your career change. I don’t want to make those mistakes again.”
Now I was going to start crying. I looked away as Ryan said, “Mom—I know. Thank you. I love you. But please. This is what I want—for everybody to be okay. I can find my way back. I don’t want to be worrying about everybody else at the same time.”
She was right. I hated it—hated this whole thing—but I knew it made sense. It wasn’t like it was going to change things, not with the ones who’d already made up their minds that they were pissed off with Ryan, with me.
Maybe things could be different. A little bit. At least with Mom. But that was for another lifetime.
But I still felt achingly sad once Ryan and I were out of the airport. Once we’d managed to convince Mom and Oscar that it was best for the two of us to not be around, and we’d gotten out to the parking lot and got on the hotel shuttle, my mind in a million places at once. On Mom, on Dad, on Allison.
Off to some stupid cheap hotel that looked like roadside depression, where Ryan booked a room and I mooched off of her. She didn’t protest, not until we got up to a room that smelled like Lysol and stale carpet, and I’d dropped onto the sofa bed while Ryan set down her carryon bag, leaning against the window, looking up at the deep night sky.
“Well, that was a nightmare,” she said. I scoffed, settling back onto the bed.
“No joke. Whole family’s dysfunctional.”
“To put it lightly.” She stepped back, drawing the curtains shut, and she gave me an odd look, one eyebrow raised. “So, that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“My heart would explode if I had to look at Grandma for one more second.” That was not by any measure the whole truth. Didn’t mean it wasn’t true, though. She turned on the AC and dropped onto the foot of the bed, focusing on where she was taking her shoes off.
“And yet you come out swinging telling everybody else to go home…”
Ugh, was I supposed to talk about this right now? I distracted myself with the sofa bed, shifting to test the weight. Not the comfiest, but better than being around Grandma and Aunt Helena and Shane and everyone else. “I’ll be hearing about it for ages if people do stay here because of us,” I mumbled. She gave me a look.
“Just go ahead and tell me what it’s actually about,” she said, and I let out a world-weary sigh, dropping back onto the sofa bed, taking my glasses off and dropping them on the side table. Even my glasses made me think of Allison. Ugh.
“You get it,” I said, and she raised her eyebrows.
“I really don’t.”
“No, I’m answering the question,” I said quietly. “I just… thought this would be easier if it was me and you. I don’t know.”
She didn’t say anything, dropping back onto the bed and staring at the ceiling. Probably didn’t know how. Neither did I, not really. Not when I felt the weight of this place coming down on me like it was crushing me. I’d always wanted everyone to just up andsayit. For the family to do… basically exactly this. Turns out I didn’t like it.
I heard myself going on quietly. “Do you feel like you’re making the wrong choice?” I said, voice shaky.
“I don’t really want to talk about it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, taking a wobbly breath. After an eternity, I said, “I feel like I’m making the wrong choice.”
She turned to look at me, a distant smile on her features. “That you never went for it with Jacob?”
“Ha, ha. You’re a dork.” I’d forgotten Jacob had ever existed. He wasn’t the one my mind circled like water around a drain.
“We have to leave,” Ryan said, softly. Seemed pretty clear she didn’t want to believe it any more than I did.
“Iknow,” I said. “But this sucks. Maybe it’s because this was a vacation, or maybe it’s because so much happened, but it feels like this is allspecialin some way and nothing will be like this again. And I’m just… I’m just going to be sad about her…”
