Page 28 of Save the Last Dance
Unlike him, who saw mood disorders everywhere he looked.
He nodded toward the stairs. “Do you mind if we walk up?”
“That’s fine.” Nina double-checked her phone. “Ally is waiting for a consultation from a dermatology specialist upstairs, but Bethany said we could meet in the fourth-floor waiting area.”
“Did Ally say much on the ride here?”
“No. The ride was so silent I intruded with babble just to make noise or make it less awkward. But then I thought maybe I was the only who felt really awkward.”
“There’s a lot of silence going around in that house.” He reached in front of Nina to shove open the door to the stairs, the scent of her vanilla fragrance stirring memories in spite of the hellish day. Didn’t it figure she would smell incredibly edible?
His phone vibrated. He cursed.
“If you need to take it in private,” Nina offered, “I can meet you upstairs.”
“It’s not that. It’s Mom.” The door fell shut behind them and the elevator started to climb. Mack withdrew his phone again and checked the message. “She’s had a rough year since Dad’s death and I’m…” He blew out a pent-up breath. “I’m not Scott. I can’t provide constant reassurance. I just—can’t. I’ll send her a note when we get upstairs.”
Nina was quiet.
“I know that makes me a heel.” What decent guy ignored his own mother?
“God, no,” she confided, her frankness something he’d always enjoyed about her. “I can totally identify with drawing boundaries when you have a strained relationshipwith your parents. I just didn’t realize you’d reached that point with your mom.”
Long ago. Mack had left town before his mother had found the right mix of medications that seemed to be helping her more lately. But unfortunately, he hadn’t found a new, healthy way to relate to her. Avoidance had become his go-to coping mechanism.
“You remember she ended up in the hospital after Vince’s accident.” One of many reasons he never could have gone to New York with her.
Nina tried not to let her jaw hit the floor at Mack’s comment. Had he honestly just said that?
“Of course I remember. That was one of many things I blamed myself for in those months after we broke up.” She’d been devastated when he’d told her his mom had been hospitalized. That was in the first few weeks after Nina had left town, when they’d still been speaking..
“Why would you blame yourself?” He halted on a step. “You must have known she had problems long before that, even if I never talked about it.”
Mack had never talked about himself, his emotions, or his family. To a grown woman, that would have been a red flag. For Nina, she’d been too caught up in all the good stuff they shared to think about what theydidn’t.
“I was eighteen. I tended to believe everything was my fault,” she backpedaled, not ready to talk about the argument she’d had with his mom before she left town. He had too many other family concerns to deal with today. “I remember thinking at that exact moment—when you toldme she’d been admitted—that you were never coming to New York with me.”
That had been devastating enough. But it had been far worse to imagine she’d played a role in pushing his mom over the edge when they’d argued.
“That wasn’t the main reason I didn’t get to New York.” Mack’s boots thudded heavily on each stair as if the weight of old grief dogged his steps even now. “If it had just been my mom…”
He trailed off and she guessed all the ways he might fill in the blank. Logically, she understood the aftermath of his best friend’s death had been traumatic. That she should have been stronger for him instead of expecting him to be there for her. She’d been selfish. Self-centered.
And eighteen.
“I know it was more complicated than that. I just meant?—”
“Jenny miscarried Vince’s baby two days after the accident.” He hit the top step on the fourth-floor landing but paused before he opened the door. “I’d promised I wouldn’t share her secret back then because she was eighteen and scared to death, but she came to terms with that a long time ago. She wouldn’t mind me telling you now.”
Shock glued her feet to the floor. In all these years, she’d never guessed. Never suspected there might be something so…significantthat had drawn Jenny and Mack together. Her picture of the past reshuffled like a deck of cards in an electric dealer, the placement of all the pieces shifting too fast to comprehend.
“I had no idea.” Even as new understanding dawned, finally giving her insight into everything that had happened since she left town, she also felt the sting of hurt that Mack had willingly chosen to keep her in the dark after all thatthey’d shared. He’d chosen Jenny over her. “I’m so sorry you had to bear that.”
“It felt like the right thing to do at the time, and it was a lot worse for Jenny.” He met her gaze evenly. Stoic even now. Until he blinked slowly. Shook his head. “But I can’t help remembering it today because I brought her to this same ER. The whole thing happened two floors down.”
Chapter Seven
“Can you tellme when the scratching started, honey?”
