LAURIE

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Kyle said glancing up at my house.

“I have to go home at some point.”

I’d had just one text message from Mom.

One.

I could only imagine how angry they were at me after yesterday. God, even I was embarrassed. It was so out of character for me to do something like that. But everyone had a breaking point, and apparently mine started and ended with Kyle.

“I can come in with you. I know I’m not their favorite person right now, but I don’t like the idea of sending you in there alone.”

Leaning over, I ran my hand along his jaw. “I love you. But this is something I have to do on my own. They’re my parents. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Kyle’s mouth opened, but I pressed a finger to his lips. “On second thoughts, don’t answer that. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you later.”

He wanted to argue, it was right there, etched into the lines of his face. But Kyle was trying, giving me the space he knew I needed.

“If it gets too much, you call me, right away. Promise me.”

“I will.” I mashed my lips together, forcing them into a weak smile before I climbed out.

Each step up the path to my house was like walking through quicksand. But they were my parents, I couldn’t avoid them forever. And I did owe them an apology for my part in yesterday’s mess.

“Hello... Laurie?” Mom’s voice filtered down the hall the second I slipped inside, and dread pooled in my stomach at the idea of her lying in wait. When I didn’t answer, she called, “Laurie, is that you?”

Who else would it be? The words teetered on the tip of my tongue but never came. Nothing I said would help the already strained situation between me and my parents. Instead, I replied, “I’ll be in my room,” hoping to avoid another scene. Not that my dad would speak to me yet. He preferred the silent treatment as a best form of punishment.

“Could you come in here for a second?” Her voice sounded funny. Distant. Despondent. And I braced myself for yet another dressing down. But when I entered the living room what I saw shocked me.

“Mom?”

“Please.” She patted the space beside her and I went, the dread in my stomach filling me so completely I felt sick.

“Is... is everything okay?”

“Fine, darling.” She sucked in a long breath, contradicting her words. “Everything is fine. How are you?”

How am I?

I blinked, unsure I’d heard correctly.

“It was very kind of the Stone-Prince’s to have you over for the night.”

It was?

Kyle had texted them from my phone pretending to be me. I’d expected to get chewed out for breaking their no sleepover rule... I hadn’t expected this.

“Hmm, yeah, they’re cool like that,” I mumbled, avoiding the fact I’d slept in a drunken heap in the arms of my boyfriend who they considered to be unworthy of their daughter.

“Indeed.” She smiled, her eyes looking right past me out of the large window overlooking the front lawn.

“Mom, you’re acting weird. Did something happen? Where’s Dad?” Usually Sunday was family day. We’d eat dinner together, making awkward small talk, pretending to be the picture-perfect family we most definitely were not.

My words jolted her out of her reverie and her glassy gaze slid to mine. “I know I’m not perfect, Laurie, but all I’ve ever wanted is what’s best for you. I want you to know that.”

“Okay.” My brows knitted together. “Were you out with your friends?” I leaned in, half expecting to smell the telltale signs of a champagne lunch lingering on her breath. Surprised when there was nothing but the minty smell of gum.

“I saw an old friend yesterday,” Mom said. “After you... well, that’s not important. We got chatting about life. Our families. You.”

“Me?”

“Do you find it so hard to believe I talk about you? You’re my daughter, Laurie.”

Okay then.

“Anyway, she was telling me about her three sons. One of them just got engaged. She was so proud and excited, and then she looked at me and said, ‘What’s your daughter like?’ and I couldn’t answer her.” Her face crumpled, a rare sight for the polished and well put together Gabi Davison. “I mean, I could tell her how you have a three-point-eight GPA and how your father and I hope you’ll study pre-law at Berkeley. But I couldn’t tell her any of the important things.”

“Mom, come on, we don’t have to do this.” I swallowed over the lump in my throat.

“No, darling, I think we do. You were so angry with us. I’ve never seen you like that before, I barely recognized you.”

Probably because I’d never gotten like that before. I was passive. A peacekeeper. I didn’t like to rock their perfectly aligned boat. Maybe it was years spent being seen but not heard or the fact I’d given up vying for their attention a long time ago. But the stress of Kyle, and the pressure of the future, had changed me and all that frustration and hurt, and feeling of being adrift without an anchor had finally exploded.

It wasn’t my finest moment and even now, even though I knew it had been a long time coming, I still couldn’t help but carry some guilt toward displeasing my parents.

“I love him, Mom. I love Kyle. And you defend the people you love.”

Something flashed in her eyes. Regret. Pain. Maybe both. It was strange—and unfathomable given our track record—but I don’t think I’d ever seen such emotion plastered on my mother’s usually perfect face.

“Yes, I’m realizing that.”

“You are?”

“Darling,”—she reached for me, brushing my hair out of my eyes—“Believe it or not, I can remember what it’s like to be in love.”

“You don’t love Dad?”

“I do, very much, but young love is different. It’s urgent and exciting and all-consuming. And I was wrong to dismiss what you feel for Kyle.”

“This is great and all, Mom, but I don’t know what you want me to say? I’m seventeen. This,”—I motioned between us—“Isn’t a new thing. This is how it’s always been with us. You and Dad doing your thing and me standing by in the wings.”

She sucked in a sharp breath at my honesty, and I’d have been lying if I said the truth in my words didn’t surprise me too. But there was something different about her. And maybe it was my pounding head or the fact that Kyle and I were in a good place again, but I felt different too.

“I’d like for things to be different between us,” she whispered as if the words were difficult to say.

“Do you know what I’ve come to realize lately, Mom?” I looked her dead in the eye. “Actions speak louder than words. You want things to be different, then prove it. I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

She stared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time. And maybe she was. Maybe seeing me yesterday, in front of all her friends, was the shove she needed to wake up and see the young woman I’d become. I wasn’t a child anymore. They couldn’t just shove me aside and give me my allowance and send me on my way. I had thoughts, feelings, and opinions. And I mattered.

Dammit, I mattered.

I. Mattered.

So I was done making it easy on them. On giving them a free pass because that’s just how things worked with us. I was part of this family too.

And like it or not, it was time they acknowledged that.

So I did the only thing I could.

I got up and walked away. Not because I wanted to make her suffer or hurt her feelings. But because I didn’t need her validation anymore. I had spent so long trying to be visible to my parents that somewhere along the way, I'd lost a part of myself. And, in the end, I became background noise. Deep down, I think that’s why I latched onto Lo. Because she was another anchor to Kyle’s family. To the thing I so badly craved. But I wasn’t that girl now. I was stronger. More confident. And if Mom truly wanted a relationship with me—a real relationship—she knew where to find me.

~

“SO, DO I NEED TO COME and defend your honor?” Kyle chuckled over the line, but I heard the strain in his voice.

“It was weird. She seemed so... sorry.”

“Hold the phone, Mrs. D has a heart after all.”

“Kyle,” I sighed, picking the hem of the old football jersey I’d borrowed from Kyle. “Not helpful.”

“Sorry, babe, I’m just trying to lift the mood.”

“I know, and I love you for it, but this is just something we have to figure out in our own time. She said she wanted to try, so who knows, maybe she will.”

“And your dad?”

I flopped back against my pillows and stretched my legs. “I don’t expect him to come around anytime soon. He was nowhere to be seen earlier, but that’s okay. I’m not sure I could deal if they both wanted to try.” I was still getting my head around the idea Mom had finally realized she had a seventeen-year-old daughter she barely knew.

“Well it’s about time they realized what an amazing daughter they have,” he said with total conviction.

“Kyle,” my voice cracked.

“It’s true. Everyone should know how amazing Laurie Davison is. MY GIRLFRIEND IS SO FRICKIN’ AWESOME,” he bellowed down the phone.

“Kyle, where are you right now?” I shrieked, the stain of embarrassment creeping into my cheeks.

“At The Shack with the guys, why?”

“Oh my God, you are not!”

“No,” he said, and I heard the smile in his voice. “But I’d love to see your face right now. I’m at the pool house.”

“Still?”

“Hey, don’t judge. I’m still figuring things out.”

“I know but you can’t stay there forever.”

“Geez, Mom, you’re starting to sound like Rick and Lo.”

“That’s because they have a point. You can’t hide forever.”

“I am not hiding.” Hurt lingered in his voice. “I’m processing.”

“I know.”

“Laurie, I’m not running, I promise. I will talk to Dad and then I’ll figure out what to do about Maria.”

“Whatever you decide, I’ll be right here.” I’d said it before, but something told me he needed to hear it again. Deep down, I knew Kyle craved to know his birth mom. He just had to realize that for himself. He had to want it for him. Not for anybody else.

“I don’t deserve you, Laurie Davison,” he whispered. “But I’m glad I have you by my side.”

But that was the thing about love. Sometimes it wasn’t about what you deserved or even wanted. It just was. You couldn’t fight it or ignore it or switch it off. It was a part of you like your beating heart or the blood pumping through your veins.

And despite our recent struggles, my heart beat for Kyle.

It always would.