When Gracie is humiliated after following her best friend's brother to college and finds he's moved on without her, she grows closer to his rival--the captain of his basketball team--the infamous Kalen Rush, and suddenly Gracie wonders just what len...
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My mirror image, only twenty years older, sat before me as I took in her newly sunny complexion.
"Thank you for meeting me sweetie, it's just been so long since I've seen you and I wanted to make sure you were settling in well at school! I wish you'd told me sooner where you were going, I'd have come up to help you unpack!"
Her red lined lips offset the crow's feet around her eyes the botox hadn't taken care of.
She'd resorted to perms to keep her naturally curly and unruly hair straight, something I hadn't felt the need to impose upon my own similar hair.
Hers were full of luster and a shade darker than mine, having visited the salon recently it seemed, if her perfectly polished red nails and suspiciously tight features on her face were any indicator.
Flashes of crying in her bathroom with a bristle brush stuck in my hair, smeared nail polish staining the countertop, blood-red when all I'd wanted was neon green—all of those memories collided into one another in my mind as I stared at my mother.
I'd never stooped so low as to meet with her for lunch before—I wouldn't dare while I was still living at home.
But maybe, some tiny piece inside of me that screamed for her approval would finally shut the fuck up once it laid eyes on her.
"Yeah, well, Franny and her dad helped, and...dad helped."
Her face soured at the mention of my father the moment someone dinged a bell in the cafe.
"Order for Jennifer."
"Don't worry honey, I've got it," she whispered conspiratorially, like she was doing me some kind of magnificent favor just by buying us lunch.
The wafting scent of fresh coffee grounds and baked goods filled the air and I found myself guiltily glancing around in search of a familiar face that might give away what I was doing—like meeting my mother for lunch was some kind of dirty little secret.
Plopping the tray with our sandwiches down on the table, my mother looked me over as if she had just laid eyes on me the day before, instead of twelve years ago.
Twelve years, and the abandonment seeped from my pores and ran into a wall made of caked on foundation and false lashes.
"Oh, we've got to do something about your hair, my lovely. I've got a standing reservation every Saturday at my local place. When I heard you decided to come to this school, I knew I had to get an apartment here."
"I thought you just said you didn't know where I was going, and that if you did you'd have come to see me sooner?"
Her face pulled downwards in annoyance, but ironically enough, her mouth was too tight to even resemble a frown.
