Forever Luminescent

Chapter 38

Meredith and Ruth.

Ruth and Meredith.

Until Meredith took Ruth's baby.

Her. Gwenn Davidson would've been Gwenn Woods had Ruth kept her. But Ruth put her up for adoption, and Meredith took her.

But her mother had never spoken about an old best friend. Her mother never talked about her past, only about what she strived to achieve. She was an unstoppable force. Everyone knew that Meredith Davidson was a woman on a mission, and if you stepped in her way, you were in danger of being removed.

No matter how much Gwenn loved her mother, she would never agree with how much the concept of image and reputation mattered. But now it made sense. She grew up in a tiny house surrounded by dirt and a vast amount of nothing. Her hands had grabbed at anything in front of her, only to have clutched air. So she underwent a transformation and got out of her hole, digging through the dirt until she came out the other side, where the sun warmed her toes and she could grab onto branches of promises that came true. And she kept moving until she became an executive assistant of a big company, married a good man, and bought a house in the decent suburbs of the small town of Hales Bay.

Meredith had built her image from the ground up, and telling Gwenn would mean confessing where she came from and what she had to do to get to where she was.

Despite all of that, Gwenn couldn't stop the deep ache in her chest. She tried to understand her mother, but knowing everything she lied about burned her insides.

"Honey?" Ronan spoke. She snapped her eyes to his. The lies between them crackled to life, and she winced. Her life had reached a peak where everything seemed to be so well off, but it all crashed down and burned by the words held back by sealed lips. Everywhere she looked, she was surrounded by the lies. "You'll get through this, and-"

Gwenn shook her head, pushing away from him to gather the last shreds of her dignity and wits. Though it was dry and suffocating in the middle of Braunson Valley, it felt like a heavy ocean wave doused her from head to toe and she was left sputtering, her lungs filling with salt water until she couldn't breathe.

Her mother wasn't the only person who withheld information from her.

"We should go," she said, grimacing at the obvious voice crack. Ronan held out his arms to steady her, but she stepped out of his grip, turning to face the truck.

He cleared his throat. "Okay, I booked a room at a Bed and Breakfast not far from here," he said. She could only nod as he unlocked the door for her, and she climbed on without a word.

Ronan got into the driver's seat, sitting so straight and stiff, Gwenn thought he would break if he bent at any angle. She rubbed at her arms, hoping to get rid of the goosebumps on her flesh as they drove away.

Her eyes felt heavy in their sockets by the time they walked up to the front desk at the Bed and Breakfast. A rustic ambiance proved to give her a sense of coziness-wooden tables and desks stood at angles across the lobby, warm light fixtures hung overhead, and faded cream floors stretched across the space with burnt red rugs that popped under seating areas. Gwenn hugged her frame as Ronan spoke with the lady, getting their key cards for the night.

The plush sofas by the lobby windows called to her with their big space and squishable throw pillows. She envisioned herself pouring a watery hot cocoa into a steaming foam cup and curling her body on it as the night ticked away. Instead, she followed Ronan to the elevators to get to their floor.

He said nothing the way up, and she was glad because she didn't know what to even respond with. Too many unspoken words hung between them, held back by the words they did say earlier that day.