As I Am

Chapter Seventeen

            My face pales. “We’re leaving early?”

            She shakes her head. “No, we’ll be coming back. But I want you to come down with me and your father, if he can get time away from work for the day. It’s an important release and my publisher wants our family to be there.”

            I shrug my left shoulder as I draw circles in Cat’s fur atop his head. “Okay.”

            Mom smiles. “Great. Well, I better get writing!”

            She waits for me to budge but I don’t move. “What’s your book called and about?” I haven’t paid much attention to her writing since Cade’s passing. Before I always read her books countless times and always wondered when she would complete another one. She would always be writing, but rarely finished a book that she liked until now.

            Mom looks slightly nervous but she tries to cover it with a smile. “It’s a surprise.”

            “I have to wait until the release party?” A frown sits on my lips as Mom nods. For the first time since she started her hovering I’m trying to be nice to her, trying to get that better mother-daughter bond that we used to have. Now she’s wrecking my effort.

            “Now go on, I need to write!”

            “Fine, fine.” I head back up towards my room, and for the first time since we arrived, Mom closes her bedroom door.

            “These are amazing,” Hadley murmurs as she flips through the series of photos my dad and I took the day we went to see the whales. “My mom is going to love to see these.” Hadley places them back in the sleeve and puts them in her white and beige lace backpack.

            I grab my purse and dump everything inside of it. “Ready?”

            Hadley nods. “Let’s go par-tay.”

            I roll my eyes. “You said it wasn’t a party.”

            “It isn’t,” she says with a smirk, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t party at a non-party.”

            Mom calls for us to be safe and have fun, tells me my curfew, which I don’t really care about whether I make it or not. Knowing me, I’ll probably be home hours before it. Dad is still at work for today, so I don’t have to deal with seeing him. But he has tomorrow off so I know I’ll have to face him then. I’m unsure of why I’m still avoiding him, however I think it’s because he’s going to want me to meet with Cade’s mom, though I’m still not completely sure. He also lied to me, so maybe he’s avoiding me too.

            Hadley and I walk slowly on our way to where the beach is. The whole time she chatters a few names off to me that I know I’ll forget the moment we get there, but I listen anyways, hoping I’ll get along well with Hadley’s friends.