Turning Pages

Chapter Nineteen

NINETEEN 

I washed my face, scrubbing off the tear stains from the last few hours, and rejoined Melanie and my mom in the living room. Mel had a small stack of candy bar wrappers on the table in front of her and looked ready to talk, so I sat down and waited. Mom brought in the warm cookies and said she'd given Rob a quick call to let him know everything was fine. Melanie thanked her and began. 

"Luke called and said he wanted to elope. He couldn't wait one more second for the wedding. He asked me to get packed, and we'd go someplace really romantic and get married. I'd had a fight with my mom before she and my dad went out of town, and I was being selfish and melodramatic and decided to just go for it. I mean, we were getting married soon anyway, right? So I grabbed a suitcase and some stuff and left." She sniffed again and wiped her nose. "Rob tried to stop me, but he was being all self-righteous and doing the big-brother thing, and I couldn't handle that. He does it more annoyingly than most." 

"You know, now that I don't have my Rob-colored glasses on anymore, I can see that." 

She smirked at me. "Well, we left town and were on the freeway, and Luke was acting really weird. He started rambling on about this friend of his who'd gotten married and was miserable, and then this other friend who was living with his girlfriend and they were perfectly happy. He asked me if I'd rather be happy or miserable, and then told me he wanted us to wait a while to get married, to live together first and see if we could make a go of it. He said he knew he loved me, but sometimes people can't live under the same roof and still get along. Then he said he knew this great little bed and breakfast, and we could go there and talk it over." 

I held my breath, hoping she wasn't about to say what I feared she was going to say. 

"I thought we could have dinner and make some plans. When we got there, he wanted to go right up to the room. I told him I'd like to eat first, and he got a little testy and told me he had some granola bars in his bag. I told him I needed more time, that we needed to talk things over and make some decisions, and he threw a fit right there in the middle of the lobby. He called me a prude, said I'd been leading him on and that I'd been unfair to him, and that I could just find my own way home. Then he stormed out and drove away." 

"Oh, no." I reached out to touch her hand. I felt so sorry for her, yet so relieved Luke had left when he did. 

"I called a cab, and, well, now I'm here." She shook her head. "You were right, Addie. You were right about everything. I shouldn't have gone along with it. Now they're going to use me as a cautionary tale at church. 'Girls, here's what happened to one naive young girl when she didn't make the right choice. Now she's miserable and lives alone with seventeen cats.' I'm branded for life." 

"I don't think anyone needs to know about this," Mom said. "You've only been gone a few hours. Who saw you leave, besides Rob?" 

"No one, I guess," Melanie said. 

"Well, let's keep this little adventure under our hats, then, except for telling your parents. I don't see why it needs to go public. If anyone asks, you spent the night here, and that will be the truth-get comfy. You're not leaving until sunrise. Wait, it's almost sunrise now-you're not leaving until after lunch. I already told Rob that you needed some time, and not to come charging over here." 

Melanie smiled. "Thanks, Lillian. You're awesome, you know that?" 

Mom shrugged. "I try."  

Melanie attempted to stifle a yawn, and Mom stood up. "Let's all get to bed. You girls have got work tomorrow, if you know what's good for you and want to keep this hush-hush."