I stood. “Well, my mom had a perfect life, so I don’t know what she’d have to be sad about.”

“Charlie.”

“I’m tired.” I went back in the house, letting the door shut harder than I should’ve.

Chapter 13

The next morning I woke up to find Gage looking through the makeup catalog Amber had given me. “Is there something you need to tell me?” he asked. “Since when do you . . .”

I threw my pillow at his head. “Maybe I decided to go girly.”

“As if. Dad would freak if he saw you in this much makeup. Plus, it’s not you.”

I didn’t understand what that meant. I stared at the girl on the front of the catalog he held. She was soft and feminine and beautiful—like the wedding picture of my mom in the hall. So which part of that wasn’t me?

I turned onto my stomach and put my arms over my head. Who was I kidding? None of that was me. “Someone just brought it by my work the other day.”

“Amber?” he asked, turning the catalog toward me and showing me her picture in the front where she had circled her name in blue ink. “Is that this girl here? Because if so, you have to introduce us. She’s hot.”

I rolled out of bed and snatched the catalog from him. “What do you want?”

“We’re playing soccer on the beach. Let’s go.”

“I don’t feel like it today.”

He stopped cold, then looked around like he was in some alternate world. “Um . . . what? You don’t feel like playing soccer?” He put his hand on my forehead, then turned me in a full circle. “What have you done with my sister?”

Truth was, I didn’t feel like seeing Braden because I knew I’d behaved badly the night before. What he said had caught me off guard, and I ended up throwing him and his family under a bus to make myself feel better. And even though I knew it hurt him, what he had said still bothered me, so I wasn’t quite ready to apologize.

“I have to work in a few hours.” I didn’t have to work today at all. He didn’t notice my lie.

“That whole work thing is really cramping your style. You need to talk to Dad about the fact that you’ve learned your lesson. I’m sure he just wanted to see if you’d get a job.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll talk to him soon.” Later. I was finally making good money . . . and work wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first. It was something different that my brothers had never done, and I kind of liked that.

“So really? No soccer?”

“Really.”

As I was folding shirts on tables at work the next day, Linda began folding next to me. “Your aura is blue today. Most of the time that means sadness. Is everything okay?”

Wow, even my aura was upset about my tiff with Braden. “I’m fine.” I folded another shirt. “It’s just weird when a belief you’ve had your whole life is suddenly challenged.”

“What belief is that?”

“Nothing. I just pictured someone a certain way, and maybe they weren’t that way at all.” Maybe I had no memories of my mom because she was never around.

“That’s hard, when someone doesn’t meet our expectations.” She moved around to the other side of the table. “Sometimes we expect more than people are capable of giving at that moment.”

Shouldn’t a mother be capable of being there for her kids? Was that too much to expect?

She was there. It was my memories that weren’t.

“Honey.” Linda touched my hand. I wasn’t used to such a soft touch. It made my stomach feel hollow. I moved my hand to the next shirt to break the contact. “If you need to go home, I understand.”

“No. No, I don’t. I’m totally fine.” And I was. I didn’t need to get caught up in the stupid emotion of this. I could shake it off.

“Do you want to talk about it? Tell me more about this person?”

“No.”

She paused as if expecting me to change my mind. I wasn’t going to change my mind.

“Okay. I’m going to crunch some numbers in the back.”

“Sounds good.”

I continued folding shirts. A movement by the window caught my eye, and I looked up in time to see a mother and daughter walk by arm in arm. The two of them walking together made me think of how it could’ve been now if my mom were still here. We would’ve spent time together—talked, laughed, shared stories only she would understand, shared secrets I couldn’t tell anyone else. The pit in my stomach seemed to expand with that feeling. I didn’t like it. Why was I suddenly feeling like something was missing in my life? I had a great life. Linda and her concerned looks and gentle touch didn’t need to come around and make me think my life wasn’t amazing. I’ll run eight miles in the morning. That would take care of this.

Chapter 14

I walked into the kitchen to get a water bottle for my run and found Nathan staring intently at the red Frisbee on the counter.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I can’t do it. I can’t call her.”

“You’re returning her Frisbee, Nathan, not asking her out. Just dial the number.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right.”

I opened the fridge and grabbed a water bottle. When I turned around, Nathan was in the exact same position.

“If you were Lauren and some guy called you to return your Frisbee, what would you think?” he asked.

I pulled my foot to my butt to stretch out my thigh. “I’d think that some guy was calling me to return my Frisbee.”

He grunted. “Yeah, but you’re not a normal girl, so that doesn’t count.”

The ache in my stomach twitched, and I cringed.

“Normal girls read into everything.”

Switching feet, I stretched the other leg. “And what exactly are you doing right now?”

“I’m not reading into anything, I’m psyching myself out.”

I grabbed the phone off the counter and dialed Lauren’s number. “There. It’s done.” I thrust the phone toward him.

He held up his hands and wouldn’t take it from me, jumping away from it like it was an opposing team’s mascot or something.

“Ugh. You’re such a wimp.” I put it up to my ear.

“Hello?” a girl answered.

“Hi. Is this Lauren?”

“Yes.” She sounded like a completely normal girl—whatever that meant.