“Nothing. I just miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Midnight kiss?”
I nod through my silly tears and we share a kiss on my phone screen. A cold, flat kiss on a screen, but I feel Crosby like he’s here with me.
“Now,” he says. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”
I open my mouth, but just then, that girl Maddie—or Addie?—rushes over to warn me that the cops are coming to break up the party and she’s somehow gotten all us girls a ride home.
Panicking, I tell Crosby that I have to go and I’ll call him back soon.
As the next couple of days wear on, and the more FaceTime sessions and text messages we share, the more I miss Crosby.
* * *
Daddy summons me the day after New Year’s because he says he needs to talk.
“Daddy? I’m kind of in the middle of something,” I say, checking on Sassy and watching her feed her kittens. I was about to take some pictures and send them to Crosby, to let him know his suitcase is still the coziest place in the house.
“Ridley, come home. Now. We need to talk.” My stomach churns.
He knows.
But when I arrive, I’m told to change into a dress. From the looks of everything going on around me, I soon figure out I’m expected to attend some spontaneous wedding of some teacher I barely know.
By the time I’m dressed, I’m just not ready to go to this random wedding that, for some reason, is taking place at Daddy’s lake house. Not without Crosby. I don't know who to call. I can’t call my friends. The only person I can think of is my mother? We may not have the best relationship, but maybe I’ve played a part in that. I just need to talk to her.
“What on earth are you crying about now?” my mother huffs over the phone.
I’m getting dressed for this wedding in the heated tent down by the lake, although I don’t know why I have to be there. I’ve never even been in theater or taken any classes with Ms. Fairweather. Or, Fairhope? I can’t remember her name. And I don’t know what’s come over Daddy this year, but he came back from his random trip to New York acting way less domineering and more…like a man who’s been cut off at the knees. Something has changed.
But I can’t complain. He’s sent one of his staff members over to Mother’s house specifically to watch over Sassy, so I won’t stress about her and her kittens while I’m visiting with him for the rest of the winter break.
It’s almost as if Daddy has turned into some kind of a lovesick puppy, the way he’s been moping around the house.
Mother seems to be the only person in this clan who has it together in the relationship department.
“I swear, you’d never be able to tell you’re the progeny of your father and me with the way you’ve been acting. You’ve been positively sentimental ever since Christmas Eve. What’s gotten into you?”
“Mother. There’s something I have to tell you.” I grip the phone. “You’re not going to like this. Crosby and I are seeing each other.”
I’m relieved that I am not there to see my mother’s jaw hit the floor.
“That little fucker. I knew he was no good.”
I grip my fingers into the cables at the front of my sweater, over the spot where my stomach rumbles in hunger. “Mother, it’s not like what you think.”
I feel relieved that I’m not face to face with Mother right now because for the first time in my life, I completely unload the truth onto her. I tell her everything about Crosby and me. Well, not everything. That would be a little gross.
I am not a girl who blurts things out. But right now, I do. “And, Mother, I think I love him.”
I don’t think I do. I know it. I’ve been just as mopey around Daddy’s house as Daddy has been these past couple of days.
Finally, after a good long talk, during which I convince my mother not to hunt down Crosby and chop his nuts off, she arrives at the grief stage of acceptance.
“Well. I suppose anything is better than Roland Peek.”
“Please, I don't ever want to hear that name again.”