Free The Life You've Imagined by Kristina Riggle

stand up roughly from the chair and it bangs back into the back shelf. “I can take care of myself.”
    “Then why are you in this mess? Do you know all the years you paid rent in this dump you could have bought actual property? Something you owned and couldn’t just be cast out of? What were you waiting for?”
    My headache is shrieking now. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I stand up and fumble past her like I’ve gone blind, stumbling up the stairs to my room, where I choke down two Excedrin dry and lay on top of my quilt, curled up like a wounded animal protecting my soft insides.
    When I awake, my mouth feels cottony and I’m dizzy, disoriented. It takes me several moments to remember what just happened. I creep down the hall to peek down the stairs. From this view I can see the store in operation, and I can hear Anna’s voice as she rings up purchases. She also seems to be on her cell phone with her office.
    I slink back to my room, avoiding squeaky spots on the hallway floor. I close the door gently and press the lock down. It snaps into place and I relax a bit.
    From under my mattress I withdraw Robert’s last letter and a pad of paper. My pen remains on my nightstand from when I last used it.
    Dear Robert, I begin.
You asked me when you first wrote if I believe in second chances and at the time I said I didn’t know. I needed time. And actually, just recently I tried to stop writing you. It suddenly seemed so foolish to even entertain the notion of seeing you again, after everything.
But I re-read your letter every night and I couldn’t bear to think this could be the last I hear from you, if I didn’t write back at all. It was like you were disappearing again, only this time it’s up to me, it’s in my hands.
I can’t promise it will be like it was. But you’re sorry and you love me and you’re coming back after all, and since I can’t stop thinking of you . . . I guess this means I still love you, too.
All this means that yes, I’ll meet you. Just tell me when and where.
I don’t know what the future holds for us, if anything. But I’m willing to see.
Maeve
    The envelopes are downstairs. I’ll have to wait until Anna is asleep, or out, or, if not before, I can mail it Monday, when she’s gone back home with her fancy education and expensive suits and her utter confidence that she’s so much smarter than I am.

Chapter 13
    Amy
    M y mom looks around for a chair to sit on.
    We’re in Agatha’s Boutique, and for most people a chair is nothing, almost nonexistent, like the spoon in your hand or the mirror on the wall, serving only as a means to an end.
    Only when you’re fat, none of this is nothing.
    “Here, Mom,” and I take her elbow and point her toward a low bench, upholstered in crushed velvet. It’s wide enough for two, or wide enough for her. I remember sitting there myself when looking for a prom dress. I gave up in disgust and stayed home.
    She nods her relief at finding a place to land. She crosses her legs at her ankles because she can’t cross them at her knees.
    I still remember the joy the first time I realized I could cross one knee over another.
    She’s still breathing a little hard. We had to park far away.
    “Well,” she says with a little puff of air, fanning herself with a tissue. “Let’s see this vision of a dress.”
    It’s still the store model. Mine isn’t in yet, but Mom wanted to see it, insisted on it, in fact. Aunt Agatha appears with the dress over her arm.
    Mom gasps. “Oooooh, look at that. Will you just look at that.”
    I accept the dress from Aunt Agatha and step into the large bridal fitting room, alone, by prior arrangement with my mother. She fussed at me over it, complained, “Why are you so modest? I wiped your butt; I can see you change into a dress.”
    I told her I just wanted her to see it all at once, and get the full effect when it was already on.
    I don’t let Agatha in here, either. She offered before, because climbing into a wedding