Free Breaking Ties by Tracie Puckett Page A

times,” he said. “She told me a few days ago that your mom’s been trying to get back in contact with her. I was curious—”
    “I don’t know anything about that,” I said. “I suspected she might’ve been in contact with Bailey, but I didn’t know for sure until last night. All I know is Bailey and Dad are both in foul moods, and I can always tell when it’s something Mom has said or done. She has a very special way of wreaking havoc, even when she’s not trying.”
    “Not the best relationship, then?”
    “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Mom’s a character, let me tell you.”
    “Please do,” he said. “Tell me.”
    And then I did. I told him everything. I started with the first time Bailey and I had picked up on the subtle clues that things were failing in our parents’ marriage, recalling the few times I’d found them sleeping separately—Dad on the couch, Mom in their bed. I told him about all the arguments, the way Mom had screamed at him, lashed out at us … the way she would ruthlessly say anything she could to hurt anyone whom she felt threatened by. I even broke down and told him about overhearing that final argument, the one that left my mother surrendering her position in their marriage and banning all of us from her life. Go ahead! Leave. She said it so easily, like none of us had ever mattered.
    I didn’t stop talking until I’d told Gabe everything up to the conversation I had with Dad last week about Ronnie and the affair. There wasn’t much to share about Mom’s recent phone calls to Bailey, or the way Dad lashed out when he found out that Mom and Bailey were in touch, but I told him that, too.
    It was cathartic. Years of silence, years of feelings and stories I’d kept to myself, all let go. I told him everything. And he just watched me. He listened.
    “So what do you want?” he asked, when I was done talking. “Do you want to know why she’s calling?”
    “Do you know?”
    “I don’t,” he promised. “I only know what Bailey’s told me, and that’s not much. Just that there’s another man, and now your sister thinks she’s seeking approval.”
    “I think there’s more to it than that,” I said, not as quick to jump to any assumptions about our mother. “Mom’s motives are never so simple. On the outside, maybe that’s how it looks. But I think she wants something else, something more.”
    “Do you want to know what it is?” he asked. “Or are you happy not knowing?”
    “I’m kinda at a point right now where I’m numb to it,” I said. “It doesn’t feel like it’ll matter either way.”
    “You know what’s special about this?” he asked, lifting his fork and pointing between the two of us. “We have a special way of bumming each other out.”
    “That we do,” I agreed.
    “So, how ‘bout this?” he said, nudging me with his shoulder. “No more Mom-talk. For the rest of the morning, it’s me, you, and everything else. No Moms.”
    “I like that,” I said, smiling. “No Moms.”
    “None.”
    And then we watched each other for a long, quiet minute, and I found myself staring at his lips again.
    “So … what next?”
     
     
     

Chapter Seven
    We left the diner immediately after breakfast, both holding true to our promise to keep all the Mom-talk off the table. We sprinted out to his car and found ourselves at the Sugar Creek Park ten minutes later. Hand-in-hand, we made our way down the twisted paths to the amphitheater, and Gabe helped me up to the stage with promises that it would be prime viewing space for the sunrise.
    I had a feeling he’d watched the view from that very spot more than once or twice, especially during the park reconstruction.
    The darkness started fading, and the sky was already turning dull shades of orange and pink. And if Gabe’s calculation was correct, the sun would be up in a matter of minutes.
    We’d laid things on so thick back at the diner, and we needed a little lightheartedness to carry us through