Free Lessons in Laughing Out Loud by Rowan Coleman Page A

the rosy-cheeked, black-eyed little girl she had once known and this gangly, long-legged creature with charcoal eyes and . . . and were those piercings? Things really had changed. Willow could never imagine Sam allowing piercings.
“Okay, well, left home?”
Willow glanced back at the open front door, the glow of artificial light glimmering on the wet stone steps. What was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to act? “Well, that’s um . . . is that good?”
“Good?” Chloe shook her head, her disgust confusing Will. “I’m fifteen, Willow, I’ve run away in the middle of London, in the freezing cold, and all you’ve got to say is ‘good’!”
“That’s not exactly what I said . . .”
“Then again, your mothering skills were never all that great, were they?”
Stung, Willow looked away briefly, trying to find some footing is this free fall she had stumbled into, waiting to hit familiar ground again. Of course Chloe felt that way. Five years ago Willow had left Sam’s flat knowing she was walking out on Chloe for good too. Chloe must hate her; God knows Willow hated herself enough. No amount of rationalization or resigning herself to the knowledge that she didn’t have a choice in the matter had ever salved the wound that leaving Chloe behind had opened up in her. Of course Chloe hated her, which begged the question—why was she here?
“So, if you know that it’s stupid and dangerous to run away, why have you?” The question came out as an accusation, and Willow bit her lips, desperate that Chloe should not disappear as quickly as she had appeared. Chloe shook her head contemptuously, clearly signaling exactly what she thought of Willow.
“Dad hates me.” Chloe pouted; her defiance was mannered, practiced. Almost like she’d been reading tips on how to be textbook rebellious. “And I hate his new girlfriend—if you can use the word girl for a saggy-titted old witch. I can’t stay there anymore. I can’t. It’s like, it’s like a violation of my human rights, right? He treats me like, like a slave. So that’s it. I’m outta there.”
“Out of,” Willow said, automatically irritating both herself and Chloe in one fell swoop. It wasn’t news to her that Sam had someone new in his life—an old colleague she’d bumped into about a year ago had taken great delight in telling her he was seeing someone—and yet Chloe mentioning another woman grated.
She was caught between indecision and uncertainty. Willow hadn’t been fully aware just how much she had missed Chloe until this moment. There was always the background hum of her absence, a constant undertone that Willow had grown used to, and its volume was suddenly amplified to deafening levels. But Will had no idea how to approach Chloe. Not only was the girl no longer ten, she was a stranger.
Try as she might, Willow could not forget the way Sam had looked at her the day she left, the contempt and disgust in his eyes as she’d packed her bags. She could almost have predicted that ending from the moment she’d stood at the altar—no, the moment she’d accepted his proposal, knowing that no matter how much she loved him she would never be able to keep him. Though she had had no idea, not even then, how much and how quickly she’d come to love Chloe, how close they would become. But Sam had wanted to cut Willow out of his life entirely, he wanted, needed a clean break—and that meant cutting her out of Chloe’s life too. Willow had taken her to school in the morning and had moved out before the afternoon bell had rung. She hadn’t even said good-bye. Overthe years Willow had told herself it was easier that way, easier than having to watch Chloe’s dismay and disappointment emerge at awkward, uncertain meetings in coffee shops and zoos until eventually they’d drift apart anyway. Willow didn’t want to witness the impact her failings had on Chloe, or see Chloe come to hate her. She had resigned herself to never seeing her again.
And