Free Best She Ever Had (9781617733963) by Shelly Ellis

cheating on her all along with Vivian, she’d realized that her mother had been right after all. Cynthia struggled now to remember exactly what her mother had said that day. She could use those words of wisdom right now.
    â€œClarissa, sweetheart,” Cynthia said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “look, I know you’re angry. I know how you feel, honey. Really I do.”
    She faced Clarissa’s cracked closet door and saw that clothes were spilled onto the floor. She would lecture Clarissa about cleaning up her closet later, but for now, she’d focus on the issue at hand.
    â€œI’m going to tell you something . . . something that not any of my sisters know.” Cynthia cleared her throat. “They all act like they invented breaking the rules, like they’re the only ones who’ve fallen in love with guys that no one suspected they would, but it’s not true. I-I . . .” She pushed back her shoulders. “I did it too, honey, before I married your father. I fell in love with a guy who probably would have been a mistake. He loved me too . . . or at least I thought he did. It made it even harder to walk away from him. But your grandmother explained it to me logically. And she made a lot of sense, baby. She said, ‘Cindy, a woman doesn’t have the luxury of thinking with her heart. She has to think with her head. She doesn’t have just the responsibility of herself to worry about. She has to think about the children she’ll have in the future. Will the man be a provider? Will she have to hold him up? Love will come and go—that’s just a fact of life—but money and a roof over your head can be a shelter against many storms.’ ”
    Cynthia paused, hoping she was getting through to her daughter. She anxiously fingered the belt of her silk robe as she spoke.
    â€œIt still hurt, Clarissa, and . . . I’ll tell you the truth. In some ways, after all these years, the pain of walking away from him has never gone away. But I-I still think it was the right decision. I made a good life for you—for us . You’ve never wanted for anything. You’ve always been taken care of. I hope you can make the same sacrifice, honey.” She turned to look at her daughter. Cynthia reached for her. “So if you would just—”
    She halted when she placed her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Instead of feeling solid bone underneath her fingertips, she felt the soft give of a pillow. Cynthia hesitantly pulled back the sheets and saw that it was a pillow. She stood and yanked back the sheets even farther and saw that in addition to the pillow, an oversized stuffed giraffe—a keepsake Clarissa had won years ago at a carnival—was also underneath the sheets, but Clarissa wasn’t there. She wasn’t in her bed.
    â€œClarissa? Clarissa? ” Cynthia shouted. She looked around her daughter’s bedroom frantically. “Oh, my God!”
    She ran toward the walk-in closet and threw open the French doors. Not only were clothes strewn around the floor, but several hangers were empty. Cynthia’s eyes darted to the closet shelves. Two pieces of Clarissa’s Louis Vuitton luggage were missing too.
    â€œOh, God, please don’t do this to me! Please don’t tell me this is happening! Not again!” Cynthia’s eyes glistened with tears.
    How had she not heard Clarissa packing? Why didn’t she hear her leave? Did Clarissa sneak out of the bedroom window again?
    Cynthia grabbed the frame of the door to steady herself. She felt faint.
    She turned and stumbled out of the closet, intending to run into the hallway to call her sister Lauren. Maybe Clarissa had gone running to her again. Cynthia dashed toward the bedroom doorway, then paused when she caught something out of the corner of her eye. It was a note on Clarissa’s dresser. Cynthia spotted her daughter’s distinctive bubbled cursive script. She