01.0 Soldier On by Sydney Logan

Author:Sydney Logan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780692219249
Publisher: Mountain Media
Published: 2014-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

For dinner, Tessa makes chicken noodle soup. It’s warm, delicious, and the perfect comfort food. The soup, along with the hot shower, actually makes me feel like a human being again, and we spend the rest of the day snuggled under a blanket on the couch, watching a marathon of The Golden Girls.

Don’t judge. We both love Betty White.

It’s late in the evening when Tessa finally hands me my cell phone.

“I’d hoped you’d forgotten,” I mutter.

“Not a chance. Call your mother.”

“I don’t know what to say to her.”

“You probably won’t have to say much.”

Great. “I’m not in the mood for a lecture, either.”

“I know, but I really think you need to listen to what she has to say.”

Tessa gives me a hug, and I slowly make my way to my bedroom. Closing the door behind me, I collapse on the bed and pull the blanket over me before tapping the screen.

Mom answers on the first ring. “So you are alive.”

“I am.”

We both sigh at the same time. It’s almost comical.

Almost.

“Stephanie—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

A few seconds pass before she answers.

“It wasn’t my place to tell you. Brandon had his reasons for keeping you in the dark. He was afraid of your reaction, and boy, did you prove him right.”

“Well, maybe if someone had told me the truth from the very begin—”

“Stephanie, it wouldn’t have mattered when you found out the truth. Your reaction would have been exactly like this. I knew that. Brandon knew it, too. Any sane person would have wanted to avoid this for as long as possible.”

“So you’re on his side.”

Mom sighs softly. “You are so much like your father.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Don’t. His stubbornness was his least attractive quality.”

My mouth snaps shut. It’s the first time my mom has ever said anything remotely negative about my dad.

“Stephanie, you are an adult now. It’s time you learn that sometimes, there are no sides. Everything isn’t always black and white. Sometimes, there’s gray.”

“But I don’t like gray. I like knowing what’s right and wrong. I like knowing what’s real and what’s phony. And Brandon is—”

“Brandon is your gray,” Mom says softly. “The grays are the parts of your life that mold you into the woman you are meant to be. The little, unexpected surprises that catch you completely off guard. Your experiences, your reactions, your feelings . . . they’re all important because they shape you. For too long, you’ve lived on a very safe and secure course. You had a plan, and you’ve followed it to the letter. Now that something has come along to completely knock you off track, you’re handling it very immaturely. And that’s my fault.”

I choose to ignore that my mom just called me immature. I’m too devastated by the fact that she thinks she failed as a mother.

“You’re a great mom. The very best.”

“Not if this is the way you treat the people you love when they disappoint you. I thought I taught you to be compassionate. I can’t believe I raised a daughter who refuses to give someone she claims to love the benefit of the doubt.

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