Before and Ever Since (9781101612286) by Lovelace Sharla

Author:Lovelace, Sharla
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2012-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

11

TWO MORE DAYS OF GIVING MY MOTHER’S HOUSE A WIDE BERTH, and I didn’t know if I was happy with myself or depressed. Mom called to check on me but said nothing about Ben. Holly called to talk about Mom’s party, which she and Cass had decided would just be a girls’ night out somewhere.

Ben hadn’t made one single effort.

This thought kept poking away at me as I tried to enjoy a quiet evening at home with a good book and my fleecy pajamas. The same paragraphs passed in front of my eyes over and over, but I wasn’t seeing the content. I kept checking my phone, and Facebook, and e-mail, and then I’d end up playing a puzzle game I downloaded an app for, and then get disgusted and go back to the same tired paragraphs.

Isn’t that what I’d wanted? To stay away from him? To keep my life all zipped up in its neat little pouch, without the distraction and danger of him messing it up? Maybe. But I had to face the additional fact that while that may have been what I wanted, I’d expected him to give it a little more of a fight.

That last kiss of his had certainly felt like more than just a passing interest. Almost a week afterward, I could still remember every second of it, the way he smelled and the way he felt and the look in his eyes that had gone with it. But maybe afterward, he’d second-guessed it. Maybe he wished he hadn’t gone there and had decided to back off as well. He’d certainly done it before.

Irritated, disgusted, and put out with myself for feeling so pathetic, I decided I deserved a treat. Ice cream. And not just any old wannabe ice cream in a bucket, either. I wanted the real deal with scoops and mix-ins and a waffle cone. There was the dilemma of putting on real clothes, versus going to a drive-through, but I was always paranoid of getting in a wreck and being left to stand on the side of the road in my silkies.

So I split the difference and threw on black sweatpants with a purple T-shirt, found a pair of sneakers to slide into, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and off I went in search of two scoops of Dutch chocolate with chopped pecans.

The place I had in mind—Crème de la Cream—was only a mile and a half away, and I could already taste the perfection. When I pulled into the lot, there was only one car there, and I rejoiced at my good fortune, not having to show my bare face and mismatched attire to a crowd.

The aroma of freshly cooked waffle cones in various flavors hit me as soon as I opened the door, and my mouth reacted. I opened it to spill out my favorite combination when the bathroom door opened and who should rush out with a flourish but Dedra Powers.

“Emily,” she breathed, all happy and fresh and made-up and clearly on her way home from a date or something nice.

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