Concealed - A Hiding From Love Novel #2 by Laurence Selena

Author:Laurence, Selena [Laurence, Selena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance
Publisher: C.P. Writes, LLC
Published: 2013-12-13T23:00:00+00:00

Beth, Alexis, Mike, and I go straight to Margie’s, deciding we want to skip the lines we’d have to stand in at the other bars. It’s nice to see Alexis relaxed after the stress she’s been under at school and with her parents. I figure she isn’t telling me everything her parents are saying, so I know it’s probably worse than even what I know about.

That’s what propels me to get Beth alone for a few minutes. I ask Mike to take Alexis out on the dance floor so I can ask Beth some hard questions.

“So how’ve you been? I’m never around when you’re over at Alexis’s,” I ask to break the ice.

She takes a swig of the hard cider she’s drinking. I never will understand how girls drink that sugary shit. “It’s all good. I’ve only got two classes this semester, but I’m teaching one too, so that plus my thesis is a lot of work.”

“And it’s Women’s Studies, right?”

“Yes, and don’t start with the lesbian jokes, Gabe. You know I’m not.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” I quip, referencing an old Seinfeld show. Beth is a smart girl and also apparently watched nearly as much TV as I did as a kid because she laughs, nearly shooting her drink out of her nose in the process.

After she recovers, I lean in a little closer so she can hear me clearly. “Tell me the truth, Beth. Are your parents going to cut Alexis off?”

She blushes, and I can see by the nervous tapping of her fingers on the table she’s agitated. She pushes her bangs out of her face for a moment before she looks me in the eye.

“When she came home from Afghanistan and told my parents about you, they told her she was suffering some sort of emotional breakdown.”

I feel my temperature rise and my hand grips my beer mug tensely.

“You have to understand, Gabe. They truly believed it. What she told them was so far from their ideas of what was reasonable and possible that they couldn’t imagine it as anything other than a form of temporary insanity. They freaked. They’d never had a kid go that far from home and never had one choose something or someone who was completely outside their realm of influence. They simply didn’t have the capacity to process it. Can you understand that? Even a little bit?”

I think back to Afghanistan and some of the things I saw there. Especially when I first saw them. There were things, everyday occurrences really, that are nearly impossible for Americans to wrap their heads around. I know what it feels like to think you understand the world and then discover it’s a very different place than you’ve been led to believe.

“Yeah, I can get that. Doesn’t make me any less pissed they’re doing it again though.”

She sighs and looks down at the table. “Yeah, I know. I’m embarrassed, honestly. I can’t believe they’ve written you and her off so readily. I know

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