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Gabe nodded. “I’ve fucked everything up, Shay.”

“She just needs some time, Gabe. You’re not the person you were when all that happened. She’ll understand that, and she’ll forgive you.”

“I hope you’re right.” Gabe wiped an escaping tear with the back of her hand. She had to get Lori’s forgiveness. All the time they’d spent together, all the intimate non-sexual moments they’d shared, all the laughs they’d had… Gabe didn’t want to lose that. She couldn’t lose that. She liked the person that she’d so naturally become around Lori. She liked how Lori made her feel. She…loved her. The emotion she’d never thought she was capable of flooded through her. When she was around Lori, it had filled her with a warmth she couldn’t explain, but the loss of her now chilled Gabe to the core. She’d spent so much of her life essentially alone. Maybe that was what she deserved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Lori closed her eyes, sore from all the tears she’d sobbed in the cab on the way home and from the past hour she’d spent lying on her couch with her head on her mom’s lap. In the cab, no one had pressed her to talk or asked what was going on. They knew her well enough to know the answer. But Lori hadn’t wanted an audience for this breakdown, and she’d been glad when her mom had suggested that they drop Rosie at home on their way back to the Sanctuary. Rosie had left quietly with a promise to check on her tomorrow.

She didn’t look up when she heard the stairs creak. “Mom,” she said and trusted her to understand what she needed.

“I know, sweetheart.” Her mom continued to stroke her hair from the top of her head all the way down to its end, just the way she had when she was a child.

“Karen, is everything okay?”

“Not right now, but it will be,” her mom said. “You go back to bed and get some sleep.”

Lori felt her father come closer and heard their gentle kiss before his footsteps retreated along the hallway and up the stairs. “Tell me again how you and Dad met,” she said, desperate for a distraction from the devastating ache in the deepest, most hidden part of her soul.

Her mom sighed. “My boyfriend at the time wanted me to watch him play basketball, and I agreed, even though it was my least favorite sport. I figured I could sit in the back of the bleachers and read The Great Gatsby for my literature class.” She drew in a long breath and let out another sound of contentment. “All the players came onto the court, and I looked up to feign interest as he waved at me. I smiled and waved back, thinking that he’d forget I was there as soon as they tipped off.” Her chuckle rocked Lori’s head gently. “I hadn’t counted on his gorgeous teammate, who, it turned out, also happened to be his new best friend.”

Lori allowed herself to concentrate on their love story. “Tut tut, Mom, for not respecting the bro code.”

“Oh, those curls, and his gorgeous blue eyes, and he was so tall.” Her mom squeezed Lori’s shoulder. “I was powerless to resist.”

Lori smiled and sat up. She never tired of hearing that story. “Did you know that you loved him from the start? And that you were meant to be together?”

Her mom shook her head. “I knew I lusted after him from the start, but I had no idea we were meant to be together. Ryan and I had been high school sweethearts, together for six years. I thought I loved him.” She shrugged. “But I soon realized I had no idea what love really was until your dad and I fell into it.”

“Do you think you can love someone and hate them at the same time?”

“Yes,” her mom said. “You can love someone and hate what they’ve done. Definitely.”

Lori settled down on the other side of the sofa so she could face her mom, who had clearly realized where she was going with this conversation.

“I bet she and her buddies had a good laugh after I’d told Gabe what the lawyer had done with her paralegal. ‘That’s terrible, and I can’t imagine how painful that must’ve been,’ she said. She looked me in the eye, Mom, and pretended that she cared.”

“Hey, you don’t know that she doesn’t. From what I can see, I don’t think any of what you’ve told me has been pretend.”

Lori scoffed. “Are you serious? All of it is. She’s been pretending to be such a kind and generous person when all the time she’s the kind of woman who can happily break up marriages.”

“Mm. I saw all the work that’s gone into your rust bucket when we visited the garage on Tuesday. None of that is pretend.”

“She can do all those things and be a cheater.” Lori frowned. “Exactly whose side are you on, Mom?”

“Yours, sweetheart. Always yours. But that doesn’t mean that seeing the other side of the argument isn’t in your best interest.”

“What do you mean by that?” She wrapped her arms around her knees and prepared for some Mom-wisdom.

“For years now, you’ve been existing, not living. Even before you found that woman cheating on you, you’d become a ghost of yourself.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Her mom shook her head. “As much as I love you and want to protect you, I can’t live your life for you. You have to make your own mistakes, and you have to find your own way out of the situations you find yourself in.” She shrugged. “To be honest though, we see a lot less of you since you moved here to run the Sanctuary, so it was hard to know whether you were changing because of those responsibilities, or if it was the lawyer. And she had your father and me fooled for a long time too. She put on a hell of a show whenever we visited; she made it look like you were the center of her world.”

Lori didn’t say anything for a moment and thought about what her mom had said. “Why did it take me so long to realize that? I was the one living with her.”

“I imagine it’s because you were so focused on making this place viable. And maybe you blamed yourself for the cracks, so you didn’t see she was the one slamming an axe into the foundations of your marriage.”