Page 147 of Learn Your Lesson

Uncle Mitch let out a rich growl of a laugh, and I swore I heard Chef Patel laughing in the background, too. It was a bit early for her to be there prepping for dinner, but maybe she’d wanted to stay with Ava. She loved her like her own.

“About damn time!” she called.

“I hope my daughter is in the other room?”

“She is,” Mitch confirmed. “But my bet is that she knows it, too, you dummy.”

“Okay, we can all take turns calling me names later. Any clue where Chloe went?”

“Her mom’s,” Chef answered.

Double shit.

I knew from all Chloe had told me just how her mom and grandmother felt about men.

I guess I was about to experience their wrath in real time.

What’s Left of Me

Chloe

The screaming had stopped.

To their credit, Mom and Grandma had refrained from all theI told you so’sI’d expected from them. Mostly, it was them yelling the more I told of the story, saying how selfish and awful Will was, and how he’d set a trap for a naïve young woman and how they’d hang him up to dry by his toes.

I’d stuck up for him at first, but the more they went on and on, the less I knew what to say. They had a comeback for everything, reasons built by decades of experience that I didn’t have.

So, once again, like I had that morning… I just felt like a foolish little girl.

It seemed to soften them, the more they realized I didn’t want to argue. It was like I was a poor fox that had stumbled upon a bear trap they’d warned me about in the woods. They were mad because they were afraid, but really, they just wanted to make sure I was okay.

Grandma had made tea while Mom assured me it would all be okay. She said nothing needed to be figured out right now, and that I should stay with them for the night. I hadn’t really agreed, but I hadn’t declined, either.

I didn’t know what to do.

Now, hours later, it was quiet in the house, Grandma tinkering with a new bread recipe in the kitchen while Mom and I watched an oldGilmore Girlsepisode. My head was in Mom’s lap, her hands playing with my hair as I cried silently and swiped the tears away before they could hit her leg.

My heart felt like it was being crushed inside my chest. I couldn’t stop reliving last night, couldn’t stop replaying the last few months and looking for clues that what my mom and grandma said was right. Did he really just use me?

It didn’t sit right, the thought of that possibility. I knew from the moment he stormed through the pool house sliding glass doors that first night that it was more. I could see it in his eyes, could sense it in the way he took me, the way he touched me, the way he drove me over the edge of desire.

Even before that, I could see the admiration in his eyes when he saw me working at the school, could feel the way he’d soften whenever he observed me with Ava. I thought about the nights in the house watchingJeopardy, the mornings at the breakfast table, the games, the pool…

And through all of that, I never saw any signs that Will was some horrid man just out to bang his nanny.

It just wasn’t who he was.

Chef Patel’s words were what I clung to more than anything — perhaps foolishly. I wanted to believe she wasright, that he was just scared like I was, that he needed a moment.

But my heart kept banging against my ribs and reminding me that she could be wrong.

It was nearly four o’clock now, and I still hadn’t heard from Will.

Mom laughed at something Lorelei Gilmore said, her belly jiggling against my head and drawing me back to the present. I watched the screen with my eyes losing focus, and then, the doorbell rang.

“I got it,” Grandma called.

Mom barely acknowledged it, and I was too weak to move from where I laid.