Chapter 58

“Marnye-bear,” she says, holding her arms out for a hug. She hasn’t called me Marnye-bear since that one time when I was five and she called me drunk and bawling her eyes out. I don’t move into her embrace, instead stepping back so she can come inside. She frowns at me, but she steps into the living room anyway, giving the scattered bits of wrapping paper a dirty look. The way she dresses now, you’d never know she lived here with her husband and daughter once upon a time. “Charlie.” Mom—although I’d rather just call her Jennifer—nods her chin in my dad’s direction. It’s painful, the way he looks at her, like he’s still desperately in love.

“Jenn,” he replies softly, and then he looks away, like he can’t bear the sight of her.

“So, how’s that academy treating you?” she asks, her blue eyes and blond hair nothing at all like my brown eyes and brunette waves. Well … I guess I don’t have brunette waves anymore, and I reach up to touch the short rose gold locks with a tentativ