About Tomorrow - Abbi Glines Page 0,10
never made it to my study group.”
“Sounds like you,” he said simply.
I stopped smiling. His comment wasn’t meant to upset me. I knew that. But it did. If he didn’t want to remember and he wanted to keep things in the past then he needed to not reply as if he had that kind of knowledge. He didn’t know me. Not really. Not anymore. That girl was no longer.
The Bagel Hut had a line out the door. “Figures,” he muttered.
Most of the good places to eat had lines. I glanced around and saw no other option with a shorter line. Maybe it would move quickly.
“Will you freeze?” he asked me.
“Possibly,” I replied.
He chuckled and one of the girls in front of us glanced over her shoulder, got a good look at Creed then nudged her friend, whispered in her ear and the other girl glanced back at him. Creed, however, wasn’t paying attention. He had crossed his arms over his chest and was leaning back against the building watching the activity on the street with a bored expression.
I understood why they were looking at him. I looked away. Appreciating the view was off-limits for me. He wasn’t a stranger on the street. The past made me feel guilty for looking.
“Is your mother still crazy?” he asked me then.
I nodded. Creed knew more about my mother than Griff. I’d wanted to start over when I went to college. When I’d met Griff, I kept most of my sordid family life from him. I wanted to forget it, so I never spoke of it.
“Sorry to hear about your Gran,” he said. His mother had come to the funeral. I’d mentally prepared myself to face him again but he’d not come. The blow hadn’t been as hard because Griff had been by my side. Part of me was relieved he hadn’t come to the funeral.
“It was sudden. As hard as that was I’m thankful she didn’t suffer,” I told him. That had been how I had dealt with losing her. Reminding myself that although I hadn’t gotten a chance to say goodbye at least she didn’t suffer from a terrible disease that killed her slowly. “She was asleep. It was peaceful.”
He studied me a moment and I felt self-conscious having his focus on me. The line moved and we moved up with it. One of the girls did another glance back at Creed then me before turning around. I was sure she was trying to figure us out. We didn’t look like a couple. There was too much space between us for starters. If he were Griff, I’d be snuggled up to his side.
“When was the last time you were there?” he asked.
“To see Gran or in Portsmouth?”
“Both,” he clarified.
“I saw Gran three months before she passed away. She came to Nashville for Christmas. The last time I was in Portsmouth was for the funeral.”
“I was there last month. My mom decided to move back. She and her husband, Chet’s uncle, bought a house on Dearborn,” he told me even though I hadn’t asked. The line moved again.
His parents had divorced and moved from their home beside Gran about six months after Cora’s death. Although I hadn’t come back to Portsmouth that next summer, I knew they’d moved that winter. Gran had told me. Before Cora’s death, our plan for that summer had been for the three of us to hike the Appalachian trail. Not the entire thing but start in Maine and go as far as we could before we all went to college that fall. I’d forgotten that until now.
“Where did y’all move after…” I couldn’t finish the question. I glanced up at him, wishing I hadn’t asked that or mentioned it.
“My dad moved to Simsbury, Connecticut. Mom moved to Burlington, Vermont, to live near her mother,” he replied but said nothing more. There were so many things I could ask him but I didn’t. I didn’t need to know about his life. He was no longer a part of mine. We would rarely see each other after I left tomorrow. I didn’t need to know which parent he lived with after the divorce.
When the line moved again, we were finally inside the warmth of the Bagel Hut. I sighed from the pleasure of it. A small grin lifted the corners of Creed’s mouth. The girls in front of us both turned around this time. The blonde was smiling at Creed, but the other girl’s focus was on me. They must