The Ahern Brothers Collection - Claudia Burgoa Page 0,7
if her life depended on it.
“I’m here. You don’t need to worry about anything,” I say softly.
“Sorry, I thought I saw my stepfather and his son,” she whispers, her head leaning against my chest. “Please, don’t mind me. Sometimes I imagine things.”
“Hey, I get it,” I say soothingly.
I rub her back counting along with her. The anxiety hasn’t gone away. She still has nightmares at night. The trauma she endured before coming to us continues to drag her into the darkness. I hate that she hurts and how she still closes herself off from everyone when the memories of what happened almost a year ago take hold of her mind.
“Stay with me, Abby. Today is an important day. You graduated, and you’re going to get your driver’s license.”
“Linda mentioned a trip,” she says grinning, pretending that the episode has passed.
It hasn’t. Her chest continues to rise and fall rapidly along with her breath.
“Are you coming along?” she tilts her head, her eyes hopeful.
“I wish I could, Abbs.”
Her shoulders slump.
“But I know that Dad and I will join you at some point,” I say reassuringly.
Mom treats Abby as if she were her daughter and never misses a chance to have some mother-daughter time with her. This summer, she plans on taking Abby on a trip around Europe before she leaves for college. She didn’t invite us to come along, but after Dad protested that she’ll be gone for too long, she invited us to join them for a couple of weeks.
“I’ll miss you,” she says chewing on her lip.
“Hey, I promise to call every day.”
“Picture time,” Mom calls out waving her new camera. She’s ready for her trip and if we’re lucky, she’ll take up photography once August rolls around. Mom does best when her mind is occupied.
“Abby, I need a few of you around campus and a couple with the boys.”
“How do I look, boy?” Abby smirks at me and adjusts her long brown curls, bringing the purple tips to the front.
“Purple,” I flick her nose. “Go, pose for the camera. You look gorgeous as usual.”
As she walks away, everything hits me all at once. I realize that the day after tomorrow she’s leaving. That I’m going to fucking miss her a lot. She went from being just another one of my parent’s foster children to becoming one of my closest friends. Sadly, the academic demands at Berkeley might take us from best friends to mere acquaintances once she starts classes.
Chapter Three
Wes
“What do you mean, you’re spending the whole summer abroad?” I grasp the phone tightly, glaring at Abby who is on the other side FaceTiming me. “You said it was only a few weeks in the Dominican Republic.”
“Well, that’s for the volunteer program,” she says. “Afterwards, I’m going to Exeter.”
Her eyes brighten, and I swear, she’s glowing. Since she left Denver, she’s changed a lot. It’s as if everything bad that happened to her stayed on this side of the Rocky Mountains.
“Where the fuck is Exeter?”
“It’s in the middle of Oxford, England.” The screen goes dark, and the only thing I can see is the word pause.
She fucking paused me.
“There, I sent you a picture of the place,” she says as my phone buzzes.
“Linda approved of my choice. She said that the place is exquisite. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Mom agreed?” I arch a brow as I think of ways to convince her to come back home.
We were supposed to spend the summer together. I miss her. I’ve seen her five times since she graduated high school. The first one was when I joined her and Mom in Spain, and we spent two weeks traveling through Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Valencia, and Granada. Afterwards, we stopped in Portugal before we came back to Denver, and I helped her drive her car to Berkeley. The second was during fall break. I had to fly to California because the coffee shop where she was working wouldn’t give her the week off.
On Thanksgiving weekend, Mom decided to indulge my brother, and we all flew to New York where we had dinner together at Sterling’s. For Christmas, we traveled to Aruba, and for spring break, I met Abby in San Diego where she interned for a week at the zoo. It’s a quick program that helped her realize that as much as she loved animals, she didn’t want to work with them.
“Of course, she’s so excited.” Abby’s voice squeaks slightly with excitement. “Exeter is a school full of history. Do you know that Tolkien was an