Cursive - By Phoebe Lane Page 0,53
I was never going to be able to make anything edible with it because I took after my father, and he had always been a terrible cook."
"Oh, hell," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Is it okay that I hate her a little right now?"
Aislynn nodded, sat down on the floor, and pulled Jace down to sit next to her. "Anyway, I was finishing my senior year in college back in New York when my dad got sick. I decided to go back to Texas for med school so that I could be close to him. He had never remarried, and he was doing a horrible job of taking care of himself."
Aislynn gulped audibly, and wrapped her arms around her legs. "He died during my last year of med school. He didn't get to see me graduate," she said, tears spilling over.
Jace put his arm around her shoulders and let her cry, which she appreciated. She hadn't allowed herself to cry about her dad, or anyone else, in a long time.
"Ellie was away in New York, and my mom was being her usual self, so I focused all my energy into work after that. Now that I think about it, I realize that I did exactly what my dad had done when I was a little girl," Aislynn said, wiping her tears away.
"My mom remarried a few years ago, but I never cared for her new husband. I had no other family members around, and I was too busy in med school to establish any close relationships, so I pretty much dedicated myself to getting through my training. Unfortunately, even though I really wanted to leave Texas, I had just accepted a position for residency at the hospital just before my dad died and that decision kept there for another four years." Aislynn looked away and paused before continuing. "That's when I met Christopher."
"The ex-boyfriend?" Jace asked, and Aislynn paused, thinking carefully about her answer.
"The ex-fiancé." Aislynn felt Jace's surprised stare bore into the side of her head, but she couldn't get herself to face him. "When I met him, he very quickly became my whole world, my support system, and the little bit of life I could afford to have outside of work. I didn't have anyone else, and...Ugh, I hate that it sounds so cliché," she said, shaking her head in embarrassment.
"He was older than me, and he already had his own very successful business. He traveled a lot, so my eighty-hour work week fit us perfectly. We had been living together for a few years before he asked me to marry him. It really seemed like he had been ready to settle down…but then he…he ended things two months before the wedding."
"What an ass," Jace said with disgust. "Why did he break up with you?"
Aislynn felt like she had been punched in the stomach. It was the dreaded question that she couldn’t get herself to answer. "Umm…I…I don't know."
Jace stared at her in disbelief, and Aislynn knew she needed to give him some kind of explanation. "After he left me, I really had nothing holding me back in that place, so I decided to leave Texas without getting any answers. I had no plans, no destination, and no regard for the consequences. It was the right thing to do for me at the time and, even though it sounds like a contradiction, it didn't feel impulsive at all.
"Of course, my mom still thinks I was just running away from things, not wanting to deal with what had happened with Christopher. And I can admit that I was, but only to a certain degree. I was just tired of living my life for other people. I had uprooted my life more than once to be there for people who just kept…leaving me."
The tide had continued to fall, and the water was now a few feet away from them. The sun was out, but hiding behind some clouds. Aislynn could hear the noises of the world as it woke up—the sound of cars on the street, dogs barking in the distance, and doors opening and closing in the houses behind them.
"Yesterday was hard for me because it was a reminder that I haven't healed completely. I've been trying so hard this past year to get healthy, to become strong enough to start over. I left Texas so that I could take some time for me, to figure things out and decide what kind of life I wanted to