Lethal Wedding (Wedlocked Trilogy Book 2) - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,34

thing that I can possibly say to get him to leave me alone. What if it doesn't work?

“Actually, I'm on my period,” I say quietly.

He pauses. He lifts himself up off of me and stares into my eyes.

I shrug and look down, as if I am apologizing.

“Oh, shit, why didn't you say something earlier?”

“It's kind of a personal thing to just come out and say,” I admit.

“Oh, is that why you weren't into doing it?" he asks.

I shrug and give him a slight nod. What else is there to do?

“Okay, well, let me know when that stops and we can give it another go,” he says, sitting back up and straightening his suit. “You do know that we have to do this, right? I mean, we've been engaged for how long exactly?"

As he walks away from me completely unfazed, I let out a cautious sigh of relief.

I got him off of me for now, but will I be able to do it next time?

21

Henry

The next morning I take my mom out to lunch. I haven't spent any quality time with her for a long time, though we do usually talk on the phone every other day or so.

For the last couple weeks she hasn't wanted to FaceTime, and I haven't insisted on it, and now I realize why.

I'm not sure what's wrong but somehow, she looks much older than she did before I left. It was only a few weeks ago, but she looks worn out.

She often sounded tired on the phone, but whenever I brought it up, she just blew me off.

Right now, it’s nice to sit by the water and look out at the vast Atlantic Ocean. Our food arrives and I bite into my fish taco immediately. She takes her time, saying that she's not as hungry as she thought she was. She asks me to tell her about my work.

Mom has been a devoted podcast listener ever since my first episode, and she rarely has a negative thing to say about it. I appreciate that.

She was never the type to point out my mistakes and errors, and that made me a more confident person.

With the podcast, as with everything else, there are enough people in the world to criticize your work, you don't need that to also come from your family.

But today, I'm really interested in what she has to say. I tell her about the last story, and what it was like to interview the mother of the missing girl. She puts her hand over her mouth and tilts slightly to one side.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“I'm just really sad,” she says. “I mean, I know that you were doing important work but it just makes me worry about you being surrounded by all this negativity all the time.”

“Don't worry about me, it's not as hard as it seems.”

"See, you're already growing callous to it.”

“I sort of have to. I mean, that's how it is when you're a reporter. You have to go out there and tell the hard stories. And with true crime, my focus is always on death. I don't have a chance to do those light-hearted stories where everything works out in the end. Even if there is justice, someone is dead.”

“I just worry about you,” my mom says, pushing her hair slightly out of her face.

"Why? I'm finally doing what I really love, storytelling. Honestly, I had no idea that this would be the direction that I would go in but now it makes perfect sense. There's so much creativity in putting these nonfiction stories to life and making people really care about them, especially care about crimes that happened a long time ago, or to underrepresented populations.”

“Are you talking about your case in North Dakota?" Mom asks.

“Yeah, I am. That girl… People just forgot about her. She went missing and then her body was found and the world just kept spinning. I know that that happens all the time. There are thousands of unsolved murders all over the United States, let alone the world. But I'm in a position to do something about this one. I'm in a position to make my listeners care about her and really get involved. That's how these things get solved, long after the police forget about them.”

"I understand, of course I do,” Mom says, moving her food around her plate, but not taking more than a few bites.

I guess she's not hungry at all, though I didn't see her eat breakfast either or much for