still love you.
Chapter 13
Autumn
"I didn't take you for a hippie." My mom grins, laughing at her own joke. She's carrying a walking stick and wearing a necklace with a large purple crystal pendant.
"I didn't know you were into energy work," I shoot back, bending over and lacing up my tennis shoes. I'm still sitting in the car. Mom's standing beside it, impatiently waiting. To be fair, she did tell me to put on my shoes before we got to the trail. I didn't listen.
"I'll take all the help I can get," Mom says, scuffing her toe in the dirt. A little puff of reddish-brown wafts through the air.
"All set." I stand up and reach back into the car for my water bottle and hat. Pushing the hat down over my head, I start for the trailhead, my mom in step beside me.
We make it roughly five minutes before she asks about Owen: "Are you going to keep telling me coffee yesterday was fine?"
I sneak a glance at her. She looks okay enough for this hike. It's not strenuous and I’m actually surprised at how well she’s doing with the chemo. We're here for the vortex. Supposedly it has healing powers, or some New Age mumbo jumbo like that. I grew up here and never felt the subtle energy people come here to find. I've heard people talk about feeling a tingling in their hands, a rush of energy, or a buzzing throughout the body. Personally, I think it's all in the mind. If a person wants to feel something, they will.
But when my mom asked me to accompany her on an energy vortex hike, there was no way I was saying no. I’d just hoped Owen wouldn't be a topic of conversation.
"Coffee really was fine, Mom."
It was both heartbreaking and a giant relief to finally say those things to Owen. He held me in the rain and then we both had to go. And now I don’t know where we stand. It was painfully awkward considering our little driveway finger-banging session a few nights ago. This whole thing with him is ass backwards and I don’t know what to do about it.
“Mmm hmm. And what was it besides fine?” This time she accompanies the word with air quotes and an eye roll. For a second I’m stunned, but I recover quickly. I’m still getting used to this relaxed, sarcastic version of my mother. This is not the person I grew up with. She used to tell me sarcasm was a poor man’s wit.
“He apologized, for one.”
“What did he have to apologize for?”
I shoot her a look. I know she’s curious, but damn I’m not sure I’m ready to tell her.
“Fine,” she says, drawing out the word and giving me a look that shows how pleased she is to be turning the table and using that word on me.
“He has tattoos,” I tell her, hoping this tidbit will be enough to quench her thirst for answers.
“I’ve seen them,” she answers.
“Did you know one of them is for me?”
“The tree?”
I nod.
“I noticed it, but I never asked. I figured it was for you, with the fall colors and the leaves falling off the branches. If his ink was a poem, it would be titled Autumn Left or something dramatic like that.” She barely manages to conceal a smile. “Or maybe it would be called Autumn Right.”
"You're full of jokes, huh?" This new Faith Cummings is weird to me, but I like it.
She shrugs. "I'm always good for a dad joke."
She had to be my mom and dad, so that makes sense.
We get a little further on the trail and Mom stops to take a drink. "Did he touch you?" she asks, her water bottle poised at her mouth.
My eyes bulge. Did he touch you? isn’t exactly something you want to hear come out of your mother’s mouth.
"Yesterday?" I ask, trying to calm my racing thoughts.
She scrunches her eyes as she drinks. "When else?" she asks after she swallows.
Oh, gee, I don't know, maybe when we hid in the shadows beside his dad’s house and he put his hands in my pants like we were teenagers again…
My cheeks get hot, and it has nothing to do with the sun beating down on us.
"He hugged me yesterday. I was upset. From talking about it all, you know?"
"No,” she snaps. “I do not know. Because you have yet to trust me enough to tell me.”
Whoa.
My heart falls at her bold share session. My mom and