Saltwater Secrets - Amelia Addler Page 0,12

be a lady with diabetes whose blood sugar had dropped severely low. They were able to get her to the hospital and get her taken care of. She was extremely grateful, and that made Matthew feel a bit better. At least he wasn’t a complete failure.

On the way home from work, his mom called. She usually didn’t call him unless something was wrong, so he picked up immediately. “Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me. How are you?”

“I’m good Mom. What’s up? Is something wrong? How’s Dad?”

“Everything is okay, don’t worry. Sorry, I guess I should’ve started with that.”

“No, it’s okay. Glad to hear it.”

Matthew felt his grip loosen on the phone. His dad had a massive stroke a few months back. It was a total shock – he’d always been relatively healthy, tried to watch what he ate, and even exercised a bit. The stroke left him completely unable to use his left arm.

Matthew went home for three weeks to help out; his dad was lucky enough to get into an intensive rehab, and his progress was unbelievable. He was back to mostly being able to take care of himself. But now Matthew was always worried that something would happen again – and he’d be thousands of miles away, unable to help.

“So…what’s up?” he asked.

“Oh, you know, same old. You know that new neighbor I told you about?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I had to send her a letter. She’s been doing her trash wrong and it’s driving me insane.”

Matthew sighed. “That was nice of you.”

“Well how else will she know? I also mentioned that they need to plant some grass, their front yard is very muddy.”

“You could plant it for her if it bothers you so much.”

“What?”

He debated repeating himself, but decided against it. There was no need to start an argument. “Nothing.”

“So…have you heard from Laura recently?”

There it was. “No Mom, I can’t say that I have.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“Well, you know how much I’ve always liked her. And after your dad was sick, she was so helpful – she brought over so many wonderful dishes and offered to stay with him if I had to run to the store…”

“Mom,” Matthew said. “There’s a reason that she’s my ex-girlfriend. I’m glad that she was nice, but – ”

“But what? You need to remember that a girl like that doesn’t come along very often.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Unless…you have a new girlfriend you’re not telling me about?”

Oof. If only she knew. “No, that’s not the case.”

“Oh! Well I have to run! Take care, come visit soon!”

“Bye Mom.”

That was weird. She liked to bring up Laura every couple of weeks, but she’d never specifically called just to talk about her. Something must’ve set her off.

Matthew got back to his house and was surprised to see a car in the driveway. He parked on the street and walked over, shining his light into the driver’s side.

The driver turned around, trying to shield her eyes. His stomach dropped.

It was Laura.

Of course.

Chapter 5

Did that really happen? Did Matthew really just try to kiss her?

Jade couldn’t decide. She spent the rest of the evening replaying everything in her head. For a while, she had herself convinced that it wasn’t what it looked like; he seemed to be leaning forward, but he could’ve just been trying to stand up or something.

But why did she have to spaz out and jump away like that?

Maybe it didn’t look that dorky to him. They’d already come close to bumping heads, so maybe he thought she was just avoiding that. Really, though…a small part of her brain thought he was trying to kiss her, and she panicked.

But no, that didn’t make any sense when she really thought about it. Why would Matthew want to kiss her?

They got into a weird position, that was all. And he was trying to get up, and so was she, and it was just awkward. Nothing more.

Despite that, for the entire weekend, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Morgan about it. She didn’t trust herself to even describe it accurately. The more she thought about it, though, the more it bothered her that she cared so much.

Jade kept running through the same thoughts all weekend. She finally decided that it didn’t matter if Matthew was going to kiss her or not – what mattered was if she actually wanted him to kiss her.

Her own feelings on it really gave her a clue into her psyche. Greta would be so proud when she heard how honest Jade was trying to be with herself.

Jade knew that