Heart As Cold As Ice | 18+ | ✓

30: alondra

Jack was sent on a last minute errand while I helped his mom make the apple pie that's for dessert today. He asked if I was okay with staying and I have no issue being left alone with his mom. I feel a little guilty for wishing that my mom was more like her. Instead, it feels like mine is this robot that goes along with whatever my dad says.

"Thank you for helping me with this." Ms. Schultz smiles kindly at me over the island from where she's peeling apples.

I'm working on cutting the leftover dough from the crust into strips to go on top of the pie.

"It's no problem, I'm happy to help." I return the smile easily.

"I was excited when Jack said that you'd be coming back with him for Thanksgiving. He talks about you all the time and I'm glad I get to know you a little better without Jack hovering over us the entire time."

I giggle quietly because I was thinking the same thing when I said I was okay with staying here. "He's a good friend. Thank you for having me. Things are a little...complicated between my dad and I. I'm glad for the chance to have come here instead."

"Family is complicated; I hope things get better for you guys soon." She says, and I just don't know how we can even attempt to repair the bond after all the years it's been broken.

"Me too," I say. It's the easier answer than going in depth as to why I don't think it will.

I look over at her, seeing her natural beauty. I remember Jack saying that she had him young, but she doesn't look a day over thirty. They look similar from the same light brown hair to the piercing blue eyes.

"So Jack said something about you being a figure skater?" She asks and I ignore the tightness in my chest.

"I used to be one. I quit competing a little more than a year and a half ago."

"So you were seventeen?" She asks curiously and I nod.

"Yeah. It was a mistake to quit, but I've recently started getting back into it." Or I was until Dad banned me from the rink. Now that I know there's cameras, I'm hesitant to go back. God forbid I do something I love because apparently there's nothing that matters to me.

"I quit once I found out I was pregnant with Jack. It was a little after my eighteenth birthday. His father wanted me to quit long before that though." She says and I suck in a breath at the similarity between us. It's nothing I didn't already know because of Peyton, but it still hurts to have it confirmed.

"My ex didn't like that it took time away from him." My words are soft but I honestly don't regret saying them. I steal a quick glance at Jack's mom to see that she's put the peeler down and there's an understanding in her eyes that I've never seen in anyone else's. It feels better than the horror and pity that I get from everyone else even though I wish more than anything that she didn't understand.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Does it ever get easier?" I ask, the words scraping against my throat like sandpaper.

She smiles sadly, before nodding. "It does. It might not seem like it yet, but you'll stop letting those moments of fear and panic control your decisions. You did the hardest thing though. You left."

"It doesn't feel like the hardest thing." The hardest thing feels like what comes after. The unknown of how Grady can continue coming up to me at any point around campus like he has been. How to be intimate with someone who won't hurt me. How to control the anxiety that's always lurking underneath my skin, waiting to grip it's claws in me in the form of a panic attack. "Grady is making things pretty difficult still."