He Turned My Exam Into a Joke, I Turned the Page Chapter 11

He Turned My Exam Into a Joke, I Turned the Page Chapter 11

Mom got off work at two every afternoon.

The second she clocked out, she dragged me out of the house. Sometimes we went to neighborhood barbecues with the locals, and sometimes we went out to look at the ocean.

At first, I resisted it.

I did not want to see people or talk to anyone.

I did not want the locals staring at me.

It felt like they were looking at some strange animal.

“I’m not going.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to be around more people.”

Mom handed me my jacket, her tone leaving no room for argument.

I let out a groan.

But she covered her mouth and laughed.

“Mom! You’re laughing at me!” I grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and flung it at her.

She caught it easily and shrugged at me.

“Mm-hmm.”

“But sweetheart, haven’t you noticed that you’re different now?”

“You never used to talk back to me, and you definitely never used to throw a fit at me.”

I froze for a moment.

She was right.

It felt as if a little more life had come back into me.

Back in the States, whenever Luke was not with me, I would wilt like a dead houseplant. Nothing interested me, and I could not bring myself to care about anything.

“Sweetheart, I didn’t make you leave with me because I wanted to control your life,” Mom

said.

“I know Luke was important to you. I know he was the one who helped you come out of the dark. But sweetheart, you can’t place all your emotional weight on someone else.”

“I want to see you love yourself.”

“When the day comes that you can walk out of that shadow on your own, I’ll give you your freedom. The whole world will be open to you, okay?”

I nodded hard.

“Okay.”

“Mom, where are we going today?”

Mom smiled. “Anywhere you want.”

“Follow your heart. Wherever you want to go, that’s where we’ll go.”

Back in the States, summer had just ended and college move-in season was beginning.

Here in the Southern Hemisphere, spring was just arriving.

Mom crouched in the little garden, fertilizing the flowers. “Luke must have moved in at AU by

now.”

I was lying in a rocking chair. At her words, I opened my eyes.

“Oh, right. Did you tell him you left the country?” she asked. “You two have never been apart

since you were little. Will he be okay with it?”

Mom did not know what had happened between Luke and me.

“No need,” I said.

“We both have our own lives.”

Luke and I had once been two lines whose paths almost perfectly overlapped.

From preschool at age three to elementary school, middle school, high school, and even the college we had once imagined, along with the rest of our lives.

But halfway through, Luke had turned slightly off course.

Even a tiny turn was enough to make those two lines drift farther and farther apart.

“He probably…” I paused. “He probably doesn’t want to see me again either.”

So I cut off every possible way Luke could reach me.

I deleted my social media accounts and changed my phone number.

Mom looked like she wanted to say something but stopped herself.

In the end, she only shook her head.

Then she muttered to herself, “Did you two have a falling-out?”

“Then why did Luke ask me for your address?”