Page 97 of The Make-Up Test
Glancing down, Allison gaped at her lock screen. There were a handful of texts from Colin, which she swiped away. But there were also two missed calls from her mother.
It had to be more Jed updates. Allison had stopped responding to her mom’s texts, so she’d taken to calling instead.
Her father was home from the hospital. Allison didn’t need to know any more than that. Clearing the calls, she typed a few lines of notes into a blank email.
Her phone buzzed with her mom’s number again. Allison hitignoreand kept typing. Except, a second later, Cleo’s face appeared on her screen.
Wendy peered at her. “That seems important. Maybe you should answer it.”
“It can wait.” Allison tried to finish the sentence she was writing but her mother called again, stealing the screen. She groaned.
“Allison. It’s okay. Take it.”
With a sigh, she stepped into the hall. Clearly, she’d inherited herstubborn streak from her mother. “Hey, Ma.” Allison tried her best not to sound as irritated as she felt. “I’m in the middle of a meeting with a professor. I’ll call—”
“Allison.” Her mom’s voice was scratchy. “You need to come home.”
Allison shook her head at no one. “I can’t. I have ahugepresentation Tuesday. I need to spend all weekend finishing it.”
“Allison, it’s your father.”
This again. For fuck’s sake. Allison was tired of Jed taking up every bit of space in her life. She certainly didn’t take up any in his. “Let me guess. He isn’t listening to the doctor’s recommendations and now he’s back in AFib and needs to be zapped again. I’ve read up on this, Ma. People can live a long time with AFib. I don’t need to come home every time he has a little issue.”
“Allison. Honey.” Her mother’s voice was too soft. Too patient.
Allison’s stomach dropped to her feet.
“I don’t know how to say this. Your father. He’s… he’s dead.”
Chapter 37
Allison’s eyes burned with the ghosts of her tears. It had been five hours since her mother’s call, and she’d yet to feel anything.
Like a zombie, she’d shambled back into Wendy’s office. She couldn’t remember what she’d told her professor, but the echo of the woman’s warm hug and the kindness in her voice clung to Allison’s skin as she drove toward Maine.
The texts she’d sent to Sophie and Mandy were a stranger’s words. The steering wheel Allison gripped was in someone else’s hands. Monty nudged his cool nose against her arm in another dimension, another version of her rubbing his head. An unfamiliar heart drilled against a ribcage that wasn’t Allison’s. She was no one, nowhere, floating away as her life streamed before her.
What kind of person was she that Colin could turn her into a tangle of emotions but her fatherdiedand she felt nothing?
She swiped a bead of cold sweat off her face. She shouldn’t be thinking about Colin right now. He didn’t deserve any space in her head.
Jed had died. He wasgone.
When she pulled her car into the driveway beside her mother’sSUV, Allison dropped her head to her steering wheel. She couldn’t do this. Jed. Colin. Any of it.
It was all too much.
Monty huffed a small whine. He tried to balance his tiny front paws on the back of Allison’s seat so he could lick her face, but only managed to tumble to the floor. The laugh that erupted out of her had jagged edges, but at least it got her moving.
Her mom and Cleo were waiting by the front door.
Her mother opened her arms. Her face was red and streaked with tears. Seeing it churned Allison’s stomach. She should look like that. Her body should be a map of her pain. She’d lost a parent. One of the worst losses imaginable.
But Allison was blank. Vacant. Stripped bare.
Her mother smelled like bread and flowers andhomeas Allison stepped into her embrace.Her throat clogged. Who knew you could choke on nothing?
Her arms tightened. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
