Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“Call the warden then,” she suggests “But past that, try not to let it worry you. You need to focus on the game tomorrow.”
“You’re right,” I say with a sigh before pressing my lips to the top of her head.
I think she’s definitely right. I just need to let it go and hope for the best.
Chapter 24
Simone
“I just can’t get over it,” Etta says as she stares at me over her cup of coffee. We decided to just meet for breakfast in the team hotel, as she was staying there too. “I’ve been despairing for ages that Van would keep himself closed off.”
Van had just enough time to introduce us in the lobby before he was running out the door to catch the team bus to the arena for a practice skate. If I thought it would be awkward to have him leave me in the presence of a virtual stranger, I would have been wrong, because I knew a lot about Etta from Van. For the last week since he revealed everything to me, Van has held nothing back about his life. While that initially consisted of the terrible truth about his parents and what he had to deal with, the last several days it had been about the good stuff.
And the good stuff in Van’s life consists of one Miss Etta Turner.
Van had a ton of things to say about her. Funny things. Sad things. Happy things. Poignant things.
He told me one night as we lay in bed together that even when Etta was her maddest at him for something stupid he’d done, he never felt an inch of distance from her. Never felt abandoned or like he was a burden to her. For twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, every minute of her life since Van came to live with her, she gave him her entire life and then some.
He’d brought me to tears the night he told me that, but I blinked them away before he could feel them hit his chest where my head was resting.
And while we’ve done mostly “getting to know you” chitchat during breakfast, as Etta and I linger over more coffee, she apparently feels comfortable enough with me to talk about Van in a very personal way. I haven’t been privy to every conversation Van has had with Etta since we’ve “become a couple,” but I have to assume by her statement that she had despaired of him ever having a relationship and that Van has told her that I know everything.
“You’re very special, I can tell,” Etta says with a smile at me. She punctuates this by putting her cup down and reaching across the table to wrap her fingers around mine. After a slight squeeze, she whispers, “He deserves someone special.”
I feel my cheeks pink up over the blatant compliment meant to convey not only Etta’s approval of me, but happiness for her adopted son, who clearly did indeed deserve it.
It makes me want to open up to her, so I confess, “I…um…love him.”
She doesn’t blink in surprise. She doesn’t jolt from my words. The corners of her mouth curve higher and her eyes go softer. “It’s the one thing I’ve wanted for Van that I wasn’t sure how to help him get. I’ve tried to do things right, and for the most part, I did. But sometimes I think I sheltered him too much from the harsh realities out there, and that led him to stay in a safe zone. The horrid effect was that he was afraid to love.”
“I think you did exactly what you had to do at the time,” I tell Etta sincerely.
“So he really told you everything?” she asks as she pulls her hand free of mine so she can push away her breakfast plate to lean on the table with her forearms.
I nod. “I found a shoe box under his bed that had articles. And rather than pushing me away, he decided to just tell it all to me.”
“It’s a secret he’s guarded zealously over the years,” Etta murmurs. “I’ve always respected his right to do so. I was really surprised when he decided to visit Arco.”
“Van told me he was worried that he could be like Arco one day. But I didn’t think that was really the crux of his angst, and I told him so.”
Etta’s eyes convey an understanding of where I’m going, so she finishes my thought process. “He admitted to you that he was treated so abominably as a child by being the son of a serial killer he closed himself off to everything. Locked his walls up tight so no one could ever find out the truth and judge him. Make him feel horrible about the people that created him through no choice of his own.”
“Yeah,” I admit softly. “He was protecting himself.”