COMPLETE ✓| Charlotte Hastings found herself between a rock and a hard place when she aged out of the foster system. With only a car to her name, she set out on the open road, hoping to find long lost relatives. Winter hits her hard. When she meets...
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | OVERBOARD
Elijah Blackwood
I spent the day Lottie left being treated like a child. My mother called my boss. The embarrassment might never wear off.
It took me several hours to convince my mother I didn't need to go stay with them for a couple days and was doing just fine. I was not doing fine. And we both knew it. But she had reluctantly left with the promise to return the next day after work for dinner. I spent the night curled up on the couch, not really sleeping. But I couldn't bring myself to go to my own bed. I couldn't look at the gaping hole she left in my closet. And my life.
The next morning I dragged myself around the house getting ready for work. It was impossible not to think about her. I splashed water on my puffy eyes and dried it with a towel that smelled like Lottie's shampoo. I made myself toast for breakfast and remembered our peanut butter and jelly candlelit dinner. I got into my truck and noticed her discarded coffee cup in my cup holder.
I couldn't even listen to the radio without thinking of her dancing to everything and anything that played. I switched to a local news station and quietly made my way to work. Lottie's leaving rested heavily in the air. Everything reminded me of her.
"What are you doing here?" Joe asked me when I finally made my way into the shop. "I thought I told you to take a couple days at home."
"I don't need a couple days," I lied. "Plus, I want to save my days for Christmas. My sister's bringing her kids and they are ... extremely energetic."
Joe chuckled but his smile didn't reach his eyes. The stern look reminded me, as everything else did, that Lottie had left me. Just picked up and left. Just like she said she would. I shouldn't have expected any different.
"Plus, you have a couple two man jobs today, right? Couldn't have you breaking your back trying to lift a car or something, Superman."
"Lift a car?" He raised an eyebrow and pointed to the service jack currently holding up the rear end of Mrs. Sanderson's SUV.
"Joke, old man!" I teased, doing everything I could to mask the gaping hole that grew inside of me.
We worked in silence for the next couple hours, only speaking of work topics. I left for lunch and sat alone in my car eating a sandwich I made out of whatever my mom had brought me the night before. It tasted like ham. My hand hovered over my cell.
I could just call her and see if she found them? I reasoned with myself. Maybe just say I'm sorry for how I treated her. I hate that I left it like that. I hate that I caused her pain. . . that all sounds so tacky and fake.
