Chapter 22: Her Mother's Color

Jocelyn's POV

I came off the ice with my ears ringing and a dozen people from the bar screaming my name.

Belinda was waiting at the mouth of the tunnel.

She stood under the exit sign with a duffel bag at her feet.

Her coat was pulled tight over her stomach.

Nolan stood twenty feet back. He had seen her first, and he stayed where he was.

"Joss," she said.

I stopped.

There was a green shape poking out of the top of her bag.

"He left," she said. "Lars. He walked past me out the side door. He didn't even look at me."

"I know."

"He took the truck. He took the house keys back."

Her voice cracked.

"I don't have anywhere. Dad won't pick up."

"Brent's wife has a car."

"I can't ask her."

"No," I said. "You can't."

She wiped her face with the back of her wrist. Her freckles stood out on her white face.

"I wanted to say it," she said. "Before anyone else says it for me."

"Say it."

"I'm sorry."

I waited.

"I'm so sorry, Joss. I did it for the wrong reasons, and I knew they were wrong."

"I thought if I was careful nobody would get hurt."

She hiccuped.

"You drove me home from the dentist when I was nine. Do you remember?"

"I remember."

"You were seventeen. You had a date. You drove me anyway."

I did remember.

I remembered a girl with a loose tooth in my passenger seat, sticky with grape soda.

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