The three of them ate in companionable silence for several minutes before Hunter spoke up. “Should I ask Violet to check on them? You know, show up at a gymnastics meet and play dumb? Like she doesn’t know the two of you broke up or why?”
“I’d really rather you didn’t. The less Haley sees of our family, the better. I don’t want anyone freaking her out or making her feel like we’re pressuring her in any way. Just…let it be. It’s over.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Hunter said after a moment. “I really thought the two of you were going to…”
“Dude, seriously?” Dean said, cutting him off.
“Fine. So…what now? What are your plans?”
Grabbing his third slice, Kyle tossed it on his plate. “Jake’s got me heading up a new job starting Monday. I plan on taking the weekend to look over the plans so I can show up there Monday morning and prove to him that I can be trusted. He’s been giving me the crappy jobs for a month now, so this is my second chance. Maybe this one I won’t blow.”
“So what happens now?”
It was Monday afternoon and Sydney was parked outside of Teresa’s office while Haley was inside. It had been a horrific battle to get her there—just like it had been the entire week before—but somehow she managed to get her niece in the car and get them to their appointments without them killing each other.
“Syd? You there?”
“Oh, sorry, Mia. My mind wandered for a minute.”
“I don’t doubt it. Are you going in to talk with Teresa today too?”
“Yeah,” she said wearily. “I’ve been talking to her almost daily—both in person and on the phone—but I honestly don’t think anything’s working. Haley’s just so angry and nothing’s getting through to her. I just feel so damn helpless and miserable.”
“I am so sorry, Syd. I wish there were something I could do.”
“Thanks, me too.” She sighed. “I never thought anything like this would happen. I get the whole stages of grief thing, but…this angry side of Haley seemed to come out of nowhere.”
“Have you heard from Kyle?”
Just hearing his name made her heart ache. “No. But then again, I pretty much made sure I pushed him away enough that he wouldn’t even think of calling.”
“Syd…”
“I can’t, Mia. I can’t even let myself think about him. As it is, I’m ready to lose my mind. Last night I was talking to my mother and now she wants to come try to help but…I don’t know if I can handle that too.”
“What can I do? Tell me. Do you and Haley want to come here for a week just to get away?”
Smiling sadly, she said, “Thank you for even offering, but…we’re going to get through this. Hopefully sooner rather than later.” Looking up, she saw Haley walking out of the office and waving her in. “I have to go. It’s my turn.”
“Good luck! And call me later if you need me!”
Hanging up, Sydney did her best to paste a smile on her face as she walked toward Haley. “Everything go okay?”
“What do you think?”
It took every ounce of strength not to shake her niece sometimes, but she refrained and simply followed her back into Teresa’s office.
And an hour later, she wished someone would shake her and wake her up from this nightmare.
They were back in the car and it suddenly hit her that maybe it was time to admit defeat. These sessions were getting them nowhere. Maybe if they were forced to talk to each other at home instead of in front of a stranger, they’d make some progress.
“There’s no school tomorrow,” Haley said with a hint of an attitude. “Can I sleep at Janie’s tonight?”
It was a holiday or a teacher workday or something like that, so there really wasn’t a reason to say no…
“Why don’t you invite Janie to sleep by us? We’ll get takeout and do some sort of Netflix marathon and…”
“I’d rather go to Janie’s.”
At that moment, Sydney just didn’t have it in her to fight.
“Fine. Sure. Do you want me to drop you off now or do you want to go home and pack?”
“I need to pack. But then I’ll just ride my bike over. I don’t need you to drive me.”
“Fine.”
Thirty minutes later, Sydney was down in her office when the front door slammed shut. No goodbye, no mention of what time she’d be home. And yet…Sydney let out a long breath and felt like it was the first time she was able to breathe in over a week.
And then felt incredibly guilty for even thinking like that.
On the corner of her desk sat a picture of Tracy and Daren and a much younger Haley. Picking it up, Sydney gently touched her sister’s smiling face. “I really wish you were here,” she said quietly. “Your daughter is in so much pain and I don’t even know how to help her. It seems like everything I do just makes it worse.” One lone teardrop fell on the glass. “You used to talk to me about how much she was changing and becoming a tween.” She laughed softly at the word. “And how challenging it was getting. But you never said how you were dealing with it. More than anything, I wish someone would tell me how to deal with it.” Lifting her hand, she kissed her fingers and then rested them on the glass again. “Miss you every day.”
Carefully, she put the picture back and did her best to take a minute to get her emotions back under control before looking at her calendar to see what she needed to work on next.
For an hour, she finished up a newsletter that was going to go out to Mia’s readers the next day to officially announce the movie news. Once she had it polished and scheduled, she leaned back in her chair and smiled. She was finally getting the hang of things for Mia’s business and was starting to feel a sense of accomplishment rather than a sense of “Oh my gosh, I hope I did that right.” It was a great feeling.
Deciding she was done working for the day, she wandered upstairs and just sort of relished the quiet. The house was clean and there was nothing else that needed her immediate attention. And now, with the night all to herself, she wondered what to do.
Her first instinct was to call Kyle, just to hear his voice. But she quickly pushed that thought aside because nothing had changed. Today’s therapy session hammered that point home. Haley had gone on and on about how much she resented Kyle always being there and his family trying to take the place of hers, and rather than trying to make her see how that simply wasn’t true, Teresa had almost supported it!
And that’s why she wasn’t planning on going back.
Teresa was good at listening, but she simply didn’t seem to want to go against anything Haley said or thought, and it wasn’t helping anything. All it had accomplished was giving her niece even more of an attitude.
Feeling mildly better about her decision, Sydney decided to do a little celebrating. First up, she was going into town to treat herself to a mani/pedi at Glitter Girls. It had been ages since she’d pampered herself and she had seriously earned it. After that, she was calling in an order for Chinese food and going home to watch something on Netflix.