Happenstance: Part Two (Happenstance #2) Read Online Free Page A

long…Alder always seemed to have a lot for me to do. Now I don’t really have that much…” Her eyes focused. “Oh, Erin, I didn’t mean anything by that. I would never compare you to her. I’m going to stop talking now.” She covered her eyes with her long, elegant fingers. Her nails were perfectly filed and polished with a pale mauve.
    I walked over and sat down on the stool next to her. “You can talk about Alder. You raised her. You loved her. It doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything.”
    Julianne clasped her hands together and leaned her cheek on her wrist, staring at me while shaking her head. “I know you said you’ve raised yourself, Erin. May I say you did a fantastic job?”
    I smiled.
    She slid something over to me, and I looked down. It was a smartphone.
    “Sam charged it, so it’s ready to go, but the charger is plugged into the outlet behind the nightstand in your room. The number is on the sticky on the back.”
    I turned it over to read the seven digits written in Sam’s scribble on a Post-it strip.
    “It’s mine?”
    “We’d feel better if you’d carry it.”
    “How much is it? I mean the phone and the monthly bill.”
    “We just put it on the family plan. We’ll take care of it.”
    “Thank you, but I—”
    Julianne put her hand on mine, and her eyes turned soft. “It’s just a phone, Erin. We wanted to.”
    “O-okay. Thank you.”
    “Would you like some hot chocolate?”
    “I’m going to take a shower and head to bed, if you don’t mind.”
    “Oh, of course,” she said, making a show of being unoffended.
    The stool grated across the tile when I scooted it back to stand. Just when I reached the doorway, Julianne spoke again.
    “We, uh…we talked to Weston today about something. I’m not sure if he told you or not, but we decided too late that it was a little too personal and a little too late in the game for us to be prying.”
    I kept my back to her and closed my eyes.
    “I’m sorry if we overstepped our bounds. We might be going a little overboard, trying to make up for lost time. Sam and I talked about it earlier. We’re going to work really hard on not invading your privacy. It must be particularly difficult when you didn’t have that…oversight before.”
    I turned around. “It’s embarrassing,” I admitted. “I’m not used to it. I’m feeling a little pressure, but I don’t know. It’s kind of nice that you cared enough to harass him about it.”
    Three wrinkles formed on Julianne’s forehead when both her brows lifted. “Oh, okay. Well…good-night, sweetheart.”
    “Good-night.”
    “Erin?”
    “Yeah?” I said, poking my head back into the doorway.
    “Would it make you uncomfortable if I said that I love you? You don’t have to say it back.”
    “I don’t think it would make me uncomfortable.”
    She smiled. “I love you.”
    It was so surreal that I didn’t mind returning the sentiment. “I love you too, Julianne.”
    I walked down the hall and could hear her sniffling as I climbed the stairs.
    The pastel letters on Alder’s door were gone, and I stopped in front of her door. The entire second floor was dark, but there was enough light from downstairs to see what was missing.
    I wondered if they were in a box amid a bunch of boxes in Alder’s room, or if Sam and Julianne had left everything the way it was. I put my hand on the knob, but thought better of it and dragged my bag down the hallway to my bedroom.
    Stacks of new clothes had been laundered, folded, and placed on top of the perfectly made bed that was now covered with the duvet cover I’d chosen. It was white, with pale-green horizontal stripes across it. By Julianne’s subtle reaction, I could tell it wasn’t the fanciest she’d seen, but I’d already gone through three catalogs, and it was the first one I liked after I grew tired of looking. And it was green. Green was kind of my new thing, to go along with my new boyfriend, new house, new parents, and new life.
    I