I laughed. "Mom, did you see how much money I'm making? I can have Kobe beef flown in on a private jet from Japan if I want. Don't worry!"
"I guess you're right," she replied, sounding slightly sad. "You were all over the Little Falls news tonight, you know. Your life is about to change, Kaden. I wish your father and I could be with you, we-"
"Mom!" I said. "We talked about this. You can't travel right now and dad wants to be there with you. I understand. I can make it to Texas on my own, you don't have to worry. I'll have enough to eat and a bed to sleep in, everything will be fine."
After I spoke to my dad and we hung up I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering if that was the last night I was ever going to sleep in anything like a dorm room again. I tried to think of the things I could do with all the money coming my way, but for some reason, it just wasn't interesting. Houses, boats, cars, investments. None of it held any interest. The only thing I really cared about doing with the money was helping my parents. That was something concrete, something real. They'd fought me at first but our roles were evolving, they had been ever since the accident. Before the accident my father would have refused the money and that would have been that. After the accident, it was me who insisted, who simply informed them that the payments for my mom's care would be made by me from July onwards.
In spite of my efforts to think of literally anything except her, eventually, Tasha appeared in mind's eye. I wondered how she'd heard the news. Had she waited for it? Had she Googled my name and clicked 'News' and read the top results with interest or had one of her co-workers told her over the water cooler? I could have helped Tasha. I could have helped her family. But I knew she would have turned me down. I knew that just offering would have been seen as an insult. She was so stubborn. All anyone could say to me was that I was young, talented, good-looking, rich - in short, that I could have anything I wanted. It's what I'd been hearing since I was a child.
But I couldn't have everything I wanted, because I couldn't have her. And the truth of it was, I wanted her more than I wanted any of the rest of it.
I fell asleep with Tasha on my mind and took a taxi to the airport the next morning, bleary-eyed and still trying desperately to face my bright, shiny future head-on.
Chapter 25: Natasha
I don't want to say it was easier the second time. Getting over Kaden, that is. Not that there was any getting over Kaden, I suppose I just mean the knowledge that I could endure it. I could go on, living my life and getting up and going to work every day and supporting my family even with a hole in my heart. Sleeping with him had been so monumentally stupid. So stupid it almost made me laugh. What had I been thinking? I hadn't been thinking, that's the truth of that.
But the last couple of years had been hard. Not bad, just hard. And I'd just landed myself right back at the first stage because I was an idiot. I didn't take any time off work, that was something. Sure, people noticed something was up. Alisha, Ray, CeeCee, my mom, Lena, even little Rosa took to asking me, sometimes, why I looked sad. Jennifer noticed, too. She sat down with me in the lunch room one afternoon and put her arm around me.
"Listen, Nat," she said. "I know you're not a talker - and I'm not trying to get you to talk. But I just want you to know two things. The first thing is, I know how you feel. It sucks. It absolutely sucks. but it won't suck forever and you need to keep that in mind. And two, if you ever go crazy and do feel like talking, I'm here to listen. OK?"
"Thank you," I replied. "That helps. And you're right, it is difficult for me to talk about painful things. It's easier once I get a little distance from them, if that makes any sense? I mean, I know you know why I've been a little down lately but talking about it, I don't know, it just makes it seem even more real, you know?"
"Yeah," Jen nodded, "I know."
She was about to get up. "I slept with him!" I burst out, suddenly. "That day, when he came to the office - when his mom was in the hospital. I slept with him that night."
Jennifer froze in her tracks and turned around. "You slept with him?"
"Yeah," I replied, hanging my head.
"Well, so what?"
I looked up. Jen was eyeballing me. "So what, Nat? You think you're the first girl to fall back into her ex's bed in a moment of weakness or something? Why do I get the feeling that you're just torturing yourself over this stuff in silence, like it's this huge, shameful deal? It isn't. We've all done it. From the look on your face, I thought you were about to confess to murdering someone. So you slept with Kaden Barlow and now he's gone. Big whoop."