Chapter 232

With Logan’s tongue in my mouth and his hands creeping up the inside of my blouse, it was easy to ignore the ringing of my phone the first time. Even the second time.

The third, fourth, fifth, sixth times were much harder to ignore.

By the seventh, Logan leaned up onto his elbows, away from me. The heat in his eyes was dimming. I understood. That ringing was ruining the mood if nothing else. But there was also the possibility that it could be an emergency.

“Better check,” Logan said.

I sighed. “Yeah.” Internally, I began a silent mantra, a prayer: Please don’t let this be another emergency. Over and over again, I prayed. Please, please, please.

Logan sat back, off of me, and I rolled out from under him. My phone was in my purse on the kitchen island. Digging through it, I found my phone.

The caller ID on the screen said the person calling was… my mother?

She hadn’t contacted me once since my moving out on my own. After learning how our parents had kicked out Natalie after the reveal that she and I had been adopted, I hadn’t expected to hear from them either. I thought they would be well and truly out of my life for good.

The ringing stopped as the call was sent to voicemail. Immediately, the phone started ringing again.

“Who is it?” Logan asked. He’d risen from the couch and was slowly approaching me.

I held out the phone so he could see the screen.

“Ignore it,” Logan said, but I wasn’t as sure.

Maybe something had happened to them or to Natalie. Maybe Mr. Hatfield Senior was threatening them in some way.

They were terrible people who treated me with malice for most, if not all, of my childhood.

But they were still the only parents that I knew.

My feelings were complicated.

“I’m going to answer it,” I told Logan so he wouldn’t be surprised.

Even as his face hardened, he nodded, ever supportive of my choices.

I answered the phone. “Hello? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Hazel, thank God,” Mom said. With her voice that crackly, I was likely on speakerphone.

When Dad’s voice chimed in, I knew for a fact I was. “Hazel. There you are.”

“I kept thinking something must be wrong with your phone,” Mom said. “I knew my darling daughter would never leave her mother waiting like this…”

Darling daughter?

“This is Hazel,” I reminded them. “Did you mean to call Natalie?”

“Oh, heaven’s no,” Mom replied.

“She is no longer our daughter,” Dad added.

“We made a mistake, favoring her,” Mom said. “The one we should have been favoring is you.”

Hearing her say that was like a dream come true for the version of my younger self that still lived inside of me. How many years did I hope and pray that my parents would realize my value? That they would turn around and love me as much as they seemed to love my sister.

So many nights as a child, I would cry myself to sleep. Wishing, begging, hoping.

Now it was happening, so many years too late, and I hated how even a small part of me was pleased with their reversal. As an adult, however, with years of heartache under my belt, I knew there had to be more to this.

Something must have happened to get them to turn around on their beliefs.

“You know I’m adopted,” I said, reminding them. This was the reason they pushed Natalie away. Or, at least, the reason they claimed to. “That hasn’t changed.”

“Obviously we know we adopted you,” Mom said, just as Dad said, “We remember.”

Mom cleared her throat. “We’ve let these differences between us stretch on too long. That’s why we wanted to call. We’ve turned over a new leaf. Looking back, we can see how hard on you we were, Hazel. We just want to make amends.”

I had yet to hear an actual apology, but acknowledging they were the problem was a good first step.

“We don’t want to do this over the phone,” Mom said. “Would you agree to meet us for lunch? You know that little place we like? The one with the good sandwiches.”

I did know the place they liked, but I also remembered that they rarely ever took me with them there. A few times they made it seem like I was going to be allowed to go, but then they made me sit in the parking lot with the window cracked like a dog.

“I remember…” I said.

“Good. We’ll meet you there at eleven tomorrow. Don’t be late!” Mom said, her voice suddenly brightening. “It will be so good to see you again.”

Suddenly, the call ended. She… hung up? She didn’t even wait for my confirmation or rejection! That was probably why she did it, then. She didn’t want to hear me say no.

I’d been about to. It was on the tip of my tongue.

Logan’s face was stern and cold, but he didn’t say a word. I could tell, from his expression and his silence, that he didn’t want me to go, but that he was holding himself back from actually saying so.

“It’s your choice,” he said, confirming my suspicions. “If you want to go, we’ll go.”

“’We?’” I repeated, surprised.

“You can’t think I’d let you go face them on your own,” Logan said. “You told me how they treated you. I will never allow that to happen again.”

My heart melted for him all over again. I couldn’t wait for the drama currently facing us to be resolved so that we could live the rest of our lives together.

We had to win against Senior. We just had to.

As for my parents…

With 90% of my heart, I wanted to blow them off, just as they had done to me for so much of my life.

Yet, if I truly hoped to move on with my life, building a family with Logan, maybe it was better to face my past head on and resolve it. Best case scenario: they truly had changed and I could finally get my apology. Worst case: they were just as terrible as ever, and I could tell them off. Or see Logan do it.

Either way, I would finally have some closure of that chapter of my life.

“I think we should go,” I told Logan. “Not with any expectations, really. More, to close the book on all of this.” I gave him a small smile. “I want to start our life together with a clean slate.”

Logan softened slightly, enough to wrap his arms around my waist and kiss me. “Whatever you need.”

The next morning at eleven sharp, Logan and I walked into my parents’ favorite dinner. I felt like I had bugs crawling around in my stomach, a prickly, nervous feeling. Logan holding my hand was my only anchor.

The diner was already busy, nearly every table full.

Mom and Dad were already seated at one of the tables in the middle of the dining room. Suspiciously, I wondered if that was the table they had been assigned by the hostess, or if that’s the one they purposefully asked for so that everyone in the room could see Logan and I approach.

There were two booth seats nearer the back that would have provided more privacy.

Mom stood up and waved. “Over here, daughter!” To Dad, she said, louder than necessary, “She brought her husband, Logan Hatfield. How nice!”

It wasn’t too late to flee if I wanted. Logan even glanced at me as if expecting it.

Subtly, I shook my head and pressed forward.

I was ready to face my past so I could finally put it to rest for good.