Muffin Top (Page 44)

Whether he realized what she was holding back or not didn’t matter in the next moment because that’s when he kissed her, taking away whatever worries she harbored and sweetening the bittersweet reality that all of this was ending soon. And what a kiss. Damn. The man really should teach a class, with her being his star—and only—student. By the time he pulled away, she was breathless and flushed.

“We could just spend the night doing that,” he said, his gaze dropping to the deep V-neck of her dress. “Think we can get access to the library? I’ve always had a thing about getting up a hot chick’s skirt in the stacks.”

“You’re horrible,” she said with a giggle.

He gave her another quick kiss. “And you love it.”

Damn her mutinous body, she did. It was going to be years before she worked that fantasy out of her jilling off rotation. And since going through those gym doors looking like a woman who’d just considered having a quickie in the library wasn’t on her to-do list for this week, she took a step out of kissing range. “I’ll be right back.”

Thank God the girl’s bathroom was right across the hall. Ignoring the curious looks from the people she’d graduated with—and one woman holding up a half-filled wine glass in a congratulatory toast—she hustled into the bathroom. All it took was one look in the mirror to have her reaching for her purse. Her red lipstick had definitely traveled during that knee-knocking kiss. She was just pulling out a makeup removing sheet, a must-have for anyone who, like her, was addicted to red lipstick, when she heard a noise coming from one of the stalls.

She paused and cocked her head to the side, listening closely. There it was again. It sounded like a sniffle. No, more than that. It sounded like one of those soul-wracking swallowed sobs that only followed the worst kind of trouble. There was no way she was slinking out of here without making sure the woman hiding in the stall was all right.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

There was a moment of silence, followed by the door opening and revealing a red-eyed Constance with her trembling chin held high. “I’m fine.” But her voice shook when she said it, and she was clutching tear-soaked tissue in one fisted hand as she walked out of the stall. “And if I wasn’t, you would be the last person on earth who could help.”

Something inside Lucy snapped at that snark, whatever residual fear of the high school mean girl fading away into nothingness. It was like having a titanic-sized burden she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying for years disappearing.

“What is your problem, Constance?” she asked, curious despite it all. “I mean, I understand being a bitchy girl for no reason in high school, but don’t you think it’s time to grow up? Life is too damn hard to add all of this bullshit drama to it.”

The other woman glared at her in the mirror. “Like you’d know about life being hard.”

Was she kidding? That had to be a joke. “I think I know more than most folks.”

“Really?” Constance snorted in disbelief and tore a length of brown paper towel from the dispenser and put it under the automatic water faucet. “You got to leave Antioch.” She pulled the damp paper towel from under the flow of water and wrung out the excess moisture. “You got to go have a life outside of this small town.” She patted the towel against the red puffiness under her eyes as she continued to glower at Lucy. “You got to be something other than that woman who peaked in high school.”

Of all the whiny complaints. The woman who had made Lucy’s life hell in high school was bitching about those years being the best of her life and the fact that they ended? What a crock of shit.

“You could have gone, too,” she shot back. “Nothing was stopping you.”

Constance balled up the paper towel, holding it in her white-knuckled, fisted hand. “Just a little thing called chemotherapy treatment, and when that didn’t work, a double mastectomy at nineteen. Yeah, I had nothing but choices—of course, mine were of the cancer-treatment variety.”

All the air got sucked out of the room by the mere mention of the C-word, and it made Lucy’s lungs ache. Okay, she hadn’t expected that—hadn’t even heard a whisper about it. It wasn’t an excuse for how Constance had acted in high school, but if she had the mastectomy before twenty, she must have been diagnosed when they were eighteen and still in high school. God. She must have been scared out of her mind.

“I didn’t know,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry.”

“You think I care what you think?” Constance asked as she tossed the balled-up towel into the trash can, her gaze studiously avoiding Lucy’s as her chin started to wobble.

“Yeah, I think you do,” Lucy said, working to keep her voice neutral when all that was going through her head was thoughts about how someone who had been through something as life-altering as Constance had could still be such a royal bitch all these years later. “I think you care what everyone thinks, and it’s killing you to see everyone back here again and realizing that you missed out on everything you wanted your life to become. I’m sorry you were sick. I’m glad you’re better. Don’t worry, I’m pretty damn shocked by that feeling, too. Still, who you were and what happened to you before doesn’t have to impact who you are today and how you act now.”

The only sound in the bathroom was the buzz of the fluorescent lights as she watched her high school nemesis’s face go mottled with emotion.

“Why don’t you just—” That’s all Constance got out before the dam broke and tears started rushing out. Maybe it was because Lucy was the only one there, maybe it was because Constance needed something solid to hold onto in the crazy whirlwind of her life, but she rushed to Lucy, wrapping her arms around her and holding on as she sobbed. “The doctor has diagnosed my daughter as having the same aggressive breast cancer gene I have,” she said, her whole body shaking. “It runs in the family. It’s my fault.”

And everything clicked. If the reunion had been a reminder for Lucy about all of the crap she’d lived through, it was just as horrible of a reminder for Constance. Add to that her daughter’s diagnosis and…yeah, being a raging bitch may not be the best way to react to that kind of news, but it was understandable, if shitty.

“Oh God, Constance,” she said, squeezing the other woman tight. “I’m so sorry.”

They stood there—former high school enemies, holding onto each other in the girl’s bathroom under the harsh lights. It wasn’t the most bizarre hug Lucy had ever been a part of—that would be the five-way group hug between warring defensive linemen whose angry grudge match had nearly brought their team to its knees—but it was pretty close. Who would have thought it? Her and Constance? Hugging? It should have been weird, but it wasn’t. It was proof that they both could move on, move forward—maybe even be friends.

“I don’t know what to do,” Constance said when they moved apart, and she dabbed her face with another damp paper towel. “How do I tell her that it’s gonna be okay when it may not be? What if she has to give up on all her dreams like I did? What if her future is over before it even began?”

“What do the doctors say?” Lucy asked.

Constance’s jaw tightened, and she set her shoulders as if she was getting ready to go into battle. “To do monthly self-exams, get checkups, and to pray.”