~Holly’s Point of View~~Twenty Five Years Ago, Suburbs of Portland, Oregon~I can’t believe mom forgot to get me from school … again. I know she’s got a lot on her plate but come on! Trudging down the sidewalk with my heavy backpack weighing me down, I tried to avoid the mud puddles. Thankfully by the time school ended the rain had quit but it had been pouring ALL day. Now I had nearly a two mile walk home and it was chilly. And muddy, there weren’t exactly sidewalks along the entire way.My mom was a night shift nurse at the hospital so I rarely saw her except when she picked me up from school. She worked seven at night to seven in the morning but often went in early. The fact that she didn’t show meant she either got doing something else or didn’t set her alarm.I’d thought about going into the office and calling home but if she needed to sleep that badly I guessed I should leave her alone.It just made my already bad day worse. First dad was late dropping me off, then we had a po

~Holly’s Point of View~“You’ve been on that video game all day,” I snapped, blowing my bangs out of my face.“I’m just getting your money’s worth,” Chase said, laughing.This kid.He’s way too smart for his age, way too far ahead of his time. He needs to slow down. He knows since we lost his dad I’ve pretty much let him do whatever he wants, though he usually doesn’t take advantage of that. I don’t have the heart to tell him no to anything.As I struggled to get more out of the fridge than I knew I should, my fingers seemed to stop working.“Damn it,” I whined, looking at the carton of eggs on the floor. I put everything else down and grabbed a roll of paper towels. But before I could even squat down I felt arms around me.“Mom, you’ve been off for a couple days. Like a space cadet off … floating without gravity. What’s up,” Chase said, resting his head on my shoulder. I couldn’t believe my flipping 13 year old was as tall as me already. I am only 5’5 but still. “Can’t hide anythi

~Holly’s Point of View~What the fuck was I thinking getting naked in my ex-boyfriend’s pool?? Ugh. What if there are cameras?? Friggin’ idiot Holly. Not to mention leading him on. He … doesn’t even … live here!Like it matters! I’m not getting back with Slade!Thankfully he was a perfect gentleman when it was time to get out, he brought me a nice soft robe and didn’t even peek. I don’t think.Of course I’m self conscious of my body, I’m no spring chicken. My boobs thankfully lasted pretty well over the years, I’m not a sagging granny yet but I definitely have a bit of a muffin top, cellulite on my ass. Years of running my ass off at the hospital but eating like a dump truck. Damn hospital fries and chicken tenders being so good are my downfall.I was stupid to think he cared about my imperfections, he clearly didn’t. But knowing the kinds of women he’s probably been with and could have with a simple phone call if he wanted … yeah it made me self conscious.Slade should absolutely be

~Holly’s Point of View~ “Really I can just get an Uber, that’s how I got here,” I said, as I fumbled to get my sneakers on. I had already seen a text from Chase asking if he could stay another night with his cousin, apparently they were doing a two day horror movie marathon. I used to be uptight about him watching that stuff but he thinks it's so funny and actually spends the whole time dissecting why it's all fake. My in-laws are also the sweetest people you could ever want to meet. Much like Gene and I, they were only able to have one child and it's always meant so much to us that Chase and Dylan basically grew up as brothers. Also, in my book, if he had a strong male friend to occupy his time he wasn’t chasing girls that much. Really, he rarely showed much of an interest. His life right now was baseball and I was more than fine with that. “Holly, just let me take you. It’ll be weird but cool to see Mama Anderson’s place again,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah well, the only t

~Holly’s Point of View~ Slade always used to say I had a poker face that drove him nuts, he never could quite tell what I was thinking. What he was always thinking … was pretty obvious. Thinking with only one part of his body as a teenager with a girlfriend. But now he’s so different. It’s like he’s walking on eggshells with me, and maybe he is. It seems like he says just as much as he needs to, no more … no less. He’s carefully choosing what he says and I don’t like that one bit. We used to have conversations that lasted hours, just about anything and everything. Mostly … our dreams. We both wanted three kids, and two dogs. We both wanted to feel validated in our careers, to feel like we were doing something important and that mattered. It was obvious to us both pretty early on though that college wasn’t in our world view. The idea of extending high school sounded like absolute torture. If my mom hadn’t absolutely pushed me into nursing school I have no clue what I would have ended