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Back When She Returned Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT
  3. CONTENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. THIRTY-NINE
  44. FORTY
  45. FORTY-ONE
  46. FORTY-TWO
  47. FORTY-THREE
  48. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I froze. If I wasn’t supposed to be looking at any of this stuff, she definitely wasn’t supposed to be looking at any of it.

“Please, Abbi?” she asked when I still hadn’t responded.

It was only a picture, and it wasn’t like she didn’t know what he looked like anyway. I wouldn’t show her any of the articles or things they’d said about her. I grabbed my phone from my back pocket and quickly scrolled through the images on Google until I found the one that had gone viral. Everyone made comments about how gorgeous he was, but I didn’t think so. He reminded me of Tom Cruise—too pretty. I enlarged the picture and handed her my phone.

She stared at it like she was seeing a ghost. Her hands shook, and her eyes instantly filled with tears. Anxiety tightened my chest.

“Hey, Mom, you know what? That’s probably not the best idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I reached for my phone. She sprang off the bed and clutched it against her.

“No!” Her eyes were wild. The muscles in her neck stretched taut.

I inched my way off the bed. I could scream for Dad if I needed to, but he’d be furious that I’d set her off. She hadn’t gotten scared like this since we’d gotten home. “It’s okay, Mom. You can have my phone. I won’t take it from you.”

It took a second, but my words startled her back to herself. The color drained from her face. “I feel sick.”

I rushed toward her and put my arm around her waist. “Here, why don’t you just sit back down on the bed?” I helped her to it and set her down delicately. She still hadn’t let go of my phone, but at least she wasn’t looking at it anymore. Her body was rigid, stiff. The muscles in her neck hadn’t relaxed. Shiloh was asleep at the top of the bed, and I brought her to Mom without waking her up, hoping she’d snap her out of it. At first she held her robotically, like she was on autopilot, but as Shiloh settled against her, Mom slowly relaxed her body into hers. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I wasn’t doing that again.

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-THREE

MEREDITH

NOW