Chapter 21

“I amhappy,” I told her.

Her blue eyes peered at me from behind her wire-rimmed glasses, and she raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Did Clayton come back?”

My mother loved Clay and insisted on calling him by his full name: Clayton. The two of them often got along better than he and I did. When Clay and I were together, my mother doted on him, and he adored her for it. He got along great with his own mother, too, but she lived in South Carolina and he didn’t see her often. So my mother, in turn, became his surrogate. Needless to say, she took our breakup hard and lobbied for us to reconcile for months after Clay moved out.

“No, he didn’t come back,” I told her. “Clay and I are finished, Mom.”

She totally ignored me and said, “Did I tell you he sent me flowers on my birthday? A lovely bouquet of lavender roses.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I’d given my mother a beautiful (and expensive) silk scarf for her birthday, but all she could gush about were Clay’s freaking roses.