"Everything!" he spat. "It's not even the stuff about me that bothers me-although, she has plenty to say about me!" he was gesticulating wildly as he spoke. It was pretty funny to watch. I wondered if that's what I looked like when I was worked up. Charley had been known to call me "windmill" when I got upset because she said my arms flung around in circles when I was in the throes of any intense emotion.

"How does Charley just sit there while this woman pretty much calls her every name in the book? She may not use profanity to say it, but prettying this s.h.i.+t up with an accented, snarky b.i.t.c.h vocabulary doesn't make what she's saying any easier to swallow!"

"You gonna make it?" I asked him.

He ran his hands through his dark hair. "Yes, but, s.h.i.+t." That woman is awful. She's likeSatan's sisteror maybe even his mother. My G.o.d!"

I chuckled. "Come on," I said, taking his arm. "Let's walk off some of that aggression."

We made a couple of laps around Charley's floor, giving Brennan time to cool off, and giving me time to prepare for more of Rebecca when I we got back into the room.

When we got back, Codey and Casey were standing outside the room, talking rapidly to one another.

"What's up?" Brennan asked them. They both smiled at him. It was more than obvious that they were both infatuated with their sister's fiance, despite what they may have thought of Charley.

"Mom made Charley cry," Casey said sympathetically.

"What?" Brennan and I asked simultaneously.

"We got put out when we took her side," Codey said, her thick drawl enhancing the bitterness in her tone. "b.i.t.c.h," she muttered, and I wasn't sure if she meant the moniker for Charley or Rebecca. When she stormed off toward the nurse's desk, though, it was clear who she meant.

"Excuse me," she said sweetly as she approached the nurse we'd all come to know as Brandy.

"There is a woman hara.s.sing the patient in that room," she said, point to Charley's closed door. "She's" Codey began but Brandy cut her off.

"It's her d.a.m.n momma, isn't it?!" she asked angrily. Before Codey could answer, she stormed off toward us, barging into Charley's room as soon as she reached the door. Codey walked over to us then, her face still angry.

"We're going to have a h.e.l.l of a night thanks to that move," she said to Casey. "So just prepare yourself."

Casey gave her a sideways hug. "It was the right thing to do. No matter how much you hate her, she doesn't deserve that."

"I don't hate her!" Codey snapped. "And I don't want to talk about it. It's done, and once again, we will deal with momma's att.i.tude because of something Charley has done."

Casey started to protest, but Codey grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door, "Come on!" she said impatiently. "Let's go wait in the car with, Dad."

I hadn't realized that Jackson had already gone to the car. He must have left the room when we were on the other side of the floor.

Casey waved to us as Codey pulled her down the hallway toward the elevator.

It was only a few minutes later that Rebecca came storming out of the room. She was muttering something under her breath about having "never seen such," but we weren't able to catch the rest.

"Well," I said to Brennan. "Let's go try to get our girl smiling again."

He took a deep breath, appearing to mentally prepare himself, and walked in the room first.

Charley was sitting up in bed, red eyed, but smiling wide. She had her telenovelas on again.

"I can't believe that worked," she said. She was grinning like a little kid who just successfully stole a cookie before dinner.

"Can't believe what worked?" I asked her.

"Crying," she said. "If I'd known that's all it took to shut my mom up, I would have done it years ago."

CHAPTER 8 CHARLEY.

I found myself standing in front of Matt, once again, speechless. How was this happening? How was he, again the reason for bad news for me?

The night had been perfect. It was New Year's Eve-my parents' last night in town. Sara had hit it off with Codey and Casey, and the three of them were out hopping around at different parties, and touched base with Brennan, my parents, and myself at various times throughout the night. My father had taken a real liking to Brennan-who was Matt in his eyes. My mother had taken to being less hostile, and I was less than 24 hours from owning my bakery and a box full of grandma Lylah's recipes. I was on cloud nine.

Shortly before midnight, my sisters and Sara had found us in a crowd in the middle of downtown so that the whole family could bring in the year together. "This," I thought to myself, "was going to be the year of the new Charley. The year that I stopped pus.h.i.+ng what I wanted aside and started going after what I wanted." The only tricky part had come when the clock stuck midnight. My mother had made a huge fuss about her "future son-in law", and had gotten a crowd all around us chanting for us to kiss. A creep would have seized this opportunity to be a creep, but Brennan waited to see what I was going to do. Reluctantly, I moved toward him, and he bent down to give me a simple, sweet peck on the lips. I instantly flushed, looking at Sara to see her reaction. She just smiled and nudged me with her elbow.

"Way to rebound, Midge," she whispered in my ear.

After finally being released from the hospital, and still having heard nothing from Matt, I had gone that morning to find him. I was feeling brave. I had marched up to his house, fully prepared to speak to him face to face-or so I told myself.

Luckily for me, he hadn't been home. I'd decided to leave a clear, unmistakable message. I borrowed an envelope from his neighbor, placed my engagement ring inside of it, and taped it to his door. No words, no muss, no fuss. That ring said all it needed to: it's over.

As he stood there in front of me, I realized that I had spoken too soon. I should have waited until my family was gone, but I had just wanted to be done with him-to be done with that part of my life forever. After the initial shock wore off, I still just stood there, waiting for him to speak, and trying to calculate a way out of what was sure to be a disaster.

"What the h.e.l.l is this about Charley? I come home to find your ring stuck to my door? No note? Nothing? That's it?" He was pretty angry, and for a moment, I felt bad. I had actually forgotten that he had no right to be angry, and started to fall back into my old habits of letting him be right all of the time.

Of course, my mother had jumped in. "Charley, who is this, and why does he have your ring? You said it was at the jeweler."

"s.h.i.+t." I thought. Then, "s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t!" How was I ever going to get out of this one?

"Ummmother, this is" I began. Brennan tried to jump in.

"Look, I think you should just leave..." he started.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" Matt cut in. "I'm not going anywhere until Charley tells me why the h.e.l.l she left this ring on my door!"

"Matt, not now," I said, trying to push him back. I hadn't even realized what I'd said until I saw my mother's face. My first thought was to try to lie, but before I had time to come up with one, she was looking back and forth between Matt and Brennan and Matt and Sara, and I knew that she knew.

For a second, I started to draw inward-to take the blame for everything, and apologize to everyone. Something in Matt's expression, though, stopped me. He looked genuinely angry, and I snapped.

"Where the h.e.l.l do you get off showing up and ruining my new year's eve? Where they h.e.l.l have you been?" I was shouting, and I didn't care who heard. "You cheated on me, Matt. Don't get that twisted up in that narcissistic little head of yours. I was. .h.i.t by car, Matt. A freaking car! And where have you been for the past two weeks? Nowhere! And you want to try to tell me that I should feel badly when you are the one who was wrong here-not me!"

Of course, my mother, the queen of absolutely terrible timing, chose this moment to interject.

"Well, this is certainly a shock young lady. Why did you lie to your father and I?"

And there it was-the very last straw: broken. I tuned on her.

"Do you want to know why I lied to you, mother?" my tone was as cold as ice. "Do you think it might have anything to do with the fact that I've waited years to open my bakery and the only thing standing in my way was you? Everything that Grandma Lylah left me and Codey, and Casey was supposed to be ours when she died: NOT when you decided we'd jumped through enough hoops." My mother looked shocked.

"Oh," I said sarcastically, "You didn't think I knew about that, huh? Yeah, well, she wasn't your mother. Dad told us years ago. Told us to play along to keep the peace." I looked over at my dad, who looked ashamed.

"But Mother," I continued, "There was never any peace in your house. You insult, manipulate, and degrade us at every turn. That's why I left. School had nothing to do with it. You are mean, and I hated living with you." My mother's face was stoic. I knew mine had to be red. I took a deep breath and continued, "And yes, Mother, I lied to you. I told you that this was Matt," I gestured to Brennan. "He's not. He's a much nicer guy to me that Matt ever was. But I couldn't even tell you that the wedding with Matt was off because you were holding this stupid Bakery over my head. You know how much I want this. You've always known, and yet you keep it from me every chance you get. Only you could think to be so selfish as to keep something from someone when it already belonged to them! That's why I'm not sorry for lying to you, Mom. The only thing I'm sorry about is not telling you how I felt sooner."

She gave me a look with one eyebrow raised, "Oh, is that so young lady?"

"Yes, that's so! You are mean, and petty, and the most selfish woman I've ever met. And if you don't change the way you treat your family, you're going to end up alone, and no one is going to feel badly about it because at least they won't have to hear about how they should be wearing make-up in their hospital beds!"

"That's about all of your mouth I'm going to take, young lady. Jackson," she said to my father, "let's go. You, too girls. We're going back to the hotel. If Charley doesn't want to be a part of this family, we aren't going to make her."

With that, she left. My sisters each gave me a shocked look, and my father just walked away, head down as usual. It was over. I felt numb.

Matt, Brennan, and Sara were all standing in front of me. I looked at Matt. "I'm leaving," I told him. "Do not, under any circ.u.mstance, follow me."

I headed off down the sidewalk toward my apartment. Using my one good arm to hug myself in the cold.

Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I walked toward my apartment: shocked, hurt, and angry all at once. I heard the pounding of feet on the pavement behind me quickly approaching.

"Matt, I swear to G.o.d if you take one step closer to me, I will punch you in the junk!"

I heard a laugh, then Brennan's voice, "Does that apply to fake Matt's also?"

I turned around quickly. "No! Sorry, Brennan. I didn't mean to just storm off like that-I was just"

"Upset," he finished for me. "It's fine. I just thought maybe I should walk you home. You don't have a great history of making it home safe from downtown at this hour."

"Har Har," I said. He fell into step next to me and nudged my good arm with his elbow.

"Hey," he said softly, "I'm sorry about Matt showing up and ruining things."

"It's fine," I said. "It's what I get for trying to pull one over on anyone. I should have seen it coming," I laughed sadly.

Brennan looked at me-not quite an expression of pity on his face, but something close. It didn't upset me this time. I just stared back at him.

"What?" I said finally.

"Nothing," he said. "I was just thinking, you never got to show me the bakery."

"There's no bakery to show you," I shot back, wondering what he was getting at.

"Come on, maybe it will make you feel better. You know, just to talk about it," he pressed.

"I guess," I told him. "It couldn't make me feel worse."

We walked off together toward my newly shattered dream.

"Here it is," I told him sadly. "This is where the bakery would have been." I looked down at my feet, depressed again.

After a minute, I moved back to sit on the bench directly in front of the small store front. Brennan sat down next to me. "So," he said after a minute of quiet, "What was it going to look like?"

I gave him a look from the corner of my eye. "Just humor me," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Fine," I sighed. "It was going to be teal," I began.

'Teal?" he asked-his tone giving the impression he was not a fan of the color.

"Yes," I said sternly, "Teal and brown. Dark brown. Kind of like--"

"Like chocolate," he said, turning to face me. "And your eyes," he added with a wry smile.

I had to have been blus.h.i.+ng. "Yeah, I guess so," I said quickly, looking away. "I was going to call it 'Lylah's' after my grandmother. She would have loved it."

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment.

I turned to face him again, "Don't be." I told him. "It's not your fault. I should have known better than to try to lie to my mother. I took the risk, and I lost. Simple as that."

"There isn't anything else you can do? You can't fight it? It wasn't even your mother's mother. What about your dad? He doesn't get a say in any of this?"

I laughed. "No, my dad, like the rest of us, does not get a say against Rebecca Vaughan. It doesn't matter if it was the Pope's grandmother-I'm not getting those recipes until she wants me to have them. Which, at this rate, will probably be when she's dead."

Brennan just shook his head. "That's just hard for me to imagine I guess. My parents were the opposite. It's hard to picture a father not even being able to stand up for himself, or his girls."

"He's not that bad," I said in my father's defense. "He actually left once," I said without thinking.

"Really?" Brennan sounded surprised, and to his credit, actually interested.

"Yeah," I continued. "a few years ago: it was right before I left. Honestly, it was part of what made me leave. Growing up, he'd always acted like a buffer between my mother's crazy and my sisters and I. One day, she was screaming at Codey, calling her all kinds of names, 'fat,' and 'stupid," and 's.l.u.t'. My dad finally had enough. Told her we were his daughters and she didn't get to talk to us that way. The problem was, he left without us. He didn't want to take us away until he had a place for us to stay. I guess someone had offered him a job down on the coast, so he went down there to search for houses. It was the most miserable week of our lives. Finally, Codey called and begged dad to come back. She didn't want to go to the coast because she and Casey wanted to finish out high school, but didn't want to be there with Mom alone -and dad never would have left for good without all of us. Sohe came back. He wasn't really the same after that. Something like six months later, I was on my way out here. I said it was because of the great schools and the scholars.h.i.+ps, but it was just to get the h.e.l.l away from her."

I looked over at Brennan to see if his face showed anything I expected. Any of the How awful! You just left your family? that I always expected to see when people heard the truth. Instead, he just looked at me, his face expectant, waiting for more.

"It's why my sisters and I don't get along, actually. We used to be really close. When I left, I'm sure it felt like I was jumping s.h.i.+p-abandoning them. I never wanted it to be that way-- I just couldn't take it anymore. We've barely spoken since then, and when we dowell, you saw how well we interacted. They hate me now."

"I don't think anyone hates you, Charley."

"Could have fooled me by how they talk to me."

"Have you ever tired extending an olive branch?" he asked softly.

"How?" I asked incredulously. "Nothing I can say can get them out of the situation they're in. I don't blame them for hating me. I'd hate me, too. What I did was wrong. I abandoned them because I was afraid: afraid of who I would be if I stayed there."

"It's never too late, Charley. You're a good person. You'll come up with a way to fix things."

"Maybe you're right," I sighed, not thinking it was even a possibility, but not wanting to bring the conversation down even further.