Without You, Alicia Jackson [best classic romance novels .TXT] 📗

When I left home it was like sealing a box leaving all of my problems within. But when my grandma asked me to come back all of those problems came flooding out again. The only reason I had come was because she had begged me. Don’t get me wrong I love my grandmother, she’s the most important person in my life, she has been there for me when I literally had no one else. The reason I didn’t want to come back is because of my mother.

“She said she really wants to try with you.” My grandma had said during an hour long conversation over the phone. “Plus it would make me really happy if we could all be together again.”After that I couldn’t say no. I knew that my grandmother missed the days when we all lived together, but for me going off to college had been the highlight of my life. “Fine Nana, I’ll come but I can’t promise that I will stay the entire summer. I really need to get a job, and study for classes and…...” “Oh that sounds wonderful Charolette! We can all catch up and you can take a break from studying. You work so hard you know just like..” “Ok Nana, gotta go pack.” I said hanging up. The conversation ended there, I have never liked being compared to my mother, we are nothing alike.

The night before I left for my grandmother’s I had dinner at my best friend Lauren’s house. Lauren and I met freshman year, I remember the day like it was yesterday. I had already unpacked and put away all of my things so I decided to wait for my roommate to show up before I went to look around campus. Just as I was about to give up waiting a tall, and very loud brunette with beautiful eyes, bounced into the room spilling clothes and shoes everywhere around her.

“Oh great, just spill everything Lauren.” She said to herself. She was tripping over things and muttering to herself when she finally looked up and saw me. “Oh hi!” she exclaimed fighting her way over bags to get to me. When she reached me she pulled me into a tight hug practically lifting me off of the floor.  “Ow.” I said signaling for her to loosen her grip. “I’m Lauren, and you must be Charolette.” She said finally releasing me and taking a step back. “Yep that’s me, and this must be all of your stuff.” I said signaling to the mess on the floor. “Oh, yea but that’s not all of it.” “Not all of it?” I asked starring at her in disbelief. “Yeah, I had a little accident in the hallway.” I walked out of our door to find clothes scattered all up and down the hall.

We picked up all of her things and then I helped her put them away. “Wow!” She said once we were done. “My room hasn’t looked this good since my mom stopped cleaning it for me back in elementary.” I shuttered slightly at the realization that I might not see the floor again until we moved out. “I’m hungry, what’s for dinner.” She asked tugging on my arm. The girl's attention span was about as long as my piky finger. “Uh.” I started. “Do you like spaghetti? I like spaghetti.” She said not allowing me to finish my statement. But she just stood there looking at me so I figured she was waiting on me to answer. “Um, sure spaghetti sounds good.” We walked around campus for about an hour before we decided to eat at the Italian restaurant that she had seen coming into town. After talking over dinner Lauren had deemed me as her new best friend and after a couple of months she had become mine, and Thursday had officially become our spaghetti night. So two years later there I was at her place on Thursday night for spaghetti, but this time was different.

“So why don’t you want to spend the summer in Cape Cod again?” she asked in an incredulous tone setting the breadsticks on the table where we were eating.  “I mean it’s beautiful, at least that’s what it looks like in the movies.”  “It is nice.” I said sighing. “Then why don’t you want to go? Your mom can’t be that bad, can’t be worse than mine.” she shrugged. But she was that bad. Lauren’s mom is no picnic either but at least she cared. Just then our friend Patrick walked into the living room from out of nowhere, and without a single word he pulled out a chair and helped himself to some spaghetti.

“Do you always do that?” I asked.

“Come eat your dinner? Well sometimes.” He answered with a mouth full of food.

“No, walk into people’s homes without knocking first.” I said laughing.

“All the time.” Lauren chimed in shaking her head.

 “So I hear you’re going home this summer.” Patrick said not acknowledging my question or Lauren’s remark.

 “Yeah, I leave tomorrow morning.”

“Well don’t sound so excited.” He said in between shovels of pasta.

“I don’t really want to go, my grandma kind of guilted me into it.” I admitted.

 “Well that’s no reason to go, tell her you have stuff to do.”

 “Her mom is going to be there.” Lauren interrupted.

“Oh!” Patrick put down his fork and starred over at me. Only Patrick and Lauren knew about my mom, it wasn’t like I went around broadcasting my life or anything but once I met their parents it was hard to avoid the constant questions. Both of Patrick’s parents are great. His dad is a football coach at Patrick’s old high school and his mom is the softball coach. Both Patrick and his sister have played sports most of their lives and Patrick is the pitcher on the baseball team here at USMC. Unlike Lauren’s mom Patrick’s parents were supportive when his sister Leah picked theatre over sports when she started at Berkley this year.

 I met Lauren’s mom our freshman year at one of Lauren’s tennis matches. Unfortunately it was the one where she decided to tell her mom that she was quitting the tennis team. It was the weirdest thing watching her mom flailing around in a business suit yelling at the top of her lungs. I would have been embarrassed but Lauren just yelled back. When her mom finally did leave she told her that she was her dad’s problem now. So the next morning Lauren called her dad and they agreed that as long as she kept her grades up, he would try to pay her tuition, which Lauren knew would be nearly impossible after all he had spent in the divorce. So this summer she is staying in Michigan and working as a waitress.

“Just blow it off, stay here with me, move into the apartment since you practically live here anyway, and I can ask my manager Joey to give you a job at the restaurant.” Lauren said fighting Patrick for the last breadstick.

 “Thanks Lauren, I wish it was that easy. I’ve already packed my things and my grandma would be really upset if neither I nor my mom showed up.”

“But I thought Lauren said that your mom was going to be there.” Patrick said turning his chair to face me.

“Well my mom called my grandmother and told her that she was coming. But in my experience just because she says that she is going to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that it is going to happen.”

“I could come with you, keep you company you know.” I noticed that Patrick had moved over a little closer to me.

“Thanks Pat, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” I reached over and touched his shoulder and then went to empty my pretty much full plate in the trash. “I mean I never told my grandmother about you and if by some miracle my mother does show up, there will be more than enough drama without adding you to the mix.” It was really sweet that he wanted to help me but Patrick and I had our own issues that I didn’t want to complicate further by adding my mom to the equation. I knew Pat didn’t really care for my mom because of what she had done so I couldn’t let them meet, I really care about Patrick and I don’t know what I would do if I lost his friendship.

Patrick and I met in a psychology class. The professor had divided the class into groups of eight for a research project. Our group decided to split up into two’s so that we could get the project done before the weekend and being that Pat and I were the only two who didn’t know anyone in the group, we got left together. I was a bit nervous at first, I had noticed him in class before and had seen him at a couple parties, but had never actually talked to him. “So do you want to get this done?” he asked looking down at me. The very first time that I had seen Pat his height had been what had drawn my eye. I am about 5’7 of mostly legs and he still towered over me. “Uh yeah.” I answered. “How many people do we have to talk to?” “Well since we split up we only need to do five.” “Ok sounds good let’s start in the library there will be a ton of people in there.” We had ten questions about sleep patterns, diets, and studying, pretty much the life of a college student. Our job was to ask these questions that our professor had given us, and as a group combine the information into a presentation that we would nominate two people to do in front of the class. When we got in the library I was shocked to see that it was practically empty. “Oh yeah that’s right there’s that concert tonight, I bet everybody is out getting ready for that.” Patrick said looking down at me. We spent half an hour surveying the few people we did see.

 “Ugh, what are we going to do now?” I groaned plopping down into a close chair.

“Maybe we should go to one of the restaurants around here.” I suggested.

 “And bother people while their eating?” he said with a questioning look.

“Oh yeah.”

“Plus I have baseball practice in half an hour, so whatever we’re going to do it’s got to be quick.” At this point I was panicking, we had to have something to give to the group. And out of the five we asked, only three were really willing to cooperate. “Why don’t we just ask each other?” He said taking a seat on the table in front of me. “I guess.” I said a bit unsure, the professor didn’t say specifically that we couldn’t interview each other but I still didn’t know. “It will be better than nothing.” He said sensing my apprehension. I sat up in the chair.

“Alright I’ll go first I guess.” I said as I pulled my notebook, a pen, and the list of questions out of the backpack that I had been carrying.

“You said that you play baseball, so I guess that means you have a pretty healthy diet.” I said crossing off the first question.

 “Yeah, coach likes us to eat pretty healthy and that’s not usually hard, I guess I’m kind of used to it. I’ve played sports my whole life and my family is full of athletes so I don’t typically eat a lot of junk.”

 I easily believed every word, accept for a couple of beers I hadn’t seen the guy eat or drink anything unhealthy. Just sitting there across from him I could tell he took care of his body.

“Ok, what about sleep, what time do you usually