Read Online Starstruck - Book Two by Gemma Brooks - Free Book Online Page B

Smith’s
ex.
     
    “I messed up, Mom,” I said as the tears began to fall. “I
don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I keep making bad decisions.”
     
    “Oh, honey,” she said as she ran her fingers through my
long, chestnut hair. “That’s part of being young.”
     
    “Luke wants nothing to do with me,” I sobbed. “And I just
told the man I left Rock River for that I want nothing to do with him. And
Piper is being really weird lately.”
     
    “Sounds like your little world is crumbling,” she said. She
rubbed my back and it instantly took me back to when I was a little girl and
when she was still a good mom. My dad dying so young destroyed her, but somehow
Tom was beginning to bring some of that life back into her eyes. “I’m so sorry,
sweetie.”
     
    “I got so caught up with Hudson Smith,” I said. “He said all
the right things. He did all the right things. He swept me off my feet like no
one ever has before. And I fell for it all.”
     
    “What do you mean, you fell for it?” she asked.
     
    “He was spotted out with some model Friday night in New York,”
I said. “There are pictures all over the internet.”
     
    “And you know for sure he was stepping out on you?” she
asked.
     
    “Well, no,” I said as I bit my lip. “But pictures don’t
lie.”
     
    “You can’t believe everything you read,” she said. “And
sometimes pictures can be deceiving too.”
     
    “So I should’ve given him the benefit of the doubt?” I
asked.
     
    She nodded. “I think so.”
     
    “I didn’t even tell him I wasn’t coming back,” I said. “I
just didn’t show up for my flight.”
     
    “Brynn Elizabeth Dawson,” my mom said as she swatted my arm.
“I raised you better than that.”
     
    She didn’t raise me at all really. I mostly raised myself.
But I wasn’t going to tell her that. I was finally getting the mom back that
I’d always wanted. The one I always needed. The one that was hidden underneath
a drunk layer of self-loathing and depression.
     
    “What did he do when he realized you didn’t show up?” she
asked.
     
    “He took it really hard,” I said.
     
    “Does he still want to be with you?” she asked.
     
    “I think so,” I said. “Yeah.”
     
    “Then go back to him!” my mom exclaimed. “You’re twenty
three years old. You’re young. You’re beautiful. I don’t want you to stick
around Rock River and wait tables the rest of your life. I don’t want you to be
some farmer’s wife. Luke’s a nice enough guy, but he was never good enough for
you, Brynn. You would’ve been settling for him.”
     
    I was shocked to hear her say that about Luke. I always
thought she loved him, but then again, she seemed to love everyone when she was
drunk.
     
    “You never liked Luke?” I asked.
     
    She pursed her lips and scrunched her face. “Not really.”
     
    “Why?” I asked.
     
    “That’s not important,” she said. “What’s important is that
you move on with your life. Go back to that movie star fella and try to fix
things. You shouldn’t have skipped out on him, but you can still go back and
make things right with him. He doesn’t sound like a jerk. He sounds like a guy who
is crazy about you and wants to be with you. Those are the men worth fighting
for.”
     
    In my twenty-three years, my mother had never given me
advice with such clarity. Everything she said made perfect sense, and I felt
closer to her in that moment than I ever had before.
     
    “Thanks, mom,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her. “I
feel much better.”
     
    She squeezed me tight, and I loved that she didn’t smell
like booze. She smelled like lavender perfume and drugstore hairspray. Just
like she did when I was a kid.
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 15
 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    I left my mom’s house and went back to the comfort of my
apartment. It was almost as if a weight had been lifted, and I felt like I knew
exactly what I needed to do. The second I