Finding YOU Finding ME (You & Me Trilogy Book 2) by Kailin Gow Read Free Book Online Page B

move out of the cozy cottage-style Newport Beach house I’ve lived in for the
past four years since we’ve moved to the Orange Coast of Southern California.
Originally a run-down fixer upper older cottage beach house on the cliff with a
view of the ocean, my parents had lovingly remodeled it to the sweet little
cottage house with a white picket fence that it now was.
                Although
I loved the house, I couldn’t live there any longer knowing how my father felt
about me, with me finding out that I was not his child after all, but some
result of an one-night stand my mother had when she was barely twenty, fresh
from the wild country of Texas, with hopes and dreams of making it in
Hollywood…only to be knocked up by the first gorgeous guy who showed her
attention and was nice to her - my so-called real dad who probably didn’t even
know that I existed. And the man who I thought was my father, the boy who
became a pastor and married the seemingly innocent pretty girl from Texas, the
man whom I grew up with, practically avoided me and my mother the last couple
of months since I found out.
                He
wasn’t here this Saturday morning as he was at church preparing for a Spring
retreat. For married couples, go figure. As much of a mess that was our family
life at home with my parents’ impending divorce and my mother’s drinking
problem, which she swore she was managing because of her AA classes, what never
failed about them, about us, was the perfect façade we managed to put out there
for the congregation. We were always on our best behavior when we were at my
father’s church – the handsome charismatic pastor with his beautiful wife and
daughters. Mom ran events and put together ladies’ socials including book
clubs, while I played the piano during sermons or helped out at the youth
center with Pastor Michael, a young handsome pastor fresh from missionary trips
to Asia and South America.
                For
all it’s worth, despite the hot mess at my parent’s home (funny how I refer to
this cottage house I’ve lived in for years as their home now instead of mine),
I somehow did not walk away from it all, as I had originally planned months ago
before meeting Collins. Instead of packing to move upper north to Stanford, I
remained in town, opting to go to our local, but nationally highly-acclaimed
University of California school.
                “I
don’t see why you can’t just commute,” Mother poked her head through my bedroom
door. “You’re welcome to stay, and you can save on rent that way.”
                “Mom,”
I said. “We’ve been over this how many times?” I packed the rest of my books
away in boxes, which seemed to be way more than the boxes I had for my clothes,
and began labeling them and categorizing them.
                “Golly,
Sam, the way you go about marking up those boxes…you remind me of an accountant
rather than some young woman about to go off on her adventure after graduating
from high school…”
                “Well,
if I don’t mark these boxes it’ll never get done, and besides, I don’t want to
have to dig through each one to find something I need just because I didn’t
label them right.” I turned around, “And graduation isn’t official here until
next week. Then you can have all this weepy mother-daughter send off. Not right
now…” I smiled. Mom have always been the younger one of us, and from looking at
both of us, you’d think she was only a few years older, having had me when she
was only twenty.
                “I’m
going to miss you moving away, Baby,” Mom said.
                “You
have Nydia,” I said, referring to my precociously cute little seven year-old
sister. “And you have your friends…the ladies’ group, and…”
                Mom’s
face went from cheery to weepy in a matter of seconds. If I hadn’t known
better, I