Forever An Ex by Victoria Christopher Murray Read Free Book Online Page B

me—“I have to agree with you. It would be hard for me to let her go.”
    â€œSee!” I said to Kendall as if Sheridan’s words were the gospel. “I can’t let her go and I don’t see any reason why I have to.” I held up my arms to the heavens. “This is L.A. People leave Iowa and North Dakota and Wyoming to come here.”
    â€œAnd people leave L.A. to go to New York,” Kendall said. When I glared at her, she said, “All I’m saying is that you’ve got to consider what your daughter wants.”
    â€œShe’s eleven!”
    â€œSo what? Clearly, she’s a brilliant eleven-year-old who’s focused and goal-oriented.”
    â€œAnd every goal she wants to achieve . . . she can do it here.”
    Kendall shook her head.
    â€œI can’t believe you’re not supporting me,” I said to Kendall.
    She waved her hand like she was slapping my words into the ocean. “There is no way I’d be out here in this cold weather, walking on this cold beach, at seven-thirty in the morning, if I weren’t supporting you.”
    She had a point, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
    Kendall said, “I’m just telling you the truth. That’s what I thought friends did. But I guess you can’t handle it.”
    â€œYou know what?” I said, pointing my finger in Kendall’s direction. “I don’t need your opinion anymore. Don’t say another word to me.”
    â€œWhat? You think you can shut me up because you don’t want to hear the truth?”
    Sheridan held up her hands, stopping Kendall from saying anything else. “Of course Asia wants the truth. There’s just a better way to say it.” To me, she said, “Suppose Kendall is right, though. I wouldn’t want Angel to ever feel like you held her back.”
    That was my greatest fear. If I said no, would my child end up hating me? With a sigh, I said, “Well, the good thing is we have a couple of years. Maybe by then, Angel will have changed her mind and she’ll be interested in something else.”
    â€œLike what?” Kendall asked with just enough of a chuckle to let me know that she thought I was being ridiculous. Clearly my telling her to shut up didn’t matter. “Your daughter was singing before she could talk and dancing before she could walk. This is in her blood, Asia. She knows what she wants.”
    I growled. Just because Kendall was right didn’t mean I had to like it.
    â€œThe good thing is that you do have a few years,” Sheridan jumped in. “And in the meantime, we’ll all pray about it.”
    â€œYeah, we can pray, but my prayer is gonna be that you come to your senses,” Kendall said. “Pray over her and let that child go. And if it’s that big of a deal and you can’t stand to be separated, just move to New York, too.”
    Then the three of us stood there quietly for a moment.
    Kendall seemed the most surprised at her own words. “Yeah,” she said, as if she was warming to that idea. “Why don’t you just move to New York with her?”
    Sheridan looked at me as if she thought that was brilliant.
    â€œI can’t . . . move to New York.”
    â€œWhy not?” Sheridan and Kendall asked together.
    Kendall added, “You got a job that you didn’t tell us about?”
    I gave her the squinty eye—the look that was meant to tell her to shut up before I gave her a beat-down. The problem was, Kendall wasn’t afraid of me, so she gave me the look right back.
    Then Sheridan said, “That is a thought, Asia. What about you moving to New York?”
    I sighed, but didn’t say a word. I didn’t want to move to New York. I’d been born and raised in Los Angeles and this was all I knew. “What would I do in New York?”
    â€œThe same thing that you do in L.A. . . . nothing,” Kendall