Heartburn: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World) by Tarrah Anders (100 best novels of all time TXT) 📕

She takes a deep breath and places her drink aside.

“Back then, there was a lot of mistakes that were made. Sure, a lot of the things you did were destructive and perhaps negligent of responsibility, but I would never have disowned you. You know that your father has a temper, and when he says things, sometimes he overreacts. You’re thirty now, of course you’ve changed.”

We sit there for several minutes in silence. My knee bounces in anticipation with nerves, and my palms feel so sweaty that I rub them against my jeans.

“What did you think happened? What did he tell you?” I finally ask.

“He said that you checked out of the hospital on your own, against medical orders. I came home from a work meeting, and your stuff was gone, along with your car. He said that you had run away. You were eighteen and there was nothing that I could have done except hope for you to call home.”

“Why are there no photos of me in the house?”

“There’s the one over the mantle.” She points out.

“Surrounded by prayer candles, as if you prayed for me with unlit, never used before candles like I was a dead child. Was it a show? What did you guys tell people?” I press on.

“No one asked. People knew that there was a car accident, they just made their own assumptions.”

“Assumed that I was dead? Why wouldn’t you correct them?” I ask.

“Why would we correct them, your father didn’t want to air all our dirty laundry? It’s not like your youthful activities weren’t known around town.”

“And the reason for no other photos around the house?”

“Lives go on, even with you gone, our lives still went on.” She says.

I can’t tell whether she is happy that I’m here or not.

“I bet it’s going to be pretty weird when Nurse Mason turns up to be your long-lost daughter.”

“So, you’re staying?” She asks slowly.

“I think that accepting a job here would mean that, yes.” I nod.

“Well, I hope that we can let bygones be bygones and start over again.”

11

Rogan

It’s my day off and I’m casually lounging around my house with Duke next to the couch while I work on the crosswords from this week.

My days off consist of doing nothing. I do my best to spend time with Karin, but some days, I just want a break from being around people, since my job takes a lot out of me.

I turn off my cell phone, don’t check my emails, and relax with Duke.

Duke's ears perk up and I hear a huff from him. Not quite a growl, but also not quite a bark. It’s like he’s not even sure what to do. He continues to sort of bark until he fully barks and scares himself at the same time as if he wasn’t expecting his bark to be loud.

Then, a knock sounds on my door. Duke stands and runs to the door, barking as my fierce protector.

I begrudgingly pull myself up from the couch, set aside my crossword, and walk to the door after Duke, who is still barking.

I open the door and on the other side, smiling and looking like she spent an hour or so on straightening her short hair, is Karin.

“I remember you said that you had the day off, and I really wanted to spend it with you. Looks like you still need to shower, you go do that and I’ll wait.” She brushes past me, sets her oversized purse on the counter and turns to me.

“I actually had plans today,” I tell her.

“Oh yeah, and what would that be?” She crosses her arms over her chest.

“I was going to dictate some of my cases, and prep my next lesson for my students,” I lie.

“Oh, come on, all you do is work!” She whines and not so obviously stomps her foot.

“I can spare a few hours, why don’t you and Duke hang out and I’ll get ready? We’ll go to lunch or something?”

“I would love that, maybe add in a wine tasting.” She says to my back as I walk toward my bedroom.

I don’t answer her and instead shake my head as I retreat to the privacy of my own bedroom.

“And so like, it completely devastated me. I thought that I would need to write random posts for him forever, while he played all day in the Maldives. Seriously, why do I need to run his social media? He has an assistant.”

“Aren’t you being paid to do this for him? Isn’t that your job, to do rich peoples social media?” I ask.

“I mean yeah, but he’s just some super rich guy. He’s not like a celebrity or anything.” She shrugs.

There’s no point is justifying anything about her job to her, just like there’s no trying to get her to understand the responsibilities of mine. She doesn’t fully understand responsibility, and I’m tired of trying to explain things like this to her.

I had agreed to go to the winery with her, so I set my eyes on the endgame and I’m feeling a bit relieved when I pull into the driveway of her small cape cod style home on the edge of town. I cut off the engine and get out of the car to open her door.

I offer her my hand to get out of my car and she doesn’t let go of my hand as we walk up the drive-way to her door.

“Would you like to come in?” she asks, turning to me with a smile.

“Honestly, I would like to talk out here on the porch, can we sit?” I motion to the chairs beside her front door and she nods.

I turn toward her, offer a smile.

“Karin, listen. I think that you are a pretty talented woman, you’ve got a lot to offer someone. But I think that someone isn’t me.”

“What do you mean?” She asks, pulling her hand away.

“You know that I don’t have a lot of free