Healed Read Online Free Page B

be spending with Andrew.
    Once I was dressed, I pulled out my cell phone. I probably had at least another fifteen before Andrew would be back. Could I have a fifteen-minute conversation with my mother? Probably not, but I was sure going to try.
    Putting the phone to my ear, it started to ring.
    “Hello?” My mom’s voice came from the other end of the line.
    “Hey, Mom, it’s me.”
    “Hey, sweetheart. What have you been up to?”
    “Studying, but that’s not why I called. I have something to tell you.”
    “Is it good or bad?”
    I giggled to myself. For a woman who’d apparently told my fiancée that we had to have brunch with them once he’d popped the question, she was being extremely obtuse. Then again, maybe she was just afraid to give the surprise away.
    “It’s good,” I said with a smile in my voice. “Andrew asked me to marry him last night.”
    I had to pull the phone away from my ears for fear she would pierce my eardrum with all of the screaming that came down the line. It felt good to know that she cared about Andrew just as much as I did.
    “Emily? Emily?”
    “Yeah, Mom, I’m here. I just needed to hide from the screaming.”
    “Sorry about that, I’ve just been waiting for the past two weeks to get this phone call!”
    “Well, it took him a little bit to get up the nerve to ask, but it was wonderful and I’m so happy.”
    Great gusty laughs came down the line. “Mom? Are you okay? What are you laughing at?”
    The laughing continued and it took her a while to calm down enough to answer me. “My tough little Emily, filled with happiness . . . from a boy!”
    “Ha ha. Very funny, Mom.”
    “All right, all right, I’ll let it go. So tell me, how did he propose?
    A smile crept across my face, the memory playing before my eyes. “Actually, we went to the park for a picnic and while I was swinging on the swings he got down on one knee and proposed.”
    “You were on the swings?” She laughed.
    “Mom, stay focused here.”
    “I am, I just can’t believe what I’m hearing. You should listen to yourself. This is a side of you that your father and I have never seen.”
    “Mom,” I said, exasperation clear in my voice. “Can you focus for one minute?”
    “Oh, sweetheart, I am. Since you were born, you’ve always been so independent and that hasn’t changed in the last twenty-one years. But Andrew’s brought out a whole new side of you.”
    “Are you saying that I’m not independent anymore?” I asked with more of a bite to my voice. I wasn’t sure exactly what point my mom was getting at, but I was getting frustrated trying to figure it out.
    “Calm down, Em, that’s not at all what I’m saying. You don’t need a guy to take care of you, but he does balance you out.”
    Huh? “Balances me out?”
    “Yep. When was the last time that you really lost your temper?”
    I tried to remember but I was coming up blank. The front door opened and in walked Andrew, the sweat dripping down his tanned skin making me shift in my seat. He caught me watching him and gave me a knowing smirk.
    “Who’s that?” he mouthed at me.
    “It’s my mom. Maybe you can help me?”
    “Is that Andrew?” my mom asked.
    “Yeah. Actually, Mom, I can’t think of the last time I lost my temper. I thought he might remember.”
    Andrew grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and came over and sat down next to me. “Hmm . . . the last time you flipped out was the night at the club, I think. When Josh wanted to find Lauren.”
    “Oh.” That was the night Josh had been doing his normal manwhore thing, making out with some skank he met at the club we were all dancing at. I’d gone there with Lauren to try and help her forget about her one-night stand a few weeks before that. When Josh realized she was there, he came looking for her, but she had already left, upset. He wanted to go find her and needed me to tell him where she had gone.
    “Okay, I remember that. It was the night Josh wanted to find