Moments In Time: The Complete Novella Collection by Dori Lavelle Page B

running, past an old couple holding
hands, a barking dog, parents crossing the road, holding on to
their children. Other people leading normal lives. I increased my
speed until my lungs were on fire. I only slowed when I almost
knocked over an old, blind man.
    “Excuse me,” I said, but the man just
grunted and kept walking. I bent over to place my hands on my knees
and gasped for air. When I’d caught my breath and my head had
stopped spinning, I stepped into the bookstore I’d landed in front
of and headed straight for the magazine section. Nick’s face was
splashed across one, and I snatched it off the rack, resisting the
urge to open it until I had sunk into the leather backseat of a
cab.
    I turned the page to get to the full-length
story and skimmed through it. It exposed, in detail, my
relationship with Nick and how I’d shot and killed Chris. And the
next sentence I read was a bullet straight to my heart. The author
claimed a close friend of mine had gone to the press with the whole
story. A close friend? I only had one close friend. She knew
everything about me. Every dirty little secret.
    It could only be Melisa.
    Tears poured down my cheeks, dripping onto
the pages of the magazine. How could she do that to me? How could
she hurt me? I trusted her with everything. If I couldn’t trust
her, who could I trust?
    With the tears pouring fast and my chest
heaving, I closed the magazine and stuffed it into my purse.
    Through the rearview mirror, the taxi driver
threw me some curious glances but didn’t say anything. Instead, he
changed the radio station to soothing classical music.
    Back at my apartment, I stood under a hot
shower, then dried myself off and ate some leftover spaghetti
Bolognese from last night’s dinner. Then I climbed into bed,
thinking maybe, when I woke up, I’d find it had all been a dream.
But when I opened my eyes a few hours later, the room was dark, and
the magazine next to me confirmed it was all very real.
    My phone vibrated and I jolted up, still
groggy. Then I pressed the phone to my ear.
    “Marianne, how are you, darling?” Even when
I started going by my second name, Cora refused to stop calling me
Marianne, saying Marianne had done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve
to be forgotten.
    A smile spread across my face, and I gripped
the phone tighter.
    “Hi, Cora,” I said, my voice thick with
happy tears.
    “Are you all right? You don’t sound it.” For
a woman who wasn’t my biological mother, Cora—she insisted only my
dead mother be called Mom —always had a knack for detecting
when I was down.
    “I will be.” I sat up in bed and rubbed my
sore eyes.
    “Tell me what happened, sweetheart.”
    My foster parents and I talked once or twice
a month. When we didn’t, they sent me handwritten letters, along
with postcards informing me of their adventures in Germany or some
other European country. When we did talk over the phone, it was
usually when I needed Cora the most. Like today, when I’d almost
forgotten that I wasn’t all alone.
    “Did something else about you and Nick
appear in the press?” When the first article about Nick and I
appeared, Cora was the first person I’d told. I had no reason to
lie to her; she knew all my secrets and supported me in every
way.
    “Worse. They know about my past.” I rubbed
my right temple. “Everything.”
    There was silence on the other end of the
line. And then Cora said in a hushed voice to Tim, my foster
father, “Book us onto the next flight. Marianne’s in trouble.”
    “No,” I said quickly, trying to bring her
attention back to my voice. “Really, you don’t need to do that for
me. I’ll be fine.”
    “We’d like to come and see that for
ourselves.”
    “Mom,” I said. Sometimes I chose to ignore
our agreement—over the years she had been a mom to me in every way
that counted. A person can have more than one set of parents. “I
have to get through this alone.”
    “That’s what you said when you insisted