“Thank you Ashley.”

“Tina, I just don’t want my mom to get hurt.”

“Honey, I don’t want to hurt her either. We’ve hurt each other so much in our past and we both had to learn how to be two individual people before we could be one, and unfortunately we never could be one.”

“Yah. Okay.”

They walked back over the rest of the group. Tina basked in the laughter she found coming from Spencer caused by something Alice was telling her.

“Mom did you really flip a table in a restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“No way.”

“I was pissed.”

Alice’s giggles ended. She cocked her head to the side.

“Yah and that was the night she left.”

Tina put her head down. She suddenly felt ashamed. She felt a hand on her shoulder and smiled at the warmth. Suddenly a cell phone went off. Ashley pulled out her cell phone and stepped off to the side.

“Hey mom.”

“Where are you? You should be home now.”

“We’re on the way. Dana and Alice ran into someone and were talking.”

“Alright. So how did the concert go honey?”

“Actually pretty good. Ayden didn’t come though.”

“Oh I’m sorry honey. But you enjoyed it? Alice embarrass you?”

Ashley giggled a little.

“Uh actually no. She was in shell-shock the whole time.”

“What do you mean honey?”

“Oh you know Alice. She’s friggin’ weird.”

Ashley felt bad keeping this from her mother. She knew very well that she would like to know that Tina was in town. My God the woman still kept a picture of the two of them locked in her night stand. She’d found her mother asleep with it clutched in her hand. Her cheeks tear stained. It was a scene all to familiar to Ashley. It broke her heart every time too. She’d developed a hate for this Tina woman before even meeting her, but she seemed like a warm person. It was hard to hate her after meeting her. But she was going to let her mother know, not explicating telling her that she was in town, but she’d hint. Her mother was a smart woman.

“Honey did you hear me?”

“Huh what?”

“I said we’ll talk more about it when you get home. And that I got Thai for dinner.”

“Oh sounds fantastic mom. See you then.”

“Bye honey.”

“Bye.”

She disconnected her cell and made over to the group, but instead of staying there she signaled to Alice and Dana that her mother wanted her home. They all got into the car and drove.