“Well,” Mom said, “chapters close so new ones can open.”
She shot me a wink. I smiled back.
Maeve Bennett knew something about opening new chapters.What had happened to me with Langford all those years ago had been the slap in the face she needed. My shocking million-dollar payoff from Castle Hill Academy paid for her rehab, but it wouldn’t have worked if the desire to get sober hadn’t come from her.
Ten years later, and she hadn’t touched a drop. I knew it was a struggle for her every day, but she kept going, fighting for me, for herself, and for Dash.
I glanced over at my brother, sprawled on a chair, all gangly arms and legs in a suit, blond hair neatly combed—for a change—scrolling on his phone.
He felt my eyes on him and glanced up. “Yeah?”
“Speaking of new chapters,” I said. “I can’t believe you graduated high school.”
“Believe it, sister.”
“Nope. You’re not allowed to be seventeen. I forbid it.”
He snorted. “Then I have bad news for you. I turn eighteen in two weeks.”
“Stop it.”
He shot me a grin and went back to his phone.
The light is back in his eyes.
It had flickered, dimmed, and nearly gone out, but my money had paid for counseling for the three of us before I left for NYU. Between Mom’s sobriety and Mrs. Andolina’s care, Dash had thrived. He didn’t go to Castle Hill Academy—I made damn sure of that—but a high school in Providence. He’d been an honor student, and was now on his way to Brown to study psychology.
“Well, I’m ready,” Mom said, snapping her compact shut. “Don’t want to be late for your husband’s big shindig.”
My husband.
Six years after the wedding, and I still got butterflies thinking of Orion as my husband. We’d had a little ceremony right after I graduated from NYU and he finished his studies at Juilliard. I didn’t want a big fuss, but something small and intimate. But because Orion couldnot be contained, the reception was anything but small and intimate. I smiled just thinking about it.
Everything aboutmy husbandmade me smile.
After Juilliard, concert halls and symphonies across the world clamored for him, but I was going to Boston, to MIT for my post-grad, and so he chose to play for the Boston Philharmonic to stay close to me.
But the world kept calling, and I wasn’t about to keep his star from shining. He’d just finished his first major tour all over Europe and the States. I’d skipped my graduation to see him play in the finale a week ago, and it was worth every minute. To see him center stage, surrounded by nearly one hundred musicians, playing beautifully, brilliantly, and playing with so much heart, it left the audience in tears.
“It was my best concert,” he told me, “because it was the last one before I got to come home to you.”
Home.That’s what Orion wanted more than anything. To have a family. I’d seen it with Dash—how he was so natural and loving. Bursting with love and anxious to share it. But he’d waited patiently until I’d gotten my degree, until we were both established in our fields.
He’s waited long enough.
I smiled to myself and gathered my little clutch handbag. I wore an emerald-green dress, satiny and slippery, that slid over my skin like liquid mercury. I smoothed it over my stomach.
My mother gave me a funny look.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing. You look…radiant.”
“I’m happy,” I said, not meeting her eye. “Happy that Orion is home and I graduated, and we can…be together.”
“I’m happy for you too, baby. But you graduated fromMITwith a doctorate in chemical engineering and water conservation or whatever, and you didn’t even walk in the ceremony.”
“The timing didn’t work out,” I said. “Plus, I don’t need the fuss.”
