Page 131 of No Greater Oblivion

Photos from the earlier days of the renovation stare back at me but I can no longer meet the eyes of the smiling version of myself. The one with paint on her cheeks and wood stain on her fingertips. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s fine.” She folds her legs and wraps her arms around herself, hugging her knees against her chest. “I was in the hospital with him all day.”

“I can go with you to⁠—”

“No,” she gives her head a firm shake. “Trust me, he wouldn’t want anyone to see him this way. He doesn’t even want my mother and me with him.”

“Is there anything I can do to help? Aside with any medical bills. You know that’s a given.”

She gives a small smile. “Trust me, Dee, you’ve done more than enough.”

I’m not sure what to say but Lyss is able to break through the silence with ease.

“Want to tell me about what’s going on up there?” she taps her temple. “I haven’t seen you this focused since we were cramming for our SATs.”

“At least now I can use recalcitrant and defenestrate in a sentence.”

“Is it about Alejandro again?”

“If that’s the turn this conversation is going to take, I’m going to defenestrate you out the window.”

“That’s redundant. Defenestrate already means to ‘throw out the window’. The proper use of the word would’ve been ‘I’ll defenestrate you’.”

I can’t help but smile. “Smartass.”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t want to talk about him. All I do is talk about him and think about him and argue with him⁠—”

“Do you love him?”

I throw my arms up in frustration. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Likely because you keep refusing to answer which tells me that you do.”

“I do not⁠—”

“Dahlia.”

Lyss tilts her head at me. Lifts a brow. And in her infuriatingly disarming way, she forces me to confront a truth I’ve been spending the last year trying to outrun.

I do love him.

I have always loved him.

“It’s a difficult thing to come to terms with; knowing you love someone who is no good for you and whom you’re no good for. Alejandro keeps trying to convince me we can be saved but there’s nothing here worth saving.”

Lyss says, “He’s going to keep chasing after you until you give him a reason not to.”

“Eventually, he will. It’ll take him time to come around to it because he’s loyal and he loves deeply. But he’ll realize I’m right and when he does, he’ll let go in his own way.”

Like he did with Regina.

“But—”

Her phone rings and she reaches into her sweater pocket for it. She almost puts it away but does a double take when she sees the name on the screen. “Mom? Everything okay?”

For several seconds we hold our breath and I’m only able to exhale when Lyss’s shoulders slump and her eyes roll. “Jesus, that’s what you called me for?” She waits. “No, I’m not mad I just thought it was an emergency! Yes, I’m going. I’ll be there in an hour.”