Page 64 of One Breath After Another

Didn’t that count for something?

INTERLUDE: 2.

Present Day ...

“THEN why did you leave?” Cross tipped his chin higher, that sharp gaze of his looking Penny up and down without pause. Considering, she knew. Considering her. Waiting to find her lie. Like maybe he could sense it before it even passed her lips. Could he? “I’m little, even though I don’t like it, but they know I’m not little, too, in some ways. So they’re careful when they talk. But they still do or I still hear it. You were with my parents for more than a year. You said you loved me—they loved you, I know. And then you left. Why?”

If only Penny dared to close her eyes, she imagined that she could pretend this was a conversation between two adults. Certainly not one between a grown woman and a five-year-old boy. It was a strange thing to hear wisdom in the voice of a child. She had to wonder if that was how people felt talking to her as a child that had seen and knew things that were far beyond her comprehension.

“That’s not an easy answer,” Penny replied in a whisper.

“The truth is always easy,” Cross replied, folding his leather-clad arms over his small chest. There was something to be said about being stared down by a child. Especially when it felt like that child was also judging you. “Because people lie—all the time. Everyone does it. But they always have to think about it, make sure it sounds right ... it’s a choice to lie. Like Uncle Luca says, shit’s a process.”

Penny coughed out a laugh alongside muttering, “He says what?”

Cross rolled his eyes. “He says a lot of stuff. That one is right, though. The truth just is. Telling it sometimes hurts, or changes things, but it is still the truth. Right?”

“You see things in a very black and white way, don’t you?”

“Kind of.”

“Is it easier that way?” she asked. “Easier to understand why you get to be this way ... and everyone else is the way they are, too?”

Honestly curious, she waited for his reply.

The little boy blinked, surprise darting over his young face for a split second. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”

“No?”

“No.”

Penny shoved her hands into the pocket of her black windbreaker, telling him, “Maybe because they don’t know how—they can’t understand anyway.”

“Maybe. And it’s not easy. It just is.”

Penny didn’t point out how he said the same thing about the truth. Whether he knew it or not, yes, he did deal with his strange uniqueness in a yes or no, black or white manner because it was easier for him than delving deeper.

It showed his youth. Possibly one of the few things that did. What he lacked in actual age and experience, he simplified things down to just being.

Cross lifted his brow and smiled, a flash of arrogance showing in the action that almost had her laughing when he added, “But you still didn’t tell me why, and I didn’t forget.”

Smart kid.

In a lot of damn ways.

“Because I had to,” she said, knowing all too well it wouldn’t satisfy him, but it also wasn’t a lie. “I left because I had to.”

“That’s ...” Cross’s brow furrowed. “Well, why?”

“Because it was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do.”

“Do what, though?”

“Leave,” she replied.

Cross let out a huff, gaze narrowing in on her again with a new gleam. “I know what you’re doing.”

Penny grinned. “Yeah?”