Page 87 of A Million To Fall

“And yours,” I say. “When he marries you.”

She doesn’t respond, so I soften my tone. “But I gather that’s not really what you want. The charmed life of feminine leisure that’s somehow supposed to come with raising kids and keeping house?” I gotta work on my tone.

“I don’t have anything against people choosing that for themselves,” she says contemplatively. “I just don’t think it’s for me. My mom’s such a badass. She helps so many people. She makes a difference. And she still got to have that fairy-tale love story with my dad. That’s what I want. And, you just never know, right? What’ll happen? I want to build something for myself because… because—”

“Life sometimes has a way of fucking things up,” I finish for her.

“Yeah. Growing up, my mom always told me to be with someone because I want to be with them, not because I have to. I just… what if I make myself dependent on someone else and then something happens? What if he leaves? What if he can’t work? I don’t ever want to be in a position where I have no way to take care of myself.”

I nod at her impassioned reasoning.

“I mean, as someone who’s been in exactly those shoes—well, kinda—I couldn’t agree more. When my dad died… we lost everything. My mom didn’t have a degree. No job experience. No savings.” I sigh. “But Stormy, it is up to you. Only you. And I have no doubt you’ll go to law school. You’re the smartest person I know.”

She huffs a half-hearted laugh. “Oh, please.”

“I’m serious. Look at all the things you’ve done. You were a rock star at mock trial. You graduated valedictorian of our high school class. And you’re majoring in economics at Northwestern, which, I’m pretty, sure is ranked like top ten in the whole world,” I point out.

Her eyebrows dip and her lips part, then close again. “You are… well apprised, Mr. Rawlings.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “You really think I don’t know what you guys were up to while I was gone?”

Her eyes widen.

“Stormy, just because I disappeared from your life doesn’t mean you disappeared from mine.”

Her breath hitches just barely, but her face speaks volumes. She was not expecting that.

“How… how do you know all this?” she asks.

I shrug. “Social media. I kept up.”

A smile tugs at her mouth. My eyes fall to her lips for the briefest of seconds.

“I can’t believe you were spying on me,” she says, shaking her head.

“I wasn’t spying.”

“You were absolutely spying.”

“I was observing.”

She laughs. And suddenly we’re seventeen again. No. Younger. Way younger. Before life got ugly for me. Before everything fell apart.

“You know,” I say, unable to stop myself from grinning widely, “I saw that picture you posted of yourself in that ratty Cinderella dress when you were seven.”

She gasps. “It wasn’t ratty. It was beautiful.”

I laugh. “Skye, you wore that thing for like three months straight. And it smelled like ketchup.”

“It did not.”

“It totally did.”

She rolls her eyes. “Okay, maybe it did toward the end.”

I chuckle. “What made you stop wearing it?”

“Your dad,” she says, nonchalantly shoving three French fries into her mouth at once.