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Lexie comes to a complete stop at a red light and faces me, full sincerity in her doe eyes. “I’d kill someone for you. I would never judge you.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t ever come to that,” I say on a laugh, “but thank you.”
“Kill,” she repeats, taking off as the light turns green. “I wouldn’t even have questions. I’d just do it.”
“Same,” I say, shutting my eyes as I try to forget the math problem that flashes in my head from the earlier exam.
CHAPTER 3
Lexie drops me off like she always does when I finally clear my head. I walk into my house, and the only thing I’m thinking about are my two favorite beings on the planet.
The first being is the ten-year-old German shepherd that rushes toward me, a full eighty pounds of muscle.
“Vivi!” I toss my backpack to the side and drop onto the floor to greet her. Her tail goes wild as her nose presses into my cheek. The cutie knows that licking freaks me out, and we both compromised with nose kisses and hours’ worth of belly rubs.
“I missed you too,” I tell her, giving her a good pat before kicking off my sneakers and pushing them against the two-leveled shelf holding our shoes. My gaze moves hastily over the empty left half we never use anymore.
Vivi follows me as I move down the entry hallway, her long nails clattering behind as we make it to the open kitchen.
A pile of Nutella cookies sits enticingly under glass at the center of the island’s wood countertop. I help myself to one, moan in the momentary bliss as the sweet, warm flavor of chocolate hits my tongue, and walk over to the fridge.
Like every day, there’s a joke written out in colorful alphabet magnets my dad arranges for me. Today’s is: Want to hear a joke about a cat? Never mind, just kitten.
It’s so bad I chuckle, then tilt my head at the sound of something slamming outside.
I shove the rest of the cookie into my mouth, then move past the stove with the pot boiling pasteles, if the savory smell fogging from the water is any indication. The back door whines as I open it and hop over the single step to the backyard.
Dad is yards away, in his oversize navy blue sweats I gifted him five Christmases ago, raising one of the beat-up archery targets Lexie helped me fish from Bell-Haven’s dumpster when the school replaced all the old sports equipment. Dad rights the gear so it no longer hangs at an angle and stands stuffed between bags of hay to make up for its broken legs.
Now this one aligns with the other two spaced out as much as our baby yard allows, stopping right before our white fence crowds the grass. A giant blue tarp hangs behind them all, a backstop to prevent missed arrows from damaging the wood around us or, when Lexie is here, flying into our neighbor’s backyard.
My own personal archery range.
Tiny, beaten down, entirely unhelpful in challenging my skills, and my favorite place at the house. A gift my father put together for me so I could relax with my bow and arrow whenever I actually had the time outside of studying to do it.
Dad pulls away from the equipment and his hand reaches for his lower back.
I rush over, Vivi on my heels.
“Dad, are you okay?” I try to wrap my arm around him, but he waves me off.
His curly brown hair bounces as he shakes his head. “I’m fine, just have to remember to bend with my knees, not my back.”
I keep my face carefully free of any concern. Concern makes Dad worried about me being worried about anything other than school. Kids should be kids. Worry about your hair, don’t worry about me, he always says.
But how can I not worry about him, especially when it seems I’m the only one who does, seeing how he would rather chew off his own arm than admit to me he’s in pain or tired or struggling?
He frowns, and it pulls down the newly formed wrinkles that make my heart stutter every time I see them. “Violet, I’m fine.”
“Did you take your medicine?”
“Yes, and I drank water, had an apple, and got proper rest and did not push myself, and stopped lifting heavy things, and—”
“All right, comedian.” I force an arm around him, this time for a hug. “Let’s finish dinner.”
We go inside to enjoy our tiny window between me coming back from school and going to my room to study and him sleeping to get ready for the third shift.
Dad plays freestyle music from the ’80s and I pretend to hate his old-people playlist and help chop or stir or flip whatever he already started making before I got home. We grab our plates and sit on our long emerald couch, Vivi at our feet, while watching the boxing match Dad streamed last night but was too tired to watch after work.
