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“Nothing,” she toed the ground with the pointed end of her heel.
“I’m your best friend, you know you can tell me anything, right?” I questioned, looking at her sadly.
“I know…” She paused. “There are just some things that it’s hard for me to talk about with anyone. It’s nothing against you, Livie.” She looked up at the sky and let out a shuddering breath. “There are things about me that no one knows.”
“You can tell me, Avery,” I reached for her hand. “I would never tell anyone.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” her green eyes were full of tears she wouldn’t dare let fall, “but I can’t talk about it. Okay?”
Reluctantly I nodded in agreement.
“Thank you,” she reached out and pulled me into a hug. “Now,” she smiled, “we really do have to get lined up.”
I held my diploma proudly in my hands and smiled widely as my mom took picture after picture. If she didn’t quit soon, my face was going to be stuck this way permanently. My cheeks were already tired from all this smiling.
Trace held me close to his side and let her snap as many pictures as she wanted. Traitor. Wasn’t he supposed to be on my side?
“Warren, Ellie, Lily, Trent,” she called over the rest of Trace’s family, “I want to get one of you all together.”
After much directing from my mom, she finally got us lined up the way she wanted.
“Okay…are you ready? One, two, three—”
On three, Trent leaned over and kissed my cheek.
“Trent!” Trace scolded his younger brother.
My mom laughed, glancing down at the display on her camera. “Oh, I’m framing this one.”
I groaned. Parents just loved to embarrass their kids.
“Let me see it,” I stepped forward and reached out for the camera. “Oh gosh,” I laughed. Warren, Ellie, and Lily were smiling happily, but my eyes were wide and my mouth was open in shock as Trent’s lips pressed against my cheek. Trace was glaring daggers at his younger brother. “That is frame worthy,” I agreed.
She took the camera from me and instructed us to line up again. This time, she put Trace on one side of me and Warren on the other. Smart lady. Trent was trouble.
“Hey sweet pea,” Warren whispered.
“I’ve missed you, Gramps,” I said before smiling per my mother’s command. At first, I had thought it would be awkward calling Warren, Gramps. After all, he was Trace’s grandpa, not mine. But now, I couldn’t call him anything else.
“I’ve missed you too,” he said in his gruff voice. Coughing, he added, “Tell that grandson of mine he needs to let you out of the house more often.”
“I heard that, Gramps,” Trace chuckled.
“What? It’s true,” Gramps stifled yet another cough with his hand.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“I’m fine, sweetie. When you’re as old as me your lungs don’t work as well as they used to.”
I glanced at him skeptically.
After she’d taken over a hundred pictures of Trace’s family and me, she waved Avery over.
Avery and I posed for a few pictures and then she relinquished the camera to Trace.
“I want some of Liv and me, and then a few with Nick as well,” my mom told him.
“You got it,” Trace nodded, holding up the camera. “Smile, Olivia.”
