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“This summer? How old are you?”
“Eighteen in December. I want to be the youngest entrepreneur in town,” she said as we continued our walk. “Not that that means anything. Mostly, I just don’t want to waste time. I know what I want, and I’m working really hard to get there, so I see no reason to wait.”
“Seems like a lot of work.”
“It will be, but that’s what I love. While making the copper trees, I became addicted to the satisfaction of doing difficult things.” She smiled dryly. “I can’t drink booze, so I have to get my buzz elsewhere. Plus, I’m not getting sidetracked with marriage or kids. Not for a long time, anyway. Or maybe ever.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think I’d be good at the whole mom-thing. I’m a workaholic, Type A, kind of person. And my own mother hasn’t exactly set the best example. I told you we aren’t close, but that’s putting it mildly. Sometimes it feels like she can hardly stand to look at me.”
I couldn’t imagine it. But maybe that’s because I couldn’t stop looking at her.
“Bibi says she’s lost,” Shiloh continued. “Her mom died when she was young, her dad about ten years ago. Our family is all broken up. Only my aunt and uncle are solid. I guess that’s why I go and visit. To see what a real family looks like. That’s a terrible thing to say, like I’m ungrateful for Bibi when I’m not. But sometimes I feel cut adrift. I don’t know who my dad is. Don’t know who I am. So I work really hard at my jewelry, wanting to make a name for myself. An identity.” She hunched her shoulders. “Sorry. That was a lot.”
“I get it.”
“You do?”
I nodded. “I know what you mean about feeling cut loose from everything. I feel the same. Adrift.”
“Because your parents died so early?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
Shiloh stopped and faced me. “I never said I was sorry about that. When you told me on the day we met, I was too busy being defensive. But I am. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Not for him. For her maybe…” My throat tightened.
“What happened?” Shiloh asked gently.
“You don’t want to hear it.”
“I do. But if you don’t want to tell it, I understand. Talking about the past can suck. How about the future, instead? What do you want to do after we graduate? College?”
“Doubt it. I’m just trying to get through this year. It’s kind of like a reset, to leave a lot of bad shit behind. Try to be better.”
Mitch Dowd lurking in my apartment clouded my thoughts.
Trying and failing.
“I just want a normal life,” I said. It seemed like it wasn’t too much to ask and yet it was everything.
“Normal. Like…having a family?” Shiloh asked. “Kids?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t have the best role model either.”
Understatement of the fucking year.
Shiloh was watching me, wanting to know more. Willing to listen. But telling her about my parents wasn’t like telling Holden or Miller. The three of us were fucked up in our own ways. Telling Shiloh would be like smearing mud over a beautiful painting.
We started to walk again, and the cardigan slipped off her waist and hit the ground. I made a grab for it and shook it out. Night had fallen, and she shivered under a streetlight. I wanted to wrap the sweater around her, protect her from the cold. From anything that would hurt her.
Remember who you are.
I thrust it at her. “Here.”
“Oh. Thanks.” She looked away as she slipped it over her slender arms. The yellow Tony’s sign blaring above us. “Aaand, we’re here.”
