He’s so dramatic. Griffin uses his hands as if painting the sky, and keeps altering his tone from breathless to firm.
I don’t care for his question because I can’t lie. Not when it comes to Ava. She’s a force against my vulnerability. One touch, apparently, one sighting, and I can barely keep the shields in place.
“She could do the job,” I admit. “Ava and Drake, her brother, they, uh, they were group home kids until they were adopted. Our parents were best friends, so that’s how we met.”
Parker lifts a brow. “And you’ve come up with a youth house that is aimed at kids in the system.”
“I guess it might’ve had a small influence.” I clench my fists tight enough my fingernails dig into my palms.
“So, what happened between you two?”
“We just drifted apart.” I could not have given a more shallow answer. The complicated, twisted, heartbreaking situation left a permanent hole of loss and longing I’d buried well enough. Until I saw Ava again. Turns out, the barrier over the past was nothing but chipped glass. “I had my scholarship to Washington and . . . life wasn’t good here anymore. I left and cut ties.”
No. I’d left her alone, and I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for it. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive Drake for his part either.
No one speaks. Not even Griffin. They don’t ask for more right away.
Maybe it’s written in my face, the agony of knowing I abandoned Ava when she needed me most. I’m grateful they don’t dig. Any further discussion and it might unravel all the anger, all the walls, all the bitterness I’ve kept like a body of sharp armor all these years.
And if I don’t have that, what do I have left to keep the walls in place?
“What do you want to do?” Parker finally asks. “Put the youth house on hold, or do you want to give her the job? It sounds like she might have a lot of motivation to make this place as incredible as you want it to be.”
He’s right, and I don’t want to be having this conversation anymore. “Whatever happened then, it doesn’t matter now. It was ten years ago.”
“Okay, then put things from ten years ago aside and do what’s best for the youth house.”
What’s best for the youth house is to get it finished. Crashing back into the life of Ava is a problem. It’s tossed me off-kilter, and she’s unsettling me.
Still, sometimes facing the problem head on is the best way to deal with one. After a long pause, I take out my phone and say, “If we’re bringing her take-out, it needs to come from Frazzeli’s with fried tomatoes.”
I’m stepping back into a past I tried to forget, but truth be told, I’ve never forgotten Ava. I’ve never forgotten Drake.
Meeting them changed me. For better or worse.
Ryder
Age ten
My gaze dropsto the old, dirty baseball. I don’t want to be here at the edge of the long, gravel driveway, staring at an open, empty field of dry grass.
I’m not supposed to be here. Dan should’ve come over. We all should’ve packed gear and tin plates and sleeping bags. We should’ve gone to the lake to do guy stuff. Josh should’ve had the phone off speaker.
Maybe if all those should’ves had happened, I would think Dan still sort of likes me. It was cool to have an uncle when Josh married Mom. But all this time he’shatedme.
Josh told him I got to go on their trip to the lake since Mitch, Dan’s son, is going, but he got so mad about it. If I hadn’t heard the call, I wouldn’t know he hates that I’m Josh’s stepson. I wouldn’t have heard him say Josh shouldn’t bring me around totheirfamily stuff because I’m not really his.
I wouldn’t have heard him call me stupid.
I already knew my head didn’t think like Mom or like Josh. When the doctor told my mom about autism, Mitch, who stays with us from Washington while Uncle Dan worked the oil fields in the summers, laughed at me.
Mitch told me that makes me dumb. He said it means I have a broken brain.
My brain doesn’t feel broken, but sometimes . . . I get stuck.
I’m good at math. I’m too slow at reading, but only because I think too long about each line and wonder too much about what it would be like if something different happened. My stomach gets all sharp and twisty when I take a test.
I just never thought Dan would start to think the same.
