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I shove the thought from my head as soon as it comes in.
I’m doing this for her.
There were times in our lives when we couldn’t control what happened to us, but now I can control damn near everything, and I can’t just throw that away. Ideservecontrol. I deserve to know I’m out of harm’s way and so does she. She deserves the happiness that comes with safety.
She was as safe with him as she is with you.
I grit my teeth and clench my fists.
She’s not happy like this.
I bite back the cuss words I want to assail my own ears with, because I can’t think this way. I can’t let the weakness back in. I have to be strong. It’s the only way for people like metobe.
Even if it means I haven’t answered his question about the dance.
What am I supposed to say to that? If I cancel their plans, it’ll devastate Rae. If I let her go with him—I mean, what will she be like after all the fun ends and the distance comes back? Devastated, too. So I can’t think about that either.
Lifting my chin, I force my churning insides to still. Then I reach out and rub at her back. “Don’t want to play on anything else?”
She got on a swing for a little bit earlier, and then she shuffled her way through the big whatever with the slides and bridges and various things to climb on. I could tell she wasn’t having fun, but at least she was moving around.
A couple seconds pass before she turns her dulled blue eyes to me and shakes her head.
Ignore the sadness. Ignore it.
“You sure?” I ask more loudly than I mean to. After I clear my throat, I add normally, “It’s supposed to storm the next few days, so we won’t be able to come back for a little while.”
“I’m sure,” she says quietly.
I don’t like quiet Rae.
I don’t like dull-eyed Rae.
She’s just too young to understand that I’m correcting something I did wrong. That’s all.
But how can she understand it if I haven’t even attempted to explain? Don’t I know that leaving something to justsitcauses it to fester, not fade?
On cue, she asks in an even smaller voice than before, “Um…when can we see Landon?”
I swallow hard.
She looks right at me and waits.
For the first time in eleven days, I admit shakily, “I don’t know.”
There’s no ignoring this spike of sadness, just like there was no ignoring the first one from the other day, because the lost look on her face is inescapable.
“I miss him,” she whispers.
Some part of me agrees with her before I can stop it, but I push past it and force my voice to steady. “Of course. It’ll be okay, though, you know? We were just fine before we knew him, remember?”
“Yeah,” she says glumly, “but now we know him and you can’t un-know somebody, especially when they make you real happy.” A miserable pout comes onto her face. “It’s not the same to not have him around now as it was before. It’s sad now.”
My steadiness cracks, and I get the sharp urge to finally confess what’s going on. At least then she can start trying to accept it.
Before I can do it, though, she gets to her feet and slowly walks toward the parking lot.
I sigh and get up, too.
