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“Busted,” Skye joked on her way past them.
“No one’s in trouble. We just need to chat about work stuff.” Lyric held the door open for them and gave each one a hug goodbye. She’d really grown to love these girls. “Don’t forget your homework. I want to see improvement in those warrior poses by next week.” They’d all reached the point where she could challenge them more.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tallie grumbled.
“I can’t believe we actually have homework foryogaclass,” Cheyenne added when they were all out in the hall.
“Bye, ladies,” Lyric called before closing the door.
“I’m sorry,” Elina blurted out right away. “I never should’ve asked Franco to take money from the safe. I was too scared to do it myself. And then I went and got him in trouble—”
“No one’s in trouble.” With her hand on Elina’s arm, she guided the girl to the bench and invited her to sit. “He explained everything and told us your family needed some food.”
Elina’s head continued to hang. “I know you’re the one who brought all those groceries. But you didn’t have to. I coulda figured out something.” Tears glistened in the girl’s eyes, but her jaw tightened like she was trying tohold them back. “We’re not some big charity case. My mom’s having a hard time right now, that’s all. She has a job for a company doing data entry at home, but she hasn’t been working much lately.”
Lyric sat next to her. She could almost feel pain radiating from the girl. “Is she drinking a lot, honey?” She made sure her tone held no judgment. Only compassion.
“Because she’s sad, okay?” The girl jerked her head up, anger flashing in her eyes. “My dad took off. She misses him.” A humorless laugh slipped out. “I don’t know why she misses him because he was even more of a mess than her.”
Slowly inhaling, Lyric gave Elina’s emotions some space. She knew how it felt to carry something on her own, keeping everyone out so they wouldn’t discover the secrets you were trying to keep. But isolating herself had ended up hurting Lyric far more than admitting she needed help. “You shouldn’t have to take care of your family,” she finally said. “You’re still a kid. You should be hanging out with your friends and going to movies and focusing on school and your homework.” She should be free to simply be a teenager.
“I don’t mind helping out.” The girl wiped her eyes with her shirtsleeve. “My brothers and sisters need me. I can take care of them.”
“I know you can.” Elina obviously had a lot of strength. “But I’d like to help take away some of that burden. In fact, there’re a lot of people who would help with food and reaching out to your mom so she can get back on her feet.” The only way to help her would be for Lyric to lead a coordinated effort to take care of Elina’s family, but she couldn’t do that without her permission. “I don’t want to talk to anyone until you say it’s okay.”
“I don’t want everyone to know!” Her voice rose. “People don’t need to know what our house looks like. That my mom is drunk all the time. It’s so embarrassing.” She covered her face with her hands.
“I know.” Lyric put her arm around her. “Sometimes it feels easier to hide the problems than it does to confront them. There was a time I felt the same way.”
Elina raised her head, her tearstained eyes skeptical.
Lyric hesitated. Her story was very different, but she could relate to feeling ashamed of something that wasn’t her fault. Even after all these years had passed, she was still tempted to change the subject and continue guarding her own secret. But she had to start confronting the past or she’d never be able to move on. And right now, she wanted to move on more than ever.
“I was married a long time ago.” Her voice started to weaken, but she continued anyway. “But my husband… he didn’t treat me very good. And I hid the problem for a long time because I was embarrassed too. I didn’t want anyone to know what was going on. I thought I could handle it all on my own.”
Elina turned fully to her, her posture less guarded. “What happened?”
She tried to choose her words carefully so she wouldn’t divulge more than the girl could handle. “Eventually, I ended up in the hospital and Ihadto confront the problem.” But that wasn’t even fully true, was it? She had never confronted Luke. She’d run away, back to her parents’ house, and had never spoken to him again. She’d never looked the man in the eyes and told him how much he’d wounded her. Not only physically but also emotionally. She’d never found closure.
“How bad were you hurt?” Elina looked at her differently now. Almost with admiration.
“It could’ve been much worse.” She didn’t need to traumatize the girl with the details. “The point is, I should’ve let people in long before that happened. I had friends and family who would’ve helped me, but I kept them out. It was a lonely road to walk alone.” Truthfully, she’d been walking that road to healing alone for a long time too. She’d never even told Tess what had happened to her, and the woman was one of her best friends.
“That’s why you thought Franco was hurting me.” The earlier defensiveness in the girl’s tone had disappeared. “Because of what happened to you.”
“Yes.” Her past still colored how she saw the world. “I know now that he’s a good kid. And he really seems to like you a lot.” Franco had risked getting into a lot of trouble to help her. “Because of what I’ve been through, I misread some things when I saw you two together, and I apologize for that.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Elina didn’t seem to have any trouble looking Lyric in the eyes now. “That’s horrible what happened to you. I’m sorry you went through that. But now you have Thatch, and he seems to love you so much.”
Did he love her? Or maybe the bigger question was, Could she let him love her fully? When they were alone together, separated from everything else, she thought maybe she could. But if she were being honest with herself, she would admit something still held her back from him.
Yet that obstacle wasn’t something she could identify right now. “I want you to have people you can count on,too, while you’re going through a tough time.” She stood so Elina didn’t feel like she had to stay all evening. “I want to make sure your family doesn’t have to worry about food, and I know there’s a whole army of people who would bring a meal once a week, so you don’t have to cook for everyone every night. All you have to do is give me the okay.”
“Meals would help.” Elina pushed to her feet, standing a little taller than she had before. “And I’ve tried to get Mom to go to one of those programs at the church. For people who drink.”
“I know there are some wonderful women who would reach out to help her find options.” She didn’t want to overstep when it came to Elina’s mom, but Minnie and her friends with the Ladies Aid Society in town could gently encourage her. “But even if she’s not ready for that, we at least want to help meetyourneeds, and the needs of your siblings, so you don’t have to do that on your own.” No one should ever have to feel alone during the hard times.
“Wow.” Tears started to flow down Elina’s cheeks. “You have no idea what a relief it is to hear that people would help us.”
