Fearless Like Us (Like Us 9)

I want to smile. Her humor usually cheers me up fast, but I’m sinking under heavier emotions. “I can’t take Rue back.” I place the doll on the windowsill. “I want to be taken seriously and treated like an adult, Mom. Like I’m capable of making my own decisions about my own life, even if I’m headed for heartbreak.” I hear my voice crack.

“Sulli,” she interjects with such empathy that I go quiet. She’s set aside the chocolate and her hands touch her chest. “I understand what that’s like, more than you realize. People thought I couldn’t make good choices for myself because they saw me as naïve and reckless. But I knew what I was doing. And as I grew up, I knew what I wanted for my life. And then people thought I shouldn’t be with your dad. People thought I was too young to try and have a baby. People thought I wasn’t responsible enough to build a summer camp.”

But she married Dad.

She had me at 21: her firstborn, baby girl.

And she built the summer camp. Despite all the cynics.

“You proved everyone wrong,” I say softly.

“I just did what I wanted.” She has a gentle smile that eases me. “So hey, all you need to do is live, Sulli. Live your life as awfully wonderful, beautiful, and dangerous as you want.”

She’s saying this after watching paparazzi descend violently on me. Her eyes are glassed, and I can see, even through her fear, she still wants me to have the life I want. Not the life she wants for me, or the life my dad wants for me.

My heart tries to fill. I don’t know what I’d do without my mom. “I wanted to be fearless with my life like you were with yours.”

She searches my eyes like I can’t see what’s in front of me. “You already have been.”

Have I?

He broke up with me, Mom. The truth is a knife I can’t remove without bleeding out. Not yet. And I’m quiet as she places the wrapped package on my lap.

“I know your birthday is still about a month away, but I think you should have this now.”

My birthday present?

“Open it,” she urges with a smile.

I unfurl the donut-print paper, and I take a breath, my fingers moving over red winterberries, pieces of a fern, and blue flowers, twisted into a winter crown.

“Those are Forget-Me-Nots and Winterberry Holly. I know I’ve made you plenty of flower crowns when you were younger, but this one is different.”

“How?”

“It represents more than just your childhood. You’re a loving, courageous, spirited woman, and you don’t have to let go of Rue and the things of your past to embrace the things of your present and your future.” She settles the winter crown into my hair while I lower my head.

I look back up.

“So this crown, I made with you in mind and with your love of Akara and Banks in mind.”

I try to fight tears. Green fern. Red winterberries. Blue Forget-Me-Nots. “You knew their favorite colors?”

“I may’ve asked around town and some little birdie told me.”

“Who?” I wonder.

“Beckett.”

I blink back more waterworks. Akara broke up with me. Whatever present and future existed with us, it’s been ripped away for the moment, maybe…forever.

“Thanks, Mom. I love it,” I say with a constricted throat. I love it too fucking much. The flower crown of my dreams is not the one of my reality, like she thinks.

I’m the princess of nothing.

“Do you want to talk about yesterday?” she asks, seeing my sorrow and faraway gaze.

I place my hot chocolate down, knowing she means the theatre. “There’s not much to talk about. I don’t remember everything…it all happened so fast; it’s like a fucking blur.”

She nods, understanding.

I think she understands more than anyone can know. My eyes graze the long scar across her cheek. Once upon a time, she was a bystander in a riot. Swept up in chaos and struck by a two-by-four—a nail was jutted out of the wood.

“Blurry moments still have an impact,” she tells me softly. “If not me, you should talk to someone. Banks or Akara, maybe? Or a therapist?”

Hearing Akara’s name again nearly breaks me.

She frowns more, sensing something’s wrong.

“Mom,” I start, about to tell her the truth—and then the backdoor opens. Our heads turn as my dad stands in the kitchen.

“Sul?” He’s already outfitted in a warm winter coat and a beanie. He holds up my old jacket in his hand. “Can we talk?”

I glance to Mom.

“Go. Maybe you’ll spot a Big Foot.” She wags her brows with a playful smile.

I smile back this time and hug her for longer than just a second. Thank you for everything. And then I spring off the window nook.

After taking the jacket from my dad and slipping on boots, we leave through the backdoor. We’re quiet as we walk toward the woods, and I pick the winter crown off my head.