He’s still frowning. “Just sick. Threw up a couple of times. Probably something I ate.”
“Or the fumes of all the bleach you use to clean.”
He flinches and I’m instantly sorry.
We’re silent for a few beats.
“Have you ever thought about leaving?” I whisper.
“Leaving?”
“Yeah. Leaving all the bad behind and just going away. Making a new life.”
His eyes darken. “Sounds like a nice dream. But we’re just kids. Where would we go, how would we live?”
“We’d work. Share a place.” I bury my nose in his pillow and close my eyes. “We’d have each other.”
Yeah. So much for not letting my defenses down and not expecting anything.
Before I can berate myself properly, he ambles over to me and sits down beside me. “Syd…”
“I know, I know. That was a stupid idea.”
“It’s not that. I can’t leave Grandpa and my sister. They need me.”
I need you, too, I want to say, but that’s exactly what I shouldn’t say or even think.
But then he surprises me when he lays a hand on my hip and says, “But you’re not thinking of going, right?”
How can I tell him that I’ll have to, sooner rather than later?
The ice cream parlor, my afternoon part-time job, keeps me busy and stops my thoughts from spinning in dark loops—well, mostly. Telling the boys I have to go won’t be easy. At last Kash and Nate kind of know why. West… he’s always been my weak point.
And not just because of the muscles. No, it’s something about him, an openness despite his quiet manners, despite his hidden feelings. Maybe it’s that intensity he has. He may not wear his heart on his sleeve like Nate, or tell everything with his eyes like Kash, but it feels as if he’s the purest of them. The one who can’t really hide what he feels, what he wants. Can’t hide and can’t turn off who he is.
A good guy. Genuine. Real.
It’ll hurt to leave them all. I hope Kash will stay, look after them. He’s older, after all, even if he doesn’t look it. He’s an adult already. I saw the way he helped. He pretends not to care, but I’m not buying it.
“Daydreaming again?” Sara, my new co-worker elbows me in the ribs and grins. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“There isn’t one.”
Sara is engaged and has stars in her eyes. It shouldn’t annoy me.
It doesn’t, okay? Life is like that. Some people seem to have all the luck. And if for a while I felt I was one of them with my boys, with my hopes and dreams, now I know better.
Life only showed me the good things to take them away again.
“Why so morose?” Sara asks.
“I’m not.”
“Well, you look really sad. Did something happen?”
“We have a customer.” I point at the guy who just entered and retreat to the back of the shop, happy to stop this conversation in its tracks, and well aware I’m not fooling anyone.
But how could I answer her? It’s a long story, Sara. You probably don’t have the time for it, lost in a haze of love and fluttering cherubs.