First Real Kiss

Chapter 30

Sheridan

I stared at my phone, and with courage, I finally opened the texts from Luke. It took a while to scroll back to the beginning of them. Wow. I never knew what a persistent texter he could be. At first, all of them were a bunch of Call me, please. I need to talk to youvariations.

Then, however, they changed to chatty things, like talking about his day, telling me little things he’d noticed about me, things he missed. Then, I got to a jarring set.

I went to see your parents. Could you call them?

That one was from this morning, and I halted my scrolling and called Mom immediately. “Are you all right, Mom?”

There was a long pause, followed by a sniffle and a shuddering exhale. “Oh, Sheridan. I’m so sorry.”

“What! What is it? Is it Dad?”

Dad’s voice came on the line. “Sheridan, we’re so sorry.”

Okay, so it wasn’t Mom or Dad. They were both alive and talking. I let out a big breath. “What’s going on?” We didn’t have any pets that could have died. “Is … is it Luke?”

That didn’t make sense, since he was the one who’d texted me, but my brain was all jumbled from seeing Roland’s family, and from everything else going on in my head.

“Well, Luke did come by.”

“Oh?” I tensed, my voice thin and strained. I’d say my mind raced to all the possibilities, but it didn’t. It lurched to a halt. Nothing made sense.

“He was worried about your health. We need to tell you a few things.”

“What did he tell you?” That I’d freaked out about the idea of a baby? Had he guessed my secret? Ugh, just when I thought I’d pressed the truth into hiding so well. “He shouldn’t be worried about me. Neither should you.”

Couldn’t Luke guess what a burden it would be to my mom and dad if they knew that I was not the daughter they had always dreamed of, if they thought I was suffering, if they knew—I was broken?

“Honey—”

My voice cracked. “Don’t worry about me, Mom and Dad. I’m fine. Just fine.”

“Sweetheart.” A knock sounded on my door. Mom walked in. “Sorry, we were in the car passing your neighborhood and turned around the second you called.” She disconnected our call, and then came over to give me a hug. I accepted it. Mom gave the best hugs. She gave healing hugs. She’d taught me the power of the hug. “We love you. And there’s something we need to tell you, and something we want you to tell Luke. Please.”

An hour—and half a box of tissues—later, I sniffled and nodded. “I love you two. I’ll get the second opinion.” I could even forgive Luke for snooping in my journal. After all, I’d told him I was going to read it to him anyway.

“We love you, no matter what happens next.” Mom gave me another squeeze.

“And we love Luke, too,” Dad threw in.

“I already told him you wanted to adopt him.”

“There are better, easier, court-free ways to get a son.” Dad winked. “That’s one more thing we want you to tell Luke.”

Hmm. Nice, but would Luke agree? He’d wanted me, us, our future, a few days ago, but now that he knew my darker struggle, what did he think?

Either way, I had agreed to go to him, agreed to do what Mom and Dad had asked at the outset of the conversation. It was going to be the hardest visit to Luke Hotwell’s doctor’s office of my life.

The next morning, I put on my favorite emerald green sweater, and headed to the Torrey Junction Heart Clinic adjacent to the hospital. At the receptionist desk, I gave my name.

“Sheridan Chandler!”

“The Library Rescue, yeah.” I filled in the blank.

“No, I mean. Yeah, I guess that’s you. But I was going to say … Ugh. Don’t worry about it.”