“You are the fiercest, bravest, and kindest girl in the whole world. If someone chooses not to love you, they aren’t worthy of you. It’s really as simple as that.”
There was an ache in my throat that made it difficult to speak. “What if I do something stupid that makes them angry?”
I’d seen the product of anger, how it led to violence and how violence led to death.
Not just with Mamá and Papá, but with other people in Ignacio’s business.
You could love someone and still hurt them.
Still leave them.
And that was the nightmare that lived in the darkest corners of my heart.
The crippling fear that everyone I loved would leave, and I would be alone.
Dane crushed me to his chest and made a noise in his throat that meant he wanted to cry but he wouldn’t. “The Booths might screw up at some point, you might fight over something or get annoyed with each other because that’s natural for a family, but that doesn’t mean you have to lose them. I’m not so good at this part, but if you love someone, even if they hurt you, if it’s in you to forgive them, you should. Everyone makes mistakes, Li.”
“Not you.”
“Not yet, maybe, not with you,” he agreed. “But I’m just a kid too. I’ve got years to go, and I’m not stupid enough to think we’ll go our whole lives without hurting each other. It’s just human nature.” He paused, a slight smile tilting his mouth as he saw me bite my lip. “No matter what, though, Lila Mia, we’ll always forgive each other, yeah?”
“Promise?”
He tipped his forehead against mine and whispered, “Promise. Now, I’m eighteen today, so that means I can legally apply to be your guardian like we talked about, but…” he studied my face. “What do you think about staying with the Booths? I want to be able to look after you properly, but even after I graduate in a few months, I won’t be able to make real good money for a while. I’m working on that, but for now, what do you say?”
Something I didn’t even know had been twisted up in my chest unspooled. “Yeah, I want that.”
He smiled. “I thought so. It’s nice having a big family, and they’re good people. The best.”
“The bestest,” I added, because it was true.
“Yeah, Li, for sure. But listen, I got something drawn up for us.” He moved away to lean down beside the bed and rummage in his backpack. When he came up with a stack of stapled pages, I frowned but accepted them from him. “This is paperwork to legally change our last name. I’m eighteen now, so I can do it and apply for you as well because you’re a minor. I don’t want us to share the same last name as Ignacio anymore. You and me? We’ve always been our own family, and I’m thinking we need our own name.”
Our own name.
Not Davalos. Not Ignacio’s or Ellie’s.
Just ours.
“Yeah,” I whispered because my voice was lost in the swirl of emotions raging through my chest. “Yeah, I want our own name.”
Dane grinned, more boyish and carefree than I’d ever seen him. “Yeah, I thought so. Why don’t you pick one for us?”
My eyes went round as twin coins. “Like any name I want?”
“Like any name you want,” he agreed, ruffling my hair before he got out of bed and slipped sweatpants over his boxers. He’d gained weight and muscle since we moved in with the Booths, and he wasn’t so gangly anymore. I liked seeing him fit and healthy; it made something in my chest bloom.
I flopped onto my back on his bed and stared at the ceiling where Jonathon had painted a black sky filled with constellations across the entire space. Name ideas ran through my mind too quickly to catch until I turned my head on the linen sheets and looked out the window at the grassy knoll to the left of the house. It was overrun with morning glory, with daisies and daffodils, and the random red burst of poppies.
My mind slowed and stilled, soothed by the sight of those flowers swaying so gently in the breeze tunneling through the streets off the ocean.
They were peaceful, steady in their life cycle, gone so quickly but always returning, just as lovely as before.
At first, I wanted a flower.
Dane and Lila Lilac.
Dane and Lila Suntastic.
Dane and Lila Clematis.
But I didn’t want a name that represented just one thing, one flower, one star in Jonathon’s painted-on universe.
I wanted a name that had the possibility of meaning anything and everything depending on what I wanted to plant within myself as I grew up.
So I swivelled my head on the blankets to look at Dane as he crouched beside the bed so that we were eye level and reached out my hand to touch him on the forehead the way Diogo had done with me after the murder, when he’d promised me his family.