I shook my head. No, I guessed I didn’t. When I thought of my family these days, I thought of the coven. I thought of small memories I had left of my dad when I went home for the holidays and stayed on his couch in a tiny apartment he’d started to rent not long after …
“You don’t have to. You said your family lives in a condo, right?”
I nodded a few times. “Yeah. My dad and I had been living in one, anyway before I came to Barnett. It’s been just me and him for a while now.”
“Did your parents divorce?”
“No, actually. They were pretty in love,” I recounted. It wasn’t hard to suddenly have images rushing through my head of the two of them dancing around the Christmas tree or him putting a dollop of icing on her nose, much to her delight and our laughter, when we were baking. Her face though, it was getting blurry. “She died while I was in high school.”
“Oh.” Ryan’s eyes softened. “I’m so sorry, Lu.”
For some reason, I shook my head, trying to stop the emotion from clogging me up like it used to. After so long, I expected it to be less, and it was, in some ways. “She was sick on and off for a long while.”
“Was it cancer?”
“Mmhmm,” I said. “Breast cancer. They found it not long after she had me, and she fought it for a long time. Then, it came back.”
With a vengeance.
“She’s at peace. I have to believe that anyway.”
“I’m sure she is,” Ryan said, and from his voice, it was unquestionable. “Tell me about her.”
“My mom?”
He nodded. “If you don’t mind.”
“She was amazing. A really good mom. She let me wear crazy clothes and didn’t think it was weird when I started to like plants and the idea of magic far past the time of fairy tales. Her laugh was so loud. Much louder than mine or my dad’s. We’d take walks together outside all the time before, and sometimes, her voice would bounce off the trees in such an echo that I wondered if it would stay there, captured in those spots and on those trails forever.”
“Is that why you like to walk up the hill?”
I didn’t realize he had noticed my route around the cemetery to where the sun set. Of course, he was often there, noticing everything.
“Partly. After she passed away, everyone in my life sort of expected me to keep moving. I was supposed to be excited to graduate and go to college. But she was supposed to be there. When I went home, my dad was there, too, and he never really tried to get over it all, not that I can blame him.”
“That’s tough.”
“Occasionally, at school, someone would come up to me. They’d eat lunch with me, probably out of pity, but then after a bit, I did start to force myself to be more outgoing, so I wouldn’t be called to the guidance counselor, who only ever made me feel worse,” I explained. “I met a guy then. He was nice enough, and he invited me to places. He kissed me when I’d never had that kind of relationship before. Then, I met another friend of that guy. It was a small school.”
Ryan shook his head slowly, as if he understood.
“After my mom, I was sort of empty. And for a while, it made me feel decent. Good even.” I’d needed that good even if it was in the back of some guy’s car, who couldn’t remember my actual first name most of the time. I had been fine with that. Until the end anyway. “It turned out, I was quite the commodity. They made me think that they liked me. I was different and special.” I shrugged. “I was a joke to them.”
Ryan was silent.
“So, yes, I have slightly more experience in that department. I don’t regret it, but I also don’t think it was the kind of connection I’d ever want to involve myself in again. Rumors here at Barnett are bad. But at home?”
“Worse?”
I made a face. It had been brutal.
“The whole thing was another reason I really wanted to leave home and anywhere close to it. It all felt not great there anymore. I realized what I needed to do, going forward. I needed to start over, and I knew then that I could. Nothing is permanent after all. Not school. Not my mom. Not even asshole boys thinking they were the real good guys to everyone but me,” I said. “I bet you think I’m a real—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Ryan cut me off. “Because that is the last thing I could ever think of you.”
I stared at Ryan. He didn’t look at me up and down. He met my eyes. There was no condemnation there. There was no difference than ever before. If anything, there was a softer look that rimmed his light eyes. It was not pity; it was a strange sort of understanding. Acceptance.
Of me?
