“Good luck with that,” Cam responds brightly, doing nothing to hide the amusement in her tone.
“Thanks, Cam,” my dad answers dryly.
He steps around the coffee table, and I stand. He places a kiss on my forehead. Against my skin, he says, “I’m still processing what happened to you.” He steps back and looks down at me. “The firefighter is your boyfriend now?”
I throw a dirty look down at my seated sister. “We’ve been on one date.”
He swipes the newspaper off the table. “Quite an interesting way to meet. Very memorable.”
I reach out an arm for the paper. “Don’t throw that away.”
“I’m saving it,” he answers, tucking it under his arm and winking at Lara as he speaks. “Few people get footage of the moment their lives changed.”
“Such a romantic,” Lara says, pretending to swoon.
They say goodbye, leaving through the door that leads into the garage. I wait until I hear his car start up, and then I look down at Cam, prepared to give her an earful about all the instigating.
The tears rolling down her cheeks stop me. It’s uncharacteristic of her, and just as I’m opening my mouth to ask why she’s crying, she tugs my hand, pulling me back down beside her. She picks up her phone, opens the camera and holds it out, trained on us.
“Let’s take a picture. You heard Dad. Not everybody gets footage of the moment their lives changed.” She sniffs. “And our lives just turned upside down.”
She snaps the photo. Neither of us smile.
“I don’t think our lives are upside down,” I tell her when she slips the phone into her pocket.
She trains her wide-eyed gaze on me. “You know when you break glass, even if it doesn’t shatter, it never goes back together perfectly? Alongside those big pieces are tiny shards that have a big impact? That’s what this is. Even if you don’t go on another date with Gabriel, which I can already tell that won’t be the case, or if Dad suddenly drops Lara because her boys are adult hellions, we can’t revert to who we were last week. You were in a nearly catastrophic house fire, and Dad has shown us he is capable of really moving on from Mom.”
“Cam,” I say as gently as possible. “I don’t understand why you’re upset. You don’t remember Mom.”
“Exactly,” Cam half-shouts, her hand in the air. “And now her memory is one step further from me.”
“Irrevocable shifts,” I say, as a buzzing sound comes from inside my purse. I grab my phone and open the text from Gabriel.
I was wrong. I can’t wait until tomorrow to see you. Please tell me you don’t have plans for dinner tonight.
I smile at his impatience and begin typing my response. Camryn chuckles softly, and I look up. “What?”
“You’re smiling so hard at that phone screen it’s making my cheeks hurt. Told you.” She shrugs as she walks away. “Upside down.”
I finish my text to Gabriel and hit send. Camryn leaves soon after, promising she’ll meet Gabriel next time. She sails out the front door when her friend Danielle pulls up in her car and idles at the curb.
An hour later, Gabriel knocks on my front door.
“Hey, hero.”
He grins. He’s so handsome, standing there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, filling the space without even trying.
My stomach hovers around my knees and I think maybe I could float away at any moment. Upside down is not enough to describe how I feel. Backward and inside out, also.
I am on the cusp, the edge, the precipice.
Gabriel reaches for me, and I sail into his arms, allowing him to tuck me into his warm, solid body. He kisses me like he has missed me for years.
And I throw myself over the edge, to whatever waits for me below.
SESSION FIVE
DESERT FLOWER THERAPY
