“Max doesn’t understand that you aren’t a permanent fixture. That you can’t be. You need to move on to your real family soon.”
Whoever that might be.
You need a mother and a father who love you.
You need a yard to play ball in with your dad.
You need a kitchen to eat with your family and talk about what you did that day.
What you don’t need is to be here, where people make the best of a bad situation.
This little baby deserves better than that. I’d give every child living on Willow Street that if I could. But the world doesn’t work that way. So, they get the best that I can give them.
You get better. And that’s far away from here. Far away from here.
Dash burps.
“Good job, little man. Tummy time.” But I can’t seem to put him down. Instead, I slide him back down in my arms and stare at his sweet face.
“You get better.”
“You get better.”
The door slams open, banging against the stopper. Daria glares at me as she flings her bag onto the chair.
I’ve never seen her this angry with me.
Even when I told her she couldn’t go to high school out of state. “What’s wrong?”
Her face twists in anger. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? You have a lot of nerve. I thought we told each other everything. That we were sisters.”
What? Why would she say something like that?
“How could you start dating someone for the very first time and not tell me about it first? How could you do that to me? I found out my sister is dating from The Street’s gossip mill. Not you!”Her hands practically bounce with anger as they slash through the air.
“It’s not like that.”
“How? Are you not dating Canyon? Did every one of the forty people who reached out to me get it wrong?”
Forty! The gossip spread that fast. “Sort of.”
“What does that even mean? You’re either dating, or you aren’t.”
If only that were true. I can’t lie to Daria. “It’s a long story.”
She climbs onto the couch facing me and folds her legs under her.“Tell me.”
“Canyon and I told everyone we’re dating, but it’s fake,” I blurt the words out before embarrassment stops me.
“Fake? How can you fake date someone?”
“Like in your books.”
Daria chuffs.
“It’s not funny.”
She keeps chuffing.
