“I only memorized it because I’ve had nothing else to do all week.” I look at him. “You sure about this?”
He gives me that Hollywood smile. “She’s all yours.”
We switch seats, and I slowly pull back on the road.
“I’m nervous,” I tell him as I drive down the street.
“Don’t be. You’re doing great.”
“Yeah, but if I hurt your car you’ll kill me.”
He laughs. “I won’t kill you. Anything that happens to it can be fixed.”
“If only life worked that way,” I mutter.
“Meaning what?”
I stop at a light and glance at him. “Life. If only we could fix things that go wrong.”
“Like your mom dying,” he says in a soft voice.
I let out a breath. “Yeah.” Continuing down the street, I say, “Where should I go?”
“Let’s stop for a few minutes.”
“Why? We just started.”
“You see that park entrance up ahead? Pull in there.”
“But we don’t have much time.”
“We have plenty of time. Go ahead and pull over.”
I carefully switch lanes, turn into the small lot, and park in a narrow space.
“Was this a test to see if I could do all that?” I ask, handing him his keys.
“No, but if it was, I’d give you an A.”
“Thanks,” I say, smiling.
We get out, and I follow him to a bench in the park. It’s high up on a cliff, the ocean off in the distance.
“So why’d you want to stop?”
Jackson turns to me. “We never get much time to talk. We have the lesson and then one or both of us has to go.”
“We’ll have even less time once school starts next week.”
“I’m hoping we can still make time to see each other,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. It makes my heart speed up, so I look away, out at the ocean.
I take a breath. “So what’d you want to talk about?”
“I want to know how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine.” I let out a laugh. “Why do you ask?”
“You’ve kind of been through hell the past month. Not kind of — youhavebeen through hell. I want to know how you’re doing.”
