Jake disappeared before.
Why would this time be different?
***
After the boys left—quietly and through the side door, just like they’d arrived, so Isabelle didn’t notice her favorite band was next door and accidentally blow their cover—I went back into the kitchen to clean up, and Mom followed me in.
“Dinner was nice,” she said. An understatement. “Lively.”
I grinned. Another understatement.
“I’m going to miss family dinners,” she mused to herself.
Anxiously, I pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen out of my French braid and into my face. As much as my conversation with Mom had given me to consider, I still couldn’t picture leaving her.
“Lucy,” Mom said gently, noticing the tension that started taking over my body, “the important things will still be the same when you come back. You know that.”
Idid. Or, at least I hoped The Tiny Tiger would still be around to come back to. But knowing that leaving didn’t mean I was abandoning everyone didn’t mean I totally believed it was a good idea yet. Especially since I’d be moving away at the same time things would be harder for Mom at the café and at home with me gone. And if something did fall apart or she had a setback with her healing, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.
I wanted to take the scholarship—and knew Mom wanted me to take it too—but in the back of my mind, I still clung to the thought of staying instead. Wouldn’t my being here to help keep my home safer?
“You’ve held everything together so well,” Mom told me, as if sensing my thoughts. “I know you’re thinking of what youmightlose if you’re not here. But maybe you should also think of yourself, and everything youwilllose if you don’t go.”
New experiences. Vet school. Doing good on a wider scale. Getting to expand on the passion I already felt about working with animals.
The idea sent a pang of regret through me.
Ever since Mom’s accident and the café taking a turn for the worse, I’d been so laser-focusedon what I had and what I didn’t want to risk. I spent much less time thinking about what else I’d never gain.
Maybe that was a mistake.
“Regrets like this tend to always come back around,” Mom told me. “You know, like old friends.”
I eyed her, seeing where she was going with this. I was getting a chat about collegeandJake?
“You’re on a roll tonight,” I said.
“I see why Jake’s still your favorite,” Mom continued, undeterred. “Or is it your bias? Is that how you say it now? Jake’s your bias?”
“Mom.”
“I think that’s what you kids call it now. Or is it, you’re a ‘Jake girlie’?”
“Stop.”
“All right, all right,” Mom said, grinning a little too wide. “I’m just saying, he’s a nice boy. I like him too.”
“Please do not call yourself a Jake girlie,” I begged, while Mom sputtered with laughter.
“Well,” she said, “I’m still glad he came back.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Me too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It’s all coming down
Who’ll catch me now?
