Page 120

It’s easier if this is about the sponsorship. Like maybe a part of me wants a reason to sabotage the whole thing without admitting the real fears lurking in my mind. My lower lip trembles, and I cross my arms over my chest and sigh. It’s heavy, and I hope it’s what I need to expel the threat of tears because I do not want to cry.

Momma waits, letting me sort through it.

“What if . . .” I press my lips together and suck in a breath. “What if he leaves again?” My voice cracks on the words.

But there it is. The real thing I’m afraid of, right out in the open and impossible to ignore. I’m not so concerned that what Nell said was true. I’m concerned that if Noble leaves, it will crush me.

Because I wasn’t careful enough with my heart.

Momma’s eyebrows shoot up, and then, as if she’s just seen every secret I’ve been holding the past two weeks, the past thirteen years, she softens and nods. “I see.”

She walks over and leans against the wall next to me. “What did Noble say?”

I shrug, actively fighting to hold it together. “I don’t know. He asked me to leave.”

She’s quiet for a beat, which is never a good sign. Momma’s real good at reading other people’s mail. “Honey, don’t you think you should give him a chance to explain? Before you fill in the blanks of this story or start waving him out of town?”

Yes. Probably. But I don’t know how not to fill in the blanks. This is what I do. I overanalyze. And it’s normal to be afraid of history repeating itself. It does happen all the time.

Momma goes still, like she’s mapping out words I’m not going to want to hear. I don’t move because I have a bad feeling I probably need to listen.

“Do you remember when Hudson knocked you off a hay bale and you twisted your wrist?”

I look confused. “No.”

She peers off in the distance, remembering. “Y’all couldn’t have been more than three, or four. You were climbing and playing and he got a bit too rough and knocked you down, and you landed funny on your right wrist. Took you to the doctor, got you a soft cast. There are photos somewhere.”

I have zero memory of this.

She smiles. “And through all of that, you barely cried. You were just mad that Hudson won the game, and you stayed mad at him for about a month afterward.”

“I did not.”

“You did. You even tried to convince your older brothers to take him back to the hospital and drop him off there, so . . . how did you put it? ‘So some other family could have him,’” she laughs.

I laugh softly. “I don’t remember any of that.”

She reaches over and takes my hand. “You know how you eventually forgave him?”

I swallow the knot in my throat.

“He drew you a picture of our whole family. At the time, Hunter was still in diapers, and I was pregnant with Finn, so I had a belly in real life and in his drawing—and we were all holding hands but he⁠—”

I cut her off, suddenly remembering. “He drew a heart around the two of us.”

A misshapen heart around two stick figures, one with longer hair, one with some kind of hat. I’m pretty sure Momma hung it on the fridge.

“My point is,” she says, squeezing my hand. “You’re good at grudges,” she says.

A traitorous tear slips out and stains my cheek.

Darn it.

I reach up and wipe my cheeks with my sleeve. I don’t want to think about this. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to cry over him again.

And I especially don’t want to admit that as much as I convinced myself I’ve moved past it, there’s a very good chance—and now actual proof—that there are still fears I’m holding onto.

“Best you have these feelings out,” she says.