Page 51 of The Dala Horse Daughters

Everyone liked me? She wanted to laugh at that. “Um . . . after my brain injury, my mom pulled me from school. She⁠—”

“She what?” He took a step closer.

“She didn’t allow me to return.”

“Why? Where did you go?”

“Here.”

“Here?” Taylor seemed astonished. “All this time,” he whispered.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Everyone thought you left the country and went back to Sweden. You know how high school kids talk.”

She twisted her lips and clamped her impulse to ask. “Sure, I suppose.”

“Did you graduate?”

“I got my GED.”

“How—how bad was your accident?” He clenched his forehead as if scrubbing away a stain.

“I don’t remember it, or really any of my senior year. I had to do a lot of rehab. I had seizures.”

“Jesus,” he whispered and stared out into the street. A car went by. Then two. A pall of uncomfortable silence fell over them. Taylor’s breathing increased. “But you’re okay now?” He cleared his throat as if preparing to say something else, but he didn’t.

Intrigued by his deep concern, she nodded, feeling an urge to touch him, but hugged her arms instead. “Yes, I don’t even need medication,” she replied, recalling the dread of side effects, the constant fear of missing a dose, the brain fog, the insistence she go on birth control while on these drugs, but birth control wreaked havoc with her already-fragile moods, increased her crying jags, and made her fat.

Taylor exhaled as if it were his great relief, not only hers. She circled to his original request. “You need to find my mom?”

He tongued his cheek. “Do you have her address? Would she talk to me?”

“Is there a reason she wouldn’t?”

He rubbed his lips as if contemplating.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said and then softly entreated, “please.”