Page 73 of Reclaim Me

“You let my daddy get hurt building the tree house.” She delivers the accusation with narrowed eyes that make her seem so much older than her nine years.

“He didn’t let me get hurt, Ri,” I say, holding in a laugh.

“But he didn’t stop it, so I feel like it’s the same thing, right, Riley?” Alyssa asks, clearly trying to get on her good side.

Taurin’s mouth drops, and his head swirls around as he glares at his girlfriend. “Who’s side are you on, Alyssa?”

“Mine,” Riley tells him, her voice filled with authority as she shares a conspiratorial grin with Alyssa. “Girl power, right?”

I look to Rae, whose brows are reaching for her hairline, as she watches our daughter turn all of Taurin’s friends against him in a matter of seconds. Liz and Alyssa are fist-bumping her now, and Winston is trying to inch his way into her good graces by telling her about a time when Taurin let him run into a wall. She doesn’t seem fully convinced by his story, but she allows it, letting him claim something called ‘girl power by proxy’ while Taurin watches on helplessly. He looks to me for help, and I shrug.

“It’s important to know when you’ve been bested.”

Not one to go down without a fight, Taurin works his way in between Riley and his friends and crouches down to her level, choosing to use his knowledge of the house to his advantage.

“Riley, did your dad tell you that he has a pool?”

“A POOL?!” She shouts, her eyes growing five times their normal size, which makes the older kids laugh. “You never said you had a pool, Daddy!”

“I can take you to see it,” Taurin says, then pauses, looking up at me and Rae. “If that’s okay?”

I look to Rae, who’s looking at me, and it’s such a small moment, such an inconsequential decision, but it feels good that we’re making it together. “Yeah, T, just don’t let her get in.”

All of their eyes are lit up now, and I watch in awe as the entire group takes off behind Taurin with Riley in the center, allthoughts of the trip they were just so eager to leave for forgotten.

Rae sighs, and although I’m going to get to look at her all weekend, I find that my eyes are eager to consume every line of her face once they land on it. She’s so damn beautiful, but she looks tired, like she hasn’t been sleeping well. My heart twists in on itself, the need to hold her in my arms until she finds comfort and rest in my embrace, an urgent and demanding thump against my ribcage.

“You okay?”

She looks up at me and nods. “Sorry, we’re so early. Riley was so excited, she made me promise we’d come over right after school.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Sunshine. You could have shown up at the crack of dawn, and I’d still be just as happy to see you.”

We both know it’s true, but I keep forgetting that our shared knowledge doesn’t give me the right to speak those things out loud. To make Rae face my constant desire to share air with her and Riley.

Lifting my hand, I rub at the back of my neck, hoping to dispel some of the awkwardness I’ve infused into the air. “Do you need help getting your stuff out of the car?”

There’s no mistaking the relief on her face at the change of subject. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

I follow her over to her car and balk when she opens the trunk to reveal two duffel bags, one for her and the other for Riley, and several bags of groceries. Red tints her cheeks when I turn a questioning gaze on her.

“I didn’t know what you’d have.”

“Clearly, you didn’t think I’d have anything,” I say, laughing as I grab everything in one hand and close the trunk with the other. “If you would have called, I could have saved you the trip to the store.”

We haven’t spoken on the phone since the night of the dinner from hell. Just quick texts and greetings during my daily FaceTimes with Riley, so I’m not surprised that she didn’t, I just hate that she preferred to spend a hundred dollars on unnecessary items rather than talk to me.

“It’s fine,” she says, following me up the steps of the back porch that will take us right to the kitchen. “I needed to get out of the house anyway.”

“Are things that bad?”

The question slips out on its own accord, adding another pound of tension to the weight that began to settle between us the moment we entered the kitchen. I walk into this room every day, multiple times a day, and it still hits me like a brick every time I’m in here. Our history, but more specifically, the unexpected beginning of us that happened right where Rae is standing. I see it descend on her with a quickness, harsh and unrelenting, exacerbated by the presence of my knowing gaze on her face and the question she’s yet to answer lingering in the air.

I set the bags on the counter and wait. For a reaction. For an answer. For something that’s real, even though I know chances are, she won’t give it to me. Sure enough, she reaches over the counter and pulls the grocery bags over to her side.

“Rae.” I hadn’t planned on starting our visit off by begging for details she doesn’t want to share, but I’m concerned about her. She was sad and disoriented the other night, and even though she rushed me off the phone before they came, I know she shed tears over the fact that Riley overheard her argument with Aaron. “You can talk to me,” I tell her, watching as she pulls out various snacks and sets them on the counter.

“No, I can’t,” she says, turning to put the jug of milk she bought in the fridge next to the one I replaced just this morning. “It wouldn’t be fair to Aaron.”

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