Page 115 of The Cost of Forgetting You

“Nervous,” I say, eyeing the flowers. “But I’m sure those will make her feel better.”

“Oh, I just…” Truett glances up at me quickly. Shrugs. “You know.”

I chuckle. “Eloquently put.” His normally bronzed face turns an even deeper shade of scarlet. I clap his shoulder, catching his gaze when it rises. “She’ll love them.”

He smiles, braces flashing. It’s gone as quickly as it came, replaced with an expression of practiced disinterest. He may think he’s stealthy, but I see the way he looks at my daughter lately. I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised. Delilah, however, seems absolutely clueless.

Lucy sighs. “Oh, to be fifteen again.”

My gaze finds hers, a smile quirking my lips, but it quickly falls flat. “What happened to your eye?”

Delicate fingers flutter to the purple bruise at her temple. She untucks her blonde hair from her ear, but it does nothing to hide the gash splitting the bruise in two.

“Newest calf was a bit squirrelly.” She shrugs, breaking eye contact with me in favor of the chipped polish on her fingernail. “Caught me with a hoof. It’ll heal in no time.”

Truett’s jaw ticks, but he doesn’t say a word. Something in his slumped shoulders, his guarded gray eyes, sets me on edge. I force myself to swallow, then nudge Lucy’s elbow with mine.

“Are you sure?—”

“How’s Delilah doing with her serve?” she interjects. Her hands fill the pockets of her cardigan, and she strides forward, not waiting for Truett and me to follow. “I know she was nervous about getting it over the net.”

“She does fine in practice; she’s just afraid she’ll fuck it up in front of a crowd,” Tru mumbles. His mother glances back at him with a warning in her eyes, and he manages to look sheepish. “Sorry, screw it up.”

Lucy snorts, our momentary tension forgotten. “Watch it, kiddo.”

“I’m, like, fifteen, Mom. Not a kid anymore.”

Now it’s my turn to snort, loosening some of the uneasiness in my chest. I hook an arm around his shoulder, keeping his pace as we trail behind Lucy. “Your mom and I thought that, too, back when we were fifteen.”

Lucy’s steps lose their cadence, slipping into something haphazard and wandering. We catch up to her easily, and when I step into her orbit, her gaze finds mine. This time her eyes are painted with a sheen of tears that she quickly blinks away. I can’t help but stare at the bruise even as her gaze begs me not to.

“Maybe you’ll be better at it than we were,” she whispers, then clears her throat. Shakes her head.

“Better at what?” Tru asks.

A ghost of a smile passes over her lips. I wonder if I really saw it or merely wished it were there.

“Being fifteen.” She juts her chin toward the flowers. “And in love.”

The noise he makes is pure teen horror. “I’m not in love with Delilah. Gross.” He holds the flowers out to his mother. “You give her these. It was your idea anyway.”

Her hands haven’t fully closed around the stems before he’s off, jogging toward the gym doors so he can enter on his own, with no association to the discarded bouquet.

“Do you remember those days?” Lucy muses, gaze following her son.

I hum an answer. My steps falter, then stop. She does the same, turning to me with a question tugging at her eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, only releasing it when I’m sure I can be calm. “Was it really a calf, Lucy?”

She goes completely still. It reminds me of squirrels in the middle of the road. They see your car barreling toward them, danger so clearly imminent, and yet they freeze. Unable to fight. Or run. To do anything to protect themselves.

Lucy’s not like that, right? She’d fight. She’d run.

She’d ask for help.

I’m telling myself that even as she starts shaking her head, chin wobbling with the effort to press her lips together around all the things she will not say.

“Just a calf.” Her head tilts. “I got in the way. My fault.”

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