Page 145 of The Cost of Forgetting You

“It’s Mama,” he whimpers.

I haven’t heard him whimper since he was eight years old and fell out of a tree he and Delilah were climbing, shattering his collarbone. My lungs squeeze tight. I reach for my throat absently, needing to hold on to something. “What’s wrong?” I repeat.

“Cancer,” Tru says softly. His gaze lifts to mine, bereft and seeking comfort. “It’s bad, Henry. It’s so bad.”

I open my arms, and he falls into them. He’s several inches taller, and broad everywhere I’m narrow, but in that moment he is a little boy collapsing against my chest. And as his words settle into my mind, I come undone, collapsing right along with him.

Chapter Forty

Delilah

The sky is doing strange things. As if it knows my heart is breaking in two, it’s putting on a show meant only for me, to make the moment hurt a little less. Pink, fluffy clouds billow and break around spectacular orange light. The sun is setting, and this is its curtain call. Soon Dad will be home from the band concert, and Truett will be out on his date. A date I didn’t even know he had.

Until now.

“I’m probably making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be,” Truett says. He’s pacing in the patch of sawgrass, close to the water’s edge. It’s early yet in the spring, so the grass is still withered and brown. It crunches beneath his steps, breaking up his anxious mumbling. “I mean, Molly told Robin who told Jason who told me. For all I know, it’s a prank and when I show up, she won’t even be there.”

The responding noise sits low in my throat. I gaze up at Truett from my spot resting against the willow tree’s trunk. He’s beautiful. Always has been, with his mess of brownish-blond waves and eyes that mimic the ocean on a stormy day. He’s gangly, sure, but he fills out more each day thanks to long hours spent working the farm with his father. He still doesn’t realize it, though. Doesn’t see the way girls at school look at him. The way I look at him.

I never had the courage to tell him. And now I’m too late.

“Are you listening, Temptress?”

I curl my nose at the nickname. He only says it because he knows it bothers me. Because I was not, in fact, listening to his rambling, and that name is the only surefire way to grab my attention.

“What did I miss?”

I know all of Tru’s faces. The stoic one he puts on when his father is giving out, which involves a taut jaw and guarded eyes. When he’s nervous, his cheeks turn ruddy and he carves trenches into his bottom lip with pearlescent teeth. My favorite is when something has him really excited, because his lips spread into a miraculous smile and his dimple makes an appearance, leaving me speechless.

But I don’t know this face. The one he makes when he pauses in his path, brow furrowed, and peers down at me with a question in his gaze so soft it’s more pleading than inquiry.

His hand pulses at his side. I press mine against my stomach, which has suddenly flipped.

“Would you practice with me?”

My mouth dries out. “Practice? What are you even talking about?”

He closes the distance between us in a few easy strides. Then he’s kneeling in front of me, one Wrangler-clad knee brushing the dirt while he rests his sun-tanned forearm on the other. “Kissing. It’s been a while, and I don’t wanna look like an idiot with Molly.”

“Truett, are you sick?” I reach up and press the back of my hand to his forehead. Try to ignore how perfect his skin feels against my own. “Because what you’re saying is crazy. Kissing is like…I don’t know, riding a bike. Or wrangling a calf, for you. You don’t really forget how.”

Not that I would know. But I’m definitely not going to tell him that. Because despite the tingling in my fingertips and the burning sensation in my chest, the nerves and the jealousy, I find myself leaning closer. Parting my lips a touch. I want him to do this, I realize. Even if it’s practice for someone else. It might be the only chance I ever get to kiss him, and as a bonus, he doesn’t even have to know I want it.

“Please, Delilah.” His brows huddle close, and he folds his hands in pleading. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

There’s a shift inside my chest as my heart settles into the chamber of my ribs. I don’t want to be a secret to him. I want to be everything.

But looking into his wide gray gaze, taking in the fault line along his full bottom lip, the stubble at his jaw…I know that I’ll take what I can get.

Still, I can’t look too eager. So I set a boundary and hope his penchant for breaking the rules holds true.

“Fine.” I narrow my gaze. “But only one.”

He nods. “I can work with that.”

“Okay, so…” I hold up my hands by my head and raise a brow. “How do you want to do this?”

“Um, why don’t we stand up?”

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