Page 47 of Sunshine

“Ah, I see,” I say. “So on a scale from one to ten, how mad is she?”

She tilts her head, as if appraising me. “Well, you didn’t say where you were going. And you weren’t home for church this morning.”

I nod. “So, like an eleven?”

“Atleasta fourteen.”

“Shit,” I say, wagging my eyebrows. “That sounds pretty serious.”

She giggles, and we hear a car pull up outside. “She’s home,” Annie says ominously. I know she worries about Mom and me getting along—she’s witnessed more strife between usthan I’d ever want. But as much as I want Annie to respect her parents and enjoy her relationship with them, I also feel a quiet sense of pride at the opportunity to teach her to find her own voice. To uncover her own hopes and dreams for her life.

I’d hate for her to fall into the belief that who she marries will make or break her life’s success, and I want her to know there’s so much more out there than simply growing a family. She’s at the age now when my mother started to drill those things into my head; I can only hope she finds a way to be more accepting of Annie.

I realize my sister is holding her breath as my mother walks in the door, eyes immediately landing on me. I lurch toward her to grab the grocery bags from her hand. “Here, let me help,” I say.

Mom hands the bags off without argument as she studies my face. “Where were you?”

A quick glance at Annie shows her worried expression. “I was invited to a rodeo with some friends,” I say. “And, to be honest, the distraction of it sounded really good.” I silently beg her to let it go. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you ahead of time.”

She nods. “What friends?”

My heart stutters because I know exactly where this would go if I gave her the truth, and I hate that I have to lie about Wells and Kasey. The Bennetts are good people—they don’t deserve the level the distrust the rest of the town extends toward them. But my mother is hardly one to be agreeable, and Wells did ask for space after all.

“Regan,” is what I settle on. “And David.” I catch Annie’s expression change in my periphery, but I keep my focus trained on the way Mom’s face lights up.

“Oh, how are they doing? Gosh, I haven’t seen either of them in a while.”

“They’re good,” I say smoothly, eager to end this conversation. “Anyway, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’m . . . going to put these groceries away.” I turn toward the kitchen.

“Thank you, bug,” Mom says from behind me. And I let out a breath of gratitude.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THEN

Jason broke up with me on the Thursday before my sophomore year started.

He was driving me home from the closest mall, an hour’s trek from two towns over, and as he slowed his Mustang to the blinking red lights at a railroad crossing, the words spilled out of him.

“I think I need to be alone for a while, Layla.”

The unexpectedness of it was so unnerving that my first instinct was to laugh. But then when I looked at him and saw his haunted expression, I realized he’d been holding on to this decision for long enough that it was eating him alive. “What?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“I just . . . I really need to give this football season everything I have. It’s going to be one of the most important seasons of my life.”

It took Jasonmonthsto get over his team’s loss last year.He’d become a near recluse until spring break when Wells forced him to go on a boys-only camping trip somewhere on the coast. I don’t know what happened on that trip, but when the boys came back Jason was lighter and so much like his normal self, I’d been thankful for it.

We ended the school year strong . . . or, so I thought. In April, he took me to his junior prom, and it was one of the most romantic nights of my life. He twirled me around the dance floor, never once complaining or trying to sneak away with his friends. He made me feel like the most beautiful girl in Texas, and it was then that I realized I loved him.

Over the summer, he went on three official visits to colleges that are courting him to play for their teams, and somewhere along the way, he admitted his anxiety has been at an all-time high again. The pressure to perform can claw into him so deep, and I know he’s terrified of losing any opportunity that comes his way.

It doesn’t help that his parents have also increased the expectations they’re putting on him, as if all that matters right now is his ability to clinch a football scholarship. According to them, a scholarship will only be earned if he helps the Mustangs win state this year. And Jason believes his chance in the NFL is based on a school believing in him enough to offer him a full ride.

It’s a mounting domino effect of pressure, and the crux of it all weighs on his coming senior season.

Still, though, the excuse of his anxiety nags at me. It might hold the weight of some of his truth, but I’ve been careful to temper my neediness over the last year, making sure I don’t ever ask too much of him. I can’t recall a time that I’veeverwhinedabout him choosing football over me, so how has it suddenly become a push and pull between the game he loves and the girl heclaimsto love?

I wish I could say the breakup doesn’t wreck me, but it does. It consumes me the entire weekend before school starts, and the haze of it doesn’t lift an inch.

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