Page 116 of At First Flight
Her throat works as she swallows. “It was all too familiar.”
I don’t ask. I already know. She once told me how the one rite of passage changed both of their lives. It’s what drove her to science. What made her the kind of woman who doesn’t just study things, she fights them. But now I understand the weight of that fight.
I touch her elbow gently. “Come sit. Just for a second.”
She lets me guide her to a shaded bench behind the dessert table, Evelyn still lingering nearby with wide eyes and a half-eaten lemon bar.
“You did everything right,” I tell her. “Every single step. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Lila lets out a shaky breath. “It brought it all back.”
Her voice is quiet, but her eyes blaze with something fierce. “That boy… he didn’t even know to check what he was eating. He just saw something sweet and took a bite. No one told him what peanuts could do to him.”
“And now they will,” I say, sliding my hand into hers. “Because of you.”
She exhales slowly, letting her shoulders drop slightly. “It makes me think… maybe the lab isn’t the only way. Maybe research isn’t the only way to save lives.”
I squeeze her hand. “What are you saying?”
Her gaze lifts to mine, steady now. “That maybe I could do more good in a classroom. That if kids learned young—if we educated them, made it real instead of abstract—maybe fewer would end up like that boy.”
“And like your friend,” I add gently.
She nods, eyes shining. “Yeah. Like him.”
We fall quiet for a minute, watching as the boy is loaded into the ambulance, his mom sobbing with relief. The crowd is already breaking apart, drifting back to food and music and pretend normal.
But something’s shifted in her. In me too.
Lila sits a little straighter.
“Do you think,” she begins, voice tentative, “that it would be enough? Teaching, I mean. Running a program instead of being in a lab.”
I don’t hesitate. “If it’s where your heart is, it’s more than enough. It’s everything. But you can do both. The job is part-time, remember.”
She looks at me then, eyes wide and glassy and so damn beautiful I almost forget we’re in the middle of a park.
“I believe in you,” I say simply. “Whatever you decide. Lab, classroom, writing textbooks in a cabin somewhere, I’m proud of you. And I’ll be right there, cheering you on.”
Her lips part on a soft breath. “Dean…”
“Don’t say anything yet,” I murmur. “Just think about it. Let the moment settle.”
She does. And then she leans in, resting her head on my shoulder as Evelyn climbs into her lap, already asking for another lemon bar.
The town goes on around us and is filled with laughter, music, and summer air, but for once, we’re still. And I know, without question, that whatever future Lila chooses, it’s going to be bright. Because she is.
The scent of charcoal and sweet corn clings to my shirt as I wrangle Oliver into his booster seat, his cheeks flushed from too much sun and too many cupcakes. Evelyn’s giggling, sticky with lemonade and frosting, kicking her feet like the sugar rush hasn’t quite worn off yet. Lila’s a few steps behind us, hovering near the dessert table where the remnants of pies and brownies have been reduced to crumbs. She’s smiling when someone says goodbye, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Not like it usually does.
She hasn’t said much since the ambulance left. Since she knelt on the ground with a stranger’s little boy in her arms, pressing an epinephrine pen into his thigh with the kind of practiced calm that shouldn’t belong to someone her age. A calm born from experience. From pain.
I open the passenger door for her, resting a hand lightly on the small of her back as she climbs in. She doesn’t lean into the touch like she usually does. She doesn’t even look up.
The drive is quiet.
Oliver is out cold before we hit the main road, his head tilted at an impossible angle, mouth open. Evelyn’s eyes flutter closed soon after, a faint hum of a lullaby drifting from her lips as if she’s still in some dreamland made of bounce houses and sparklers.
Lila, though… she’s wide awake. Her fingers twist the hem of her sundress over and over, the fabric wrinkled and damp in her grip. Her gaze stays pinned to the window, but I don’t think she’s looking at the passing trees.
