Page 48 of Twisted Trails
I lift the tea to my lips, giving myself a second to answer. “The pain meds are doing their job.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Her gaze meets mine, wide open and full of something I don’t recognize.
Would my mom have looked at me like this?
Would she have known to ask the right questions without saying much at all, without letting me dodge them?
Isthiswhat having a mom would feel like?
The thought knocks something loose, and before I can stop it, my eyes fill again.
Élise stands immediately and pulls me to my feet. She doesn’t hesitate, just wraps her arms around me and tucks my head against her shoulder, one hand stroking my hair, the other rubbing gentle circles over my back.
“It’s all right,” she whispers into my ear. “Everything’s going to be okay. I’ve got you,ma belle. Wealldo. You’re not alone, okay? You hear me? Everything will be all right.”
Something inside me stirs as she holds me. Not the fire I’m used to—rage, adrenaline, or raw desperation—but something smaller, softer.
Hope, maybe?
Élise holds me until I stop shaking, but I have no idea why I am or when it even started. But once it eases and Itake my first steady breath, she eases back. Her hand is still warm on my upper arm as she studies my face.
“Did you have a good conversation with your father?”
I huff before wiping my nose with the back of my wrist. “I don’t know. He was… weird.”
Her brows lift slightly. “How?”
“Apparently, he wants to be a better dad now,” I say, and even though I tried to force my voice to be even, the words come out raw. “Said a lot of things about being there and trying, wanting to do his best.”
Élise nods slowly, her expression unreadable. “And what do you think?”
I exhale, and my shoulders slump. “I don’t know. That I’ll believe it when I see it? I don’t even know why he’d want that now, or what I’m supposed to do about it.”
“You’re the child. You only have one thing to do.”
I furrow my brows. “And that is?”
“Give him the chance to love you.”
“Give him the chance to love me,” I echo. “I don’t even know how to do that.”
“You don’t have to fix or forgive anything. You don’t have to accept it, match it, or pretend it means more than it does. You just let him try. You live your life, and if he wants to be a part of it, let him show you. If he doesn’t? Thenthat’son him.”
She gives my arm a little pat, then takes my wrist, guiding me toward the couch. “Come. Sit with me.”
I follow her, letting her tuck me under her arm as we settle onto the cushions.
“I had a conversation with Dane,” she says after a beat.
So that’s why they’re all so weird?
Dammit, Dane.
“You did?”
Élise nods. “That boy loves you so much.”
My chest aches in that familiar pulse of fierce, complicated love for my brother. “Yeah,” I say thickly. “He loves metoomuch.”
