Page 41 of A Surefire Love
He’d wanted her to be.
“Come on, Anson.” Her tone softened. “I think if you take a step back and honestly look at what happened, you’ll see you chose me with your head, not your heart.”
Sharp words formed barbs in his throat. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“When yourheartchooses, you will.”
In a flash, he was back at the canoe. His hand tingled where Blaze’s leg bumped his thumb. Her voice filled his ears. He fought the river’s current to get to her. Relief and pride flooded him when she relaxed into his arms.
Had that been his heart choosing?
Didn’t matter. He couldn’t build a life on emotions. As a pastor, he’d witnessed too many people follow their hearts into trouble. God gave him a mind, and with that, he knew he and Sydney were better suited for life together.
But she wanted more.
She walked to the door and opened it, then looked at where Anson still sat at the island. Shocked, he followed. He paused by the threshold and considered trying to change her mind, but she’d said this wasn’t love.
Maybe it wasn’t.
“Goodbye, Sydney.” He stepped into the night.
Blaze stoodat the counter between the kitchen and dining room as she reviewed Mercy’s school assignments as her sister scrounged up an after-school snack. Sandwiched between other papers, the plastic report cover for her Argentina paper stood out. The project impacted a big portion of Mercy’s grade, and she’d spent weeks working on it. Blaze pulled the report from the backpack.
The social studies teacher had inserted a grading sheet over Mercy’s hand-drawn illustration of the country. Penned in red, the wordIncompletetopped the paper. Blaze’s shoulders dropped. She’d questioned Mercy about whether the project was done. Mercy had insisted it was and, for proof, had pointed to the assignment’s checklist. Every item had been marked off, but now that she looked more closely, some of the items weren’t even listed in the table of contents, let alone in the report itself.
“You swore this was done.” Blaze lifted the teacher’s notes. “But you skipped two of the required sections. What happened?”
Mercy dumped sweet potato chips into a small bowl without answering. Since Mercy’s diagnosis two weeks ago, the cold shoulder had been getting worse and worse the longer Blaze resisted putting her on medication.
“You need to talk to me about this, or I’m going to have to respond as if you purposely lied. Is that what happened?”
Mercy’s chin jutted forward. “I forgot.”
“The list was there to remind you. Why did you check them off if they weren’t done?”
“I thought they were.” She pivoted away and rattled around in the fridge.
Blaze lowered the grading sheet to the counter. She believed Mercy could’ve been distracted from finishing thereport. That happened to Blaze at work all the time. But when reminded of her work, Blaze always knew what she had and hadn’t finished. Yet when asked, Mercy had sworn the work was done. Could she have forgotten, or had she lied?
Mercy dropped a piece of string cheese on the counter. “It’s your fault, you know.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s been forever, and you still won’t put me on medication. It’s not fair.”
Blaze leaned against the counter and hooked one foot behind the other. The cheese and chips were part of their no food dyes, higher protein diet, but she’d yet to discern a change in her sister. Except for the growing resentment.
Mercy filled a glass of water, then swept up her snack and stomped to the living room. The TV blared.
Blaze counted to ten before following. She paused Mercy’s show and stood between the couch and the TV. Her sister slouched deeper into the cushions.
“I need to understand what happened so Icanmake a fair decision. If I don’t know I can trust you, I won’t know if medication is best. What happened with your report?”
“I did forget.” She pursed her lips in an angry scowl. “When I remembered, it was too late, so I said it was done.”
Mercy hadn’t claimed to be done with the report until Blaze asked the afternoon before the due date. “You could’ve worked on it another hour or two that night. I asked you before dinner.”
“Do you know how long it took to do the rest of it? Way longer than that. It was hopeless.”
