Page 5 of For Keeps. For Always.

“It’d be like being given flowers but refusing to smell them or having your favorite song on the radio while you’re wearing earplugs.”

“Then why not just be naked and feel it all against your skin?”

She turns her head, looking at me with a curious smile. “Being naked is illegal, but being barefoot isn’t.”

I shrug. “Fair enough.”

I make no attempt to speak as she goes back to gazing at the trees.

“Where did you move from?”

“Colorado.”

I watch as she runs one of her toes across the slimy patch of moss on the edge of the rock. “Why?”

“My gran is sick.”

Her foot pauses as she turns her head back to look at me. She blinks once in sympathy before turning away again. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s not dead yet.”

I ignore the bite of desperation in my tone as I say the words, my need for it to be true for as long as possible.

“Brooks, what?”

“You ask an awful lot of questions for someone who was looking for quiet.”

She ignores the comment, and we sit in comfortable silence for a good few minutes before I find my voice again.

“Riley. Brooks Riley.”

“Moira Riley is my neighbor?” She phrases it like a question, an invitation for me to confirm she’s a relation.

“That’s my gran, which means you and I are also neighbors. Seems we share a property lineanda secret spot.”

She ignores my jab. “I didn’t know she was sick.”

“Cancer,” I say before I can stop myself.

“That sucks.”

“Mm,” I agree. “You’re different than any fifteen-year-old girl I’ve met before.”

Her lips purse as she forces herself to look at me. “How so?”

“The way you talk. I don’t know. . . your mannerisms? Most teenage girls I know are giggling over boys and wearing too much makeup.”

The fair touch of her cheeks shade to pink. “My mom made me go tocharmschool,” she admits in embarrassment. “While other kids my age have sleepovers and sneak into movie theaters and smoke cigarettes, I’ve been reading classic literature.Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby.”

I grimace. “Sounds enlightening . . . andpainful?”

She laughs, the sound easy and free, a stark contradiction to the Henley I’ve caught glimpses of so far. “I guess it is. Half the time, I need a tutor with me so I can understand it.”

She laughs again, and I let myself enjoy the sound. She tips her head back to let it out into the sky, letting it mingle with the wind and birds.

I like this version of her. The one brave enough to let go a little, to laugh into the wind, and talk to the stranger whostoleher rock. It doesn’t take a genius to know this is unusual for her.

“Will you be going to Ivy Prep?”

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