I don’t want you to see me cry.
She looked at him carefully. “You want to be alone?”
“Obviously,” he said with all the disdain he could muster.
She didn’t look away. “My mom said your dad dropped you off here. And that your sister hasn’t come out of her bedroom.”
“So?” He didn’t want to think about the fact that his dad hadn’t so much as hugged him. Or that fourteen-year-old Trish hadn’t said a single word since hearing the news.
He was all alone.
Lucy heaved a big sigh that reminded Reece of when his mom was frustrated with his dad. A sound he’d never hear again…
Tears rushed again, and this time he wasn’t fast enough, and they were running down his cheeks, dripping off his chin faster than he could wipe at them.
He looked at Lucy in embarrassment, but she didn’t seem to mind. She reached into the pocket of her pink hoodie and pulled something out.
Reece watched incredulously as she held up the deck of cards.
“Go Fish?” she asked.
He could only stare. His mom had just died, and this little girl wanted to play Go Fish?
It was…
It was…
Slowly, Reece nodded, suddenly realizing that he’d do anything to have a break from thinking about his mom. To keep from thinking about how nothing would ever be the same.
Lucy gave him a big smile, and began dealing the cards, all the while chatting about how her friend Robin had broken her arm and gotten a pink cast and how Lucy had signed it with a heart, and how she hoped her mom would let her quit ballet because she wanted to take gymnastics instead, and how she found a moldy grape in her lunch box and how it was the grossest thing ever.
They played one game.
Then another.
By the third game, Reece’s eyes had dried. His stomach still hurt, but his chest didn’t hurt quite as much. For the first time since they’d told him his mom had died, he thought he might not die too.
They played and played, and Lucy chatted, and Reece even laughed once or twice.
Finally, he heard Mrs. Hawkins’s voice calling them in for dinner.
Lucy began picking up the cards and putting them back in the deck. Reece picked up a ten of clubs, playing with the corner as he mustered his courage.
When she held out her small hand expectantly for the card, he took a deep breath and handed it over, meeting her eyes. “Thank you. For staying with me.”
Lucy blinked, looking a little confused, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world that she’d spend an afternoon with a crybaby.
Then she gave him a small smile, looking a little shy for the first time since going to him, as though she’d just realized something. “I’ll never leave if you don’t want me to.”
Chapter 3
Reece
I learned a long time ago that life’s not fair.
I learned it when I was nine, and my mom was struck and killed by a drunk driver at a crosswalk outside a donut shop.
I learned it just a few months ago when my dad finally gave in to the cancer in his stomach.