“Really? I haven’t had lunch yet.”

   “Listen, sometimes life calls for super-secret ice cream cones for lunch.”

   “Can I get swirl?”

   “Sweetie, you can get whatever kind of ice cream you want.”

   “Cool!” he said, all previous sadness erased from his gorgeous face.

   “Very cool. Let’s go.” Before I could take even two steps, his little hand found its way into mine and my heart nearly stopped again.

   I was exhausted. Not physically, but emotionally. I felt as if I could collapse on a bed and fall asleep instantly, and perhaps not wake up for days, just to make up for all the emotional upheaval Jaxy and I had been through that day. The worst part was, it wasn’t over yet. Devon would be home later and we needed to talk.

   I had fed the children dinner, bathed them, and they were upstairs in their bedroom watching a movie I was sure they’d seen no less than one thousand times. When I heard the door just off the kitchen open and close, I knew Devon was home, and my heart rate spiked. He walked into the kitchen, looking just as exhausted as I felt. When he saw me waiting for him, his expression changed to surprise. That hurt me a little, made me feel terrible, that my waiting for him without a scowl or anger radiating from me would surprise him. I immediately felt like shit for everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours.

   “Hi,” I said, knowing it was my responsibility to open the lines of communication between us. “How was your day?”

   “Honestly? It sucked.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   He set his briefcase down on a kitchen chair and ran his hand through his hair, which was longer than he normally kept it. “It’s not your fault.”

   “No, I mean, I’m sorry. For everything. Last night. This morning. I’m sorry. I blew everything out of proportion, and I shouldn’t have flipped out on you.”

   “Evie, we need to talk about what happened.”

   “Um,” I said, turning away from him, trying to hide the fact that I was uncomfortable. “I don’t need to talk about it. I’m okay. I understand. I get it. Really. It’s fine.”

   When he spoke next, he was right behind me. “What if I want to talk about it?”

   I swallowed hard, trying not to follow my natural instinct to run away. “What do you feel like you need to say?”

   “When I came up behind you yesterday evening, when I wrapped my arm around you, I thought you were Liv. I don’t know why, it’s never happened before, but some part of my brain forgot she was gone for a moment, and I couldn’t stop myself.”

   “It’s okay, Dev. She hasn’t been gone long and you’re still healing.”

   “Yeah. You’re right. But when I realized it was you, that you were in my arms and I had kissed you, I wasn’t sorry it was you.”

   “Devon…” I whispered, unable to say anything more.

   “I was sad it wasn’t Liv, but I wasn’t sad it was you. Does that make sense?”

   There were so many things in the world I wished I were doing, rather than having that conversation. His words had so much power: the power to save me, the power to kill me, the power to render me completely broken, unable to put myself back together.

   “Losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to me, the worst thing that ever happened to my kids. But, if you were to go away too, I have no idea what I’d do, Evie. I didn’t think I could live without her, but somehow it’s happening. Life is moving on, going forward. It sucks without her, but only in a blunt kind of way now. The pain is duller, not so sharp. But, if we were to lose you too, because of something so stupid and instantaneous and stupid, I don’t think I could handle that.”

   A part of me was hurt he’d called what happened ‘stupid.’ It was stupid. But it was so much more than that.

   “I got into a fight with Jaxy’s teacher today,” I said suddenly, trying desperately to keep myself from saying something I’d regret, something that might alter our relationship in an irrevocable way.

   “What?” he asked, his voice louder and a little concerned.

   “Not really a fight. I just kind of went into her classroom and yelled at her. She took it really well.”

   “What happened?”

   “Jax drew a picture of his family that included me, and his teacher told him I wasn’t really a part of his family. It upset him.” I stepped away from him, pretending as if the dishes in the sink needed to be rinsed at that exact moment.

   “And you yelled at her?”

   “It was wrong of her. Imagine, poor Jaxy, after losing his mother, some person telling him it was wrong to love someone, wrong to be loved by someone else. The last thing he needs is someone taking more love from him. I was upset.”

   He was behind me again, closer than he was before, and his hands came to rest on top of my shoulders. He gave me a gentle squeeze and my breath stopped, my heart halted. “He’s lucky to have you, Evie. And you’ve always been a part of this family. Regardless of whether Liv is here or not, you’re a part of us.”

   His confirmation should have made me feel better, but all I heard was him alluding to the fact that nothing had changed between us. I was the same to him, with or without his wife. All the feelings about Devon and our argument and Jaxy were swirling in my brain and making my whole world hazy. I didn’t want to be confused anymore. Didn’t want to be unsure. But then his hands squeezed my shoulders again and the swirling got more intense.

   “I just wanted to let you know, in case he said something about it. And I wanted to tell you that I was sorry about everything. Really.”

   “Can we just go back to normal now?”

   Normal? His normal could turn out to be my ruin. “Sure.”

   “Great.”

   “Great.”

   Then we were drenched in silence. Uncomfortable silence. Luckily, Jax and Ruby chose that moment to reappear and the room was filled with the noises of children welcoming their father home. After a few moments, Devon ended up on the couch in the family room, Ruby on his right and Jaxy on his knee, listening to stories of disfigured mummies and super-secret ice cream cones.

   I grabbed my purse and slowly snuck out of the house, glad to see the three of them thriving, but also grateful to have some time to myself to lick my wounds.

Chapter Seven

Summer between Freshman

and Sophomore Year

   I tried to ignore the butterflies swarming in my stomach. I wanted to look like the cool, calm, and collected person I wished I was, but I probably resembled the bumbling fool I felt like. I was about to leave my house, with a boy, to stay for the weekend in a cabin. The whole weekend. With a boy. Well, a guy.

   Elliot had told me his parents had a cabin near the mountain and said we should go there for a weekend sometime. I said, ‘sounds like fun.’ The next thing I knew, he was making plans for us. Us. I was still surprised there was an us. School had been over for a month, and true to his word, he’d driven to my town to see me twice, both times making it seem like the nearly four-hour trip was no big deal. I knew it was. I felt it. And although I appreciated that he wanted to see me and had driven all that way to do so, it was a lot of pressure. Pressure I’d never really dealt with before.

   I saw his red pickup truck turn the corner onto my street and the butterflies not only multiplied, but they grew larger. I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t going to throw up.

   The two times he’d come to visit, he’d been a perfect gentleman. He’d shown up, taken me out, done everything by the book: insisted on paying, pulled out my chair for me, made sure we had my favorite snack at the movies. Perfect. He held my hand, and I felt the tingles. Those telltale shivers, which only came on when special people showed you affection. I wanted to hold his hand, and when he brought me home, I’d purposefully instructed him to park down the block from my house so my parents couldn’t spy on us.