Be Brave With Me

Chapter Twenty-Four

In their second week at the Vista, Aura and Theo didn't need to be told how to run the show anymore.

After dinner, this always meant polishing cutlery and folding linen napkins for the next day. Aura handed Theo one of the napkins to get started on the polishing, she began folding the rest. They moved around each other with easy grace. No need to rehearse or study lines, they knew their place marks.

Lost in the task at hand, Theo was clearly lost in his thoughts, too. He had been ever since they'd seen off William and Foster this morning.

Aura had yet to find out what troubled him. She knew the timing could be no coincidence, but she had yet to figure out why Foster and William's leaving affected him so much. And she didn't want to figure it out by herself. She'd rather hear it from him.

They'd always shared this stuff with each other, even as kids. Trading their small fears, their big worries, like those old Pokemon cards. I'll trade you "I've broken one of the candle holders from the Blue Ballroom" for your "I've got another letter to my parents returned to sender because I don't have their current address."

She saw no reason why that had to change just because they were trading... more exciting stuff these days.

Aura was sure that whatever it was that had Theo so upset, they could figure it out. As long as they did it like they'd always done it - together.

She was about to nudge him in the side to get his attention when-

"Once upon a time..."

Soft and soothing, Beth's voice carried over from one of the couches in front of the Wall of Books. A bed time story for the kids. The most normal thing. Something that happened every minute of every day all around the world somewhere.

Aura was amazed.

A bed time story. Read to you by your Mom. Can you imagine?

She wouldn't know what that felt like.

Her Mom had never read to her, not once. Had never put her to bed, not once. She remembered an entire league of nannies reading to her, sure. Aunt Isa and Uncle Henry, too. Nora, at more than one sleepover at Theo's house.

But never her Mom. Nor her Dad. Not once.

And they were the ones that mattered, right?

They would always be the ones who mattered.

The thought slammed into her with the force of a demolition ball. Her chest constricted, the air rushed out of her lungs and left her short of breath.

They would always be the ones who mattered.

She could hide up here in beautiful Ravello, tucked away between lemon trees and the endless sky, as long as she wanted to play pretend. In the end, she'd always find herself yearning for a bed time story from her parents - and no one else. It didn't matter that all her letters to them had returned to her unopened and unread, that she had run away from them in Cannes, fed up with running after them.

They would always be the ones who mattered.

She would always want to hear that bed time story from them.

Who had she been trying to fool these days with her Brave New Me act?

Theo. So he wouldn't worry.

And herself, most of all. So she wouldn't unravel into an utter mess about her parents' constant, cruel rejection.

Aura dropped the napkin she'd been folding and vanished through the kitchen and into the pantry.