Evening
“You care about him a lot.”
I looked up to see Luce studying me from the other side of the couch. Your head was leaning onto my shoulder as you'd just managed just fall asleep. The look Luce gave me told me that she knew something I didn't, but I was a kid then, so I just thought she was being weird.
“Of course I do. He's my best friend,” I said to her in bafflement.
“And you don't have many of those.”
I averted my eyes. “I don't. Why?”
“Since mom—" She must have thought I didn't notice the way her voice crack, but I did. She cleared her throat and said, “Since mom, you hate hospitals. You'd cry and wail noisily when we went into one, Roo, remember?”
I smiled at her serenely because I did.
“You ran there, Roo,” Luce continued. Something about her tone made it seem like she was on verge of tears. “You ran into the hospital looking for him.”
We didn't say anything else afterward. Just passing the hours watching television. I didn't know what the point of that conversation at the time, but I know what she meant now. Perhaps I've always known, Sam, if I'd only let myself be more perceptive—which I didn't do.
Perhaps Luce, too, had always known from the start. Long before I did.
YOU ARE READING
Wearing My Smile | ✔
Teen Fiction"I wondered if you'd ever thought that the name your parents had given you felt like sharp knife twisting through your heart in its prayer. I'd never asked you that before, now I'd never get to." Having been together since forever, Roo struggles in...
