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Overhead, the clouds had miraculously parted, though a light rain still fell. She jumped out of the cart, holding her hands out in the glowing droplets, turning to face me. She was like a dream—a beautiful, perfect dream.

“Sun shower,” she cried. “My mom always said these were good luck.”

My chest squeezed. She was so good, Cassandra. Too good. “You’re good luck,” I said, too quiet for her to hear.

As Cassandra walked along the path, I turned the cart back on, following her slowly, laughing as she ran in the rain like a little kid. If I never had another moment with her—if everything turned to dust—I’d still have this one. This precious, perfect moment.

But like the flip side of a coin, my mind flashed back to another time. Another sun shower, another little kid.

A cool dread slipped over me. I knew this memory.

It was me, at one of my little league games. My dad, who never came to any of my games, had decided to show up for this one. Something about a meeting being canceled. He stood up on the bleachers when I went up to bat, his hands on his hips. I’d been nervous, my hand slippery on the bat, but my little heart floating like a balloon. Hecame.

The first time I swung and missed, he shook his head. My stomach dropped. I swung and missed the next pitch and the next. He sat down and I knew his face looked the way it did when Mom made a dinner he didn’t like.

The next time I was up to bat, he cheered for the other team.

“You’re not good enough to cheer for,” he said on the drive home.

I wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d be like my mom, who got up and yelled my name anytime I so much as appeared on the field or took a step in the direction of the ball.

But I didn’t expect him to actively cheer against me, either.

“Maybe if you didn’t half-ass it, I’d be on your side.”

“He was nervous,” Mom said, trying to intervene, but Dad shut her down. “I know what I’m doing, Delilah. Goddammit, don’t undermine me.”

I stared at the ball in my lap, turning it over and over, running my thumbs over the stitches with my throat burning.

I wouldn’t cry. That was the only thing I had left. And I didn’t. I didn’t tell Dad about my games after that. I didn’t tell him I kicked ass at the next game. I knew it wouldn’t be good enough for him. So I just promised myself I’d be the best and only the best. That failure was not an option. I didn’t know it then, but that was the genesis of my business. I’d not only not be a failure, I’d stop others from being one too.

I was failing now with Cassandra. I could picture my fucking dad on the sidelines, jeering at me as Cassandra spun around under the golden rain.

And that’s when I knew. I couldn’t stay here even if I wanted to. Even if Lila was out of the equation.

If I didn’t see Harrington Consulting’s goals through, I’d have failed, and my father would have won.

Then what would all this have been for?

“You okay?” Cass asked, slipping back into the cart.

I wanted to come back to her, but I couldn’t help the darkness that stretched over my heart, the anger at my father for tainting this memory, too.

I looked out at the rain, still falling. “You know, my dad, he always said I didn’t have what it took to make it in business.”

“What?”

“He still says that. He sends me these texts. I’m pretty sure he thinks they’re helpful, like he’s keeping me on my toes. But they’re just reminders—amplifiers—of everything I’ve ever done wrong.”

I glanced over at her. “Aren’t you going to ask why I let him do it? Why I don’t just tell him to fuck off?”

“Why would I say that?”

“It’s what I would say.”

She smiled, but her eyes were so sad. “Sometimes people are scared of where you’d be without them. So they try to bring you down. To hold you down, so deep you feel like you can’t breathe.”

I gripped her hand, working hard not to hold on too tight. I didn’t want to be the one dragging her down, too. “We should go.”