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Even just hearing her name said makes my heart feel like it’s cracking in new places. I can’t handle that she exists, she’s real, and she’s out there somewhere and I’ll never know whereever again.I’ll be on the outside, wondering forever. I’ll keep getting painfully small glimpses until her lease is up, and then I won’t even have that anymore.

Hard to say which one is worse, but I’ll find out.

“Yeah.”

“She was the one playing the music, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s hard to see how that turned into this,” my mom says.

I lean my head on her shoulder, sniffling hard.

“It’s so complicated.” My voice cracks on the last word, but I focus on breathing instead of crying.

Then I find the strength to tell her the story. It sounds so small when it’s put into words, but I try to emphasize that it was so much bigger than just a few hookups. It felt like so much more than a few weeks.

“I get that,” she says. “I’ve been there.”

I almost ask her if it was my dad she’s been there with, but it would hurt me to hear any other possible answer.

I only want to hear the version where it’s fully possible that I could end up with someone like her. That thisotherworldlypull we have to each other is for a reason. I’ve had enough lessons. I don’t want this to be one.

I’m sobbing all over again, I’ve been doing it so much lately. It’s starting to feel like my new normal. Autumn would be appalled.

Autumn. I wish I could talk to her like I’m talking to my mom. I wish I had the guts to confess everything, and feel positive that she would understand. That I could run to Kara with solid proof that everything is okay.

But I can’t. And it’s not.

27

Dahlia and I are driving home from school. She takes the bus most of the time, because I’m typically off work between the time they get on the bus, and the time she gets home. With all the stops, it takes about a half hour for her to get there, so I always beat her to the drop off spot across the street.

But today was a shockingly smooth one, and I decided to leave early. They didn’t need me there, and I didn’t need to be there. I haven’t been much help as it is in my current state. I have enough energy to be present for my baby girl, and that’s it.

“We can’t hold them anymore because they’re too fast. Jackson was holding the little one yesterday, and it ran out of his handsso fast! Mrs. Sky had to find it, and it took herforever. She was not happy.”

“I don’t blame her,” I respond. “I’d be pretty grumpy if I had to go chasing down a lizard.”

She laughs at that.

“Yeah, maybe I’d be grumpy too.”

I glance in the rearview mirror to see her attention go out her window, and to the houses we pass. Sometimes I wonder if it bothers her that we don’t have a house. She’s never commented on the fact, or even said much about her dad’s place when he got it. I know it’s not a competition between him and I, but sometimes I still feel like I’m losing.

Until the moments when she jumps into my arms with all the excitement in the world, and I’m reminded that it’s all that really matters. We have a good thing going, my daughter and I. I hope when she grows up, that’s the part she remembers. Not that he had a bigger bedroom to give her.

“Is that Kara?”

My heart stops at that name.

“What do you mean, honey?”

But before she answers, I see her. It’s pouring down rain, and windy to top it all off, and she’s just walking on the side of the road. There isn’t even a sidewalk here, her small frame in dark clothing could be easy to miss. She could easily get hurt.

What is she doing?

I know she won’t be happy to see me. I know I’m heading into battle, and it won’t be easy to convince her to get in.