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My mom throws the pillow out of her lap and gets to her feet just to squat down in front of me and grab my hands.

“You and I both have a lot to learn, but if I can learn to get better, you can learn to do this. You have such a big heart, Kenzie. I know I’ve hurt you. I know I haven’t been there the way I should, but don’t let anything that’s happened with me, or your father, or Chris, or anyone else take that beautiful heart away from you.”

She’s about to cry too. She stares up at me with shining eyes and shakes my hands when I can’t answer. “You hear me, Zee-zee?”

I bob my head in a nod, and the corners of her mouth lift a little.

“Good. Something tells me this girl of yours sees your beautiful heart too, so how about you trust me to help you figure out what to do about that?”

“I...”

A dozen protests rear up in my mind, but I stop myself before I can give any of them a voice. It feels strange and scary and totally beyond my control, but I do what she says and keep my heart open.

“Okay.” I stroke my thumbs over hers. “That sounds really nice.”

CHAPTER 24

MOIRA

I look up from the map directions on my phone and spot the sign of the cafe I’m searching for jutting out above the crowded downtown sidewalk. This street runs along the edge of the Byward Market, and on a late April day with clear skies and a warm breeze that hints at summer, the whole area is crawling with tourists and locals alike.

I stop walking just outside the cafe. The wide front window has the place’s name etched on it in cracked gold letters and frames a long high-top table filled with customers sitting to chat or hunch over in their chairs to read from Kindles and newspapers. Artificial vines are draped in loops along the ceiling, and the overhead lights give off a soft glow.

It looks adorable in there. It also looks very, very busy. It wouldn’t have been my choice location to have this conversation, but then again, I wasn’t sure Kenzie and I would ever have another conversation at all.

I shift over to the inner edge of the sidewalk so I won’t be in anyone’s way and swipe away from the map on my screen to check my texts. I know I don’t have any; my notifications are empty, but I scroll through my conversations just to give me something to focus on while my heart starts pounding like a wild animal in my chest.

It’s been eight days since I stood onstage and won the scholarship—eight days since I watched Kenzie look me in the face and tell me she couldn’t trust me before she refused to look at me again.

I can still hear my footsteps echoing in the stairwell as I walked away from her, my whole body strained to catch some shout or whisper or even a quiet breath that would tell me she wanted me to come back, but there was nothing.

So I left, and for almost a week, I didn’t hear anything from her. I didn’t say anything to her. I looked at myself in the mirror after I’d cried over her on my floor again and said, ‘It’s over, Moira. It’s done.’

I acted like it was over. I spent hours poring over textbooks and pouring my heart into the studio. I kept my schedule packed from dawn to dusk. I powered through the rest of my university exams, and despite everything going on, I’m pretty sure I aced them.

During the day, I was an organized, focused, and confident version of me.

At night, I thought about her.

I thought about her running around a church kitchen, laughing and shrieking with a hose nozzle clutched in her hands. I thought about her dancing to Nickelback in my hallway. I thought about her kissing me in her Crocs against a row of lockers. I thought about her lying naked next to me on a pile of blankets in my favourite room in the world.

I thought about the pain on her face when she sat hunched and shaking in that stairwell.

I put some of that pain there. I put what I wanted ahead of what she was okay with. It was only for a moment, but it was enough.

Still, she hurt me too. She shut me out. She walked away. She gave up, even before I screwed up and said what I did onstage. She didn’t arrive at the competition to make things right.

She just came to let me go for good.

I lean against the strip of bricks between the cafe’s window and door, forcing myself to take a deep breath. I have an apology to make today, but so does Kenzie. I’m not going to be the girl who questions her own worth anymore.

I might have it wrong, but the choked emotion in Kenzie’s voice when she left me a voice message three days ago to ask if we could meet up to talk reached straight into my heart and told me she knows she needs to change too.

When I check my phone again, I find a few texts to keep me busy. They’re from a couple of the moms helping with my plan today.

Kenzie picked this cafe, but if things go well here, I have something to show her too.

A nervous flutter fills my chest as I type out a reply to say we’re right on schedule. If this all goes according to plan, this will be one of the greatest days of my life. If not, I’ll have wasted many people’s time and be absolutely devastated all over again.