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“But the internship doesn’t start for another two weeks. Why do I need to—”

She cuts me off with a sigh. “Andrea, it’s time to stop playing games. We agreed on a gap year, and that year is up. You need to come home and get prepared to start this position, if it’s still something you want.”

Most people would miss it, but I hear the slight falter in her voice before she tacks that last part on. There’s an echoing tremor somewhere deep in my chest as I listen to her breathing fill the silence.

If I give up on this internship, I’ll be giving up on her. I’ll be giving up on everything she’s built for us, just like my dad did when he refused to fight for our family.

“Mom…”

My voice cracks, and I have to stop and clear my throat. The birds are singing again, and as I listen to the music filling the air, I consider telling her everything: how this city makes me feel like I can breathe after years of suffocating in Toronto, how sick to my stomach I feel when I imagine walking through the doors at the company headquarters, how I still have no idea what I want my life to look like but can’t shake the feeling that it involves Naomi Waters twirling around in a blue summer dress.

I grip the phone extra tight as the lump in my throat threatens to choke me.

I can’t tell her any of that, even though the words are swarming inside me like a flock of birds desperate to escape my body and sing their song for the sun. I can’t tell her because I know it wouldn’t be good enough. I wouldn’t be good enough.

I don’t have some wildly ambitious dream or shiny business plan to present her with. I don’t have the goals and checklists she already had on lock at my age. I just have this split-second flash in the corner of my vision every once in a while, like a frantic wave from the universe as it begs me to turn my head and look at the mysterious something it’s holding out to me.

Even I know how crazy that sounds. She doesn’t need to tell me that’s not a good enough reason to turn down the career she’s offering on a silver platter.

“Look, Andrea, I know it’s scary.”

The sudden tenderness in her voice almost makes me drop my phone.

“You’re probably feeling exactly how I felt when I opened my first studio. I was so afraid I almost wanted to shut the whole thing down before the first class.”

Something cracks deep in my chest as I mumble, “You were scared?”

“Terrified,” she answers, “but deep down, I knew what I wanted, and no amount of fear could take that away. I know you’re scared now, but ever since you were a little girl, you’ve been telling me taking this business on someday has been your dream too. You have no idea how proud that makes me, and I know if you just come back home to Toronto, you’re going to remember who you are and what you want.”

My knees knock together where I’ve pulled them up to my chest, and I realize I’m trembling.

She’s never told me she was scared. Some naïve part of me really believed she’d never been scared in her entire life.

I shut my eyes and picture it again, the same scene I’ve been playing in my head like a movie for years: me in a pantsuit just like the ones she wears, the two of us walking side by side up the steps to Valerie Madden Studios HQ while clutching matching water bottles.

I wait for that moment she described to hit me, the one where the fear melts away and the sense of being exactly where you’re supposed to be takes over.

I’m still waiting when she says, “Just be ready for the flight, okay?”

The vulnerability in her voice is gone, and she’s back to sounding like the no-nonsense business woman who raised me. She says goodbye and hangs up a moment later, but I’m still waiting for that moment when everything will make sense.

I stay out on the deck for so long the birds stop singing and my arms and legs get puckered with mosquito bites, but I just sit there waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Just when I’m about to give up, the kitchen door slides open, and Naomi steps out onto the deck.

CHAPTER 18

Naomi

Ihead straight for the sliding door as soon as I spot Andrea out on the deck, but instead of pulling on the handle, I pause for a few seconds to watch her. She’s got her back to me, thick layers of purple-tinged hair spilling down the back of her loose white tank top and nearly brushing the waist of her denim shorts. Her guitar is sitting on the deck beside her, the glossy wood reflecting the last streaks of pink left in the twilight sky.

She’s sitting still enough to deserve her own pedestal among the other sculptures dotting the lawn. As the seconds tick by and all she does is keep staring across the yard, I realize how much smaller she looks when she’s not moving.

She’s pretty much always moving. She swept me up like a tidal wave the moment I met her, and she’s been crashing through my life ever since. She’s as breathtaking as a stormy sea doing battle with the shore, but that’s not what has me falling for her.