Page 29

He didn’t say anything, but he moved back, his eyes catching mine. “I know.”
I squinted, watching the emotions on his face paint a picture I wasn’t familiar with. “You know what?”
“You want me to stop.” His voice shook, so vulnerable, so. . . broken. “Do you think of me, like this right now, when no one knows where we are or what we’re doing?”
“Yes. Always.” I struggled to keep my voice even.
He swallowed, sleepy eyes and messy hair, and then pressed his lips to my forehead. “You’re enough.”
We meet a lot of matches in our lives, but there’s only one that burns brighter than the rest, and the heat blisters your skin, reminding you their mark will be forever.
Do you get it now? Why I can’t simply just walk away from someone like him? So when she says, someone like him, she doesn’t understand the meaning.
“You don’t know anything abouthim.” I defend Tiller to everyone, because he’s been there, loyal, always willing to get me through, even in the middle of the night with messy brown hair and sleepy eyes.
“Apparently you didn’t either,” she points out, her voice rising in intensity. “Or did you know all along he was her dad?”
“I see what you’re doing. Just stop.”
She’s offended. “Stop what?”
“I’ve known you my whole life and you’re not the person you want the world to see. You’ve become this cold, money-hungry bitch, but deep down, down to your bones, you’re still the same Alexandra who used to hang around the track chasing the riders just like all the other girls.”
At first, she doesn’t say anything because she knows there’s truth to my words. And then she shakes her head, disappointed, deflecting her own issues onto me. “You’re using her to get closer to him. You have this unhealthy obsession with him, and now you’re trying to trap him with River in hopes he will finally give you what you want.”
My stomach twists. She doesn’t know. She hasnoidea. Pain radiates through my jaw, having been holding back my outburst for too long. “Oh my God. . . don’t you dare! Don’t you dare accuse me of using Ava’s death as an opportunity for any type of gain in my life! I would do anything to have Ava back, and I will never forgive you for accusing me of anything less.” I don’t even know what I’m saying at this point, or if it makes sense, but the words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Your perception of me is a manifestation you’ve created, Alexandra. It has nothing to do with me and everything you’ve ever said negative about me is a reflection on you and your insecurities.” With the raising of my voice, River appears at the door of the closet. “Amble, are you mad?” she asks innocently, her voice as fragile as her heart.
Alexandra wrinkles her nose at River. “Why is she still in the same dress she was wearing a week ago?”
I look down at River. She stares at the photograph on the wall, then her dress. “Because she won’t take it off and I’m not gonna force her into anything she doesn’t want do.”
Alexandra shakes her head, continuing her sorting as if I said nothing and it meant nothing. “Well, you’re gonna have to do something soon because she’s starting to smell.” She tosses a lime green sweater at my feet. “This looks like something you’d wear. If you want to look when I’m done sorting through her clothes, be my guest, but I doubt anything in here will be your style besides that.”
Picking up the sweater, I briefly contemplate choking her with the sleeves. Ripping the clothes from her hands, I grab them in handfuls against my chest. “Go away!” I whisper. “These are River’s. You can’t take her mother’s clothes from her. In fact—” I pause, and stand up, motioning around the room. “Everything inside this house is hers and you have no right to come in here and decide what she has to get rid of, if anything.”
Clearly taken back by my sudden strength for standing up to her, Alexandra stands. “Fine, you deal with it, Amberly. Since you’re suddenly so capable of dealing with all this, you take care of it. When the house sells, and it will, you can decide where you’re going to put everything.”
And then she walks out, leaving me, River, and Kona in the closet.
River stares at me. “She’s mean.”
“Don’t I know it.” I drop the clothes on the floor, then sit on the floor.
River moves toward me, then sits on my lap and picks up the green sweater off the floor. “Mama weared this.”
I nod, kissing her temple. She really does need a bath. “She did. It always looked pretty on her, didn’t it?”
She nods and then puts it on. It hangs off her shoulders, and she adjusts it many times, but it’s when she smells it and breathes in deep that the tears sting my eyes. It’s hard to process anything when someone you love dies. There’s too much emotion, too much trauma, too much uproot. It’s the days later, weeks, when there’s no one else around and you’re left in the quiet wake of the devastation. It’s when the real pain hits. The finality that they’re never coming back.
I don’t know when, or if, it’ll hit River. Or if it already has. Maybe she’s still too young, but then she sighs and lays her head back against my shoulder. “Is Mama and Daddy gone forever?”
Unbearable pain hits my chest, like a knife twisting. “Yes, honey, they are.”
And she doesn’t say anything else.
It was time River changed out of that dress and bathed. Hours later, after we dragged ourselves from the closet floor and Ava’s clothes, I’m standing in a clothing store. River’s looking at the dresses, laces, silks, ruffles, and still wearing her mother’s green cardigan sweater over the top of her dress.
She looks up at me, frowning. “I don’t wanna change my dress. I like it.”