Page 20

NYLAH

Carson’s tongue. His mouth. His body… his fire…

It’s burned right through me, and my helpless, charred remains have been obsessed with the guy ever since. I mean, he was already taking over a huge chunk of my brain space, but now I’m all consumed, and Sunday feels like a million years away.

I’ve replayed every detail from Fledgling and the bike ride—and those kisses!—over and over in my mind.

I love the way he always looks so unimpressed, but I could tell he was interested in most of the stuff I was saying. He’s just putting on a big ol’ front. I’m not sure how, but he’ll open up to me eventually, right?

And he said he’d run, or hobble, a marathon with me. Holy shit! That is the sweetest thing. He made this monumental task that I’ve been mourning feel like this doable goal in my life.

The Boston Marathon.

Time to put that bitch back on my bucket list.

“What are you smiling about?” Dad asks the second he walks into the kitchen.

“Me? Nothing.” I go back to slicing carrots the way Mom asked me to.

“She’s been doing it ever since she got here,” Mom tells him.

Shit, have I?

I quickly pull my lips into line while my parents get distracted with their hugging/kissing routine, which goes on way too long if you ask me. I mean, seriously. They’re old now. They should not be pawing each other like that.

Oh gross, Dad just squeezed her ass.

I pop a carrot into my mouth and crunch through it, grateful when Eli walks into the kitchen and starts gagging. “You guys! This is a public area of the house! That’s disgusting!”

“Hey!” Mom snaps her fingers at him. “This is my kitchen, and I can do whatever I want in this domain. You don’t like it, you can walk your butt back into the dining room. And set the table while you’re in there.”

He grunts the way only a fourteen-year-old boy can and stalks out of the room.

“Ami, baby!” Mom calls up the stairs.

“Yes, Mom!” my little sister shouts back.

“Help your brother set the table.”

“But it’s not my turn!”

“Amina.” Dad’s rich voice backs Mom up, and within seconds, my ten-year-old sister is running down the stairs.

Dad blocks her way with a growl and she giggles, jumping off the last three steps in a flying leap and getting caught and spun around by her favorite person on the planet.

“Hey, Daddy.”

“How’s my girl?”

“Good!”

He puts her down and directs her toward the dining room. “Can’t wait to hear all about your day over dinner.”

“Okay.” She skips off, and I cover the carrots with water, setting them to boil on the stovetop. “What else needs doing?”

“That was it, baby. Thanks for your help.” Mom smiles at me, and I turn to make my escape. I don’t get very far, though, because Dad’s blocking my way now. But there’s no playful growl, and there will be no flying leap into his arms.

Instead, he’s staring at me like he’s trying to read my mind. “So, why so smiley?”

Like I can tell him.

His stupid rule about not dating team members is ridiculous.

Ugh. I can only imagine the fallout if he knew what I was up to with Carson. And there’s no bomb shelter in the backyard of this place. So, I play it safe and shrug.

“I guess I’m just happy. School’s going well. Life is good.”

“And your leg?”

I roll my eyes. “Is fine.”

“I notice you don’t have your cane. Again.”

“That’s because I don’t need it.”

“Nylah, the therapist said?—”

“I don’t care?—”

But our brewing argument gets cut off when Denzel walks in and asks, “What the hell happened with that hockey coach, Pop? That’s all anyone could talk about at school today. Did he get fired for kidnapping some girl?”

“How did you hear about that?” Dad crosses his arms, his eyebrows puckering into a V.

“Well, for one, I heard you and Mom talking about it last night, and second, one of the girls in my class, her older brother’s on the team, and he was saying how Coach Fisher lost his mind and took off with some kid.”

“Don’t be disrespectful of your elders. But yes… Coach Fisher has some emotional issues, and he acted?—”

“Like a total psycho,” I pitch in, still kind of reeling.

I heard about it at school this morning and couldn’t believe it. The first thing I wanted to do was find Carson and get the goss. He lives with Zander and would know all the deets, but I couldn’t exactly seek him out.

Man, it’s so weird to think we were flirting up a storm in Fledgling while poor Zander and his girlfriend were fighting to get their daughter back.

“Kids, I don’t want you talking about this in front of Amina. Can we shut this conversation down, please?” Mom bulges her eyes at us. “Yes, what happened was awful, but little Zoey is back safe with her family now, and life can return to normal. We need to focus on the positives.”

Denzel and I share a quick eye roll, then drop the discussion… and twenty minutes later, we’re sitting around the table, each taking our turns.

Unfortunately, my number came up last tonight, which is a pain in the ass, because it means when I whip through a very brief recount of how class is going well (true) and my roommate and I are getting closer (not sure if that’s actually true yet) and I’ve basically just been focusing on my studies and getting enough rest (totally not true), they don’t let that fly.

Instead, Dad quizzes me on every detail of my studies, and Mom wants to make sure I’m not missing my weekly PT appointment. She also won’t stop going on about how I’m managing the stairs at the dorm and why I should be using the elevator every single time.

My poor siblings have sat through these worries for over a year now. They must be so over it.

I share a quick glance with Denzel and Eli before giving Amina an apologetic smile and mouthing, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you saying that?” Mom points her fork at me, then looks at her youngest daughter.

My sister shrinks into her chair, and I quickly go in for a rescue.

“I’m just apologizing to her that she has to sit through this yet again.

You guys are obsessed with my health, and it’s getting really boring!

” My anger sizzles and flares. “You talk about me getting on with life and how we can’t discuss uncomfortable stuff, but you two are the worst. You just can’t let my accident go.

Yes, I nearly died. Yes, it was horrible for everybody.

But now I’m trying to move on, and you two are the ones who keep treating me like some kind of crippled invalid! ”

“It’s not…” Mom shakes her head with a sigh, looking at Dad for support.

“We just want you to be careful.” His voice is a soft rumble, but I still bristle at his warning.

“What’s the point of surviving if you won’t let me live?”

“We want you to live!” Dad gives me a desperate frown.

“That’s the whole point. We can’t lose you, Nylah.

” His voice cracks, and I can tell he’s reliving that awful moment when he answered the phone and found out that his daughter hadn’t made it home the way she was supposed to. Instead, she was missing.

The torture he must have gone through that night as he tried to get back to Kelsey… only to discover that I was trapped down an embankment in a crumpled car and barely breathing.

They had to resuscitate me on the way to the hospital, and when my parents finally made it, I was already in surgery.

My body was a broken wreck, and they spent that summer sitting by my bedside in the ICU while I battled an infection, then had to go in for another surgery. It took weeks before I finally made it home, and then it was a slow journey back to my feet. And they were with me every step of the way.

My siblings had to put up with me being front and center of every decision.

And I am over it.

“I get that it was a really hard time, Dad. I get it. You love us, and you don’t want to lose any of us.

” I swallow. “But I’m here, okay? I’m attending a college nearby so we don’t have this distance between us anymore.

I’m going to classes. I’m doing my exercises.

And all I’m asking in return is that you trust me to live .

And if that means going to a party or going on a date, or doing something that you think I’m not ready for…

well, you’re just gonna have to deal with it. ”

There’s a long, uncomfortable pause as my family all exchange worried glances, and then Mom goes and ruins my epic speech with a concerned frown. “Are you going to a party? Which one?”

“Ugh! Mom!”

“What? I’m just trying to be interested.”

I give her a skeptical frown, but she hides her disquiet behind a fake smile and forces me to tell her that the Sigma Beta Mu sorority is throwing a party, and because I sit next to one of them in my anthropology class, I’m invited to go.

“Well, that’s sounds… lovely.” Mom looks at Dad, giving him a silent warning.

He clears his throat and eventually nods. “Yeah. Great. Just remember that you’re only nineteen, so?—”

“Nearly twenty,” I interrupt.

He points his fork at me. “So no drinking, and make sure you’re armed with pepper spray. The one I gave you hasn’t expired, right?”

“No,” I mutter.

“And also make sure you’ve got a way of getting there and back to the dorm safely. In fact, what night is it? I can be your ride if you like. There’s no game the weekend after next. I’m free to be your personal Uber.”

Denzel snorts, laughing and pointing at me while I pick up the last of my bread roll and throw it at my father.

“If you even dare to show your face at that party, I will never speak to you again.” I laugh as the bread roll bounces off his forehead, then lands on the floor.

Mom, of course, tells me off for throwing food while Amina starts to giggle and Eli hassles Dad.

“Nice reflexes, old man.”

“Harrison, if you throw that bread roll at your son, you’re on kitchen duty for the rest of the month,” Mom warns her husband with a stern look before clicking her fingers at each of us. “Eat your food. All of you.”

“Nylah didn’t get kitchen duty threats,” Dad grumbles as he drops the offending roll next to his plate, then picks up his fork and winks at me.

Mom laughs and shakes her head. “She’s gonna be too busy. She’s got classes and parties to go to.”

I flash my mother a grateful smile, which Dad kills when he murmurs, “It’s just one party, though, right?”

Shaking my head, I refuse to answer him, stabbing my carrots with my fork and forcing another mouthful down.

If only he knew what else I’ve been up to.

I think kitchen duties and flying bread rolls would be the least of my worries if he found out I was making out with Carson McAvoy on his motorcycle just a couple nights ago.

My lips fight a grin, which I quickly hide by stuffing another forkful of carrots into my mouth.