Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
“What even happened?” she asked.
I gave that question some thought. I’d wondered the same thing for a while. I thought I did everything right, treated her well, took care of her, showed her new things . . . but she still left.
The truth hit me on my drive home from the lake, and I realized her departure had nothing to do with me. This was a war Davina had going on within herself, and it was clear she wasn’t winning it. Knowing that still didn’t make it hurt any less.
“She was too afraid to let me in,” I finally answered, meeting my sister’s eyes. “She wasn’t ready.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
DAVINA
“What’s the matter, Vina?” My brother, Abe, pulled out of my arms and focused on my ear.
I smiled as I capped his shoulders in the parking lot. I’d decided to pick my sixteen-year-old brother up myself while Mama ran to the store to get a few groceries and Octavia showered.
“Why would something be wrong, Abraham?”
He squinted like the sun was directly in his eyes, then cut a glance at me before looking elsewhere. “Your face is puffy, and your eyes are red like you’ve been crying.”
“I might’ve been,” I told him, releasing his shoulders and walking to my car. He followed along, tucking a thumb beneath the strap of his backpack.
“You cry a lot,” he said when we were seated on the leather. “But Lewis died and you loved him, so I get it.”
“Yep.” I started the car with a reluctant nod. “That’s right. He died.” No one could be as blunt as my baby brother, and I mean that literally. If he had a thought, he said it. He’d been diagnosed with Asperger’s when he was six.
We always knew he was different from the other kids. He didn’t learn to speak in clear sentences until he was seven, he hated going out in public because it was often too loud for him, and he didn’t like being touched a certain way.
He would cry a lot when he was a toddler. He’d outgrown the crying but was still sensitive to a lot of noise. Mama had him going to classes with a woman in town named Patricia, who homeschooled him in her house. It worked for him, plus he got along great with Patricia’s teenage son. He was also in therapy, which helped a lot.
“You still hate donuts?” I asked, reaching between his feet for the pink bakery box.
“Yes,” he said, peering out the window.
I huffed a laugh. “More for me.”
Abe was quiet. He was always quiet, but I hadn’t seen him in so long and wanted to make conversation. The one thing I could think of was something I didn’t want to bring up, but I went with it just to hear Abe’s voice again.
“You know I worked with an NBA player for my company?”
At that, my brother whipped his head to look in my direction. Like a fish on a hook. “What team does he play for?”
“The Atlanta Ravens.”
“Is it Javier Valdez? He’s a really good center. He has long arms. And I also hear that he’s a nice guy even though people think he’s mean because his wife died.”
“Well, I have met Javier Valdez, and he’s pretty cool, but it’s not him I’m talking about.”
Abe’s eyes stretched, and for a split second he looked me in the eye. He pulled away just as quickly to stare at his lap, hold his hands out, and say, “Is it Deke Bishop?”
“Ding ding ding!”
Abe’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile as he kept staring at his lap. “He’s really cool. I check his stats all the time. I want to play like him, but he has much better control of the ball than me. Did you know Mama put me in basketball camp again? Yeah, it’s for teens like me. It starts around the time school starts, and I think it’s for three hours a day. But I watch so many of Deke Bishop’s videos and highlights. He’s such a beast. I wish I could play like him. Did you know he’s had the most assists on the team since . . .”
My brother was on a tangent now, and I loved it. He only talked nonstop about the things he loved, and what he loved most was basketball and math. He’d been a lover of basketball since he was a kid. As far as math goes, you’d never catch me talking about it during casual conversations.
We made it back home, and Abe was still talking about Deke and the Atlanta Ravens, even when Mama greeted him with a peck on the cheek.
“Sorry.” I laughed. “I got him going.”
She gave him a kiss on the forehead, when he sat at the table, and placed an already-prepared grilled cheese down for him. “Go ahead and eat, Abe. Then I want you to shower and put on your comfortable clothes.”