Page 99 of Stay for Me
“Look, Jacob!”
I clap him on the back and help pull it onto the bank. “This is a gorgeous fish.”
“He sure is. Mom is going to cry when she sees it.”
“Cry?”
He grins. “Or puke.”
I laugh because either is just as likely to happen. “You ready to head back?”
He nods, and we pack up.
As we’re walking, he seems very in his own head. “Today’s practice sucked,” Sebastian says as he adjusts his gear.
“Yeah, it did.”
Rehearsals were brutal. The kids were getting stuck on this same song over and over again, and I think by the sixteenth run-through, we were all ready to scream. No one wanted to run through it another time, but we did, and it still wasn’t right.
“Why is that song so hard?”
Because you’re all a bunch of kids with a dipshit as a director.
“It’s a tough number with a lot of characters moving around. We’ll get it. You guys are working hard.” And they are. They suck, but they’re trying.
“Yeah, but the play is in three weeks.”
If this play and my involvement ever gets out, I’ll be a laughing stock. There’s very little chance we’re going to improve these kids that much by opening night, but even if it’s the worst play in the world, I’ve had fun doing it. I get to see Brenna almost daily. Sebastian has been a lot of fun to work with, and it’s great to see people so excited.
“We’ll be fine.”
“I sure hope so.”
He sounds like a little old man. “You know, even the worst performances have something good come from them.”
Sebastian looks at me with a smile. “I think that’s the same with bad things.”
“Like what?”
“Like my dad dying.”
My stomach drops, and I clear my throat. “What good came from that?”
I can’t imagine that any of us could’ve found something positive about losing our mother. We were stuck with an abusive father and hated that no one ever helped us.
Not that we were openly talking about the hell we lived. Declan and Sean always made sure we knew the rules. If we talked, we could be split up, and that was a reality none of us would ever accept.
“I met you.”
I stop walking, feeling off balance and unsure of what to say. “I’m glad I met you too.”
“It’s like the only good thing that came from it all. Mom says we have to find the good, and that’s really all I got.”
“Maybe, but . . .”
Sebastian continues on. “And then my mom wouldn’t have met you, and she wouldn’t be smiling so much.”
Shit. This isn’t really ground I want to be on. “Sebastian.”
