Page 97 of Tell Me Again
He didn’t shy away from the truth. He wouldn’t any longer. “I am, sweetie. I hope that’s ok with you because you will always be the most important thing to me. But Sam is—”
“I love her too. I know she’s not my real mom, but I want her to be in my life forever. Like we’re a real family.”
He nodded. A family. That’s what he’d wanted, but fear had paralyzed him until he was too weak to risk his heart. “I made a lot of mistakes, and I hurt her. But I swear I’m going to do whatever it takes to fix this.”
“I’ll help,” she answered immediately.
“You don’t—”
“You’re not alone, Daddy. We’re stronger together than not.”
It humbled him to hear his daughter use the same words Sam had a week earlier.
“Maybe if I talked to a reporter about my relationship with Sam—”
“No.”
“It could be a good way to get them to stop focusing on those other pictures,” she argued.
He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, tempted to turn the car around and drive right back into the woods. He could homeschool Grace, right? He could hide her away until she was old enough to...
Grace placed a hand on his arm. “You need to stop trying to protect me from everything and let me grow up a little.”
How was it possible that she’d read his mind? He glanced over at his beautiful daughter and went numb as it hit him that as much as he wanted to protect her, right now he was only thinking of himself. His need to control every aspect of his life—and Grace’s—was going to eventually hurt the one person he loved the most.
There were plenty of things in his life that had sucked, but he’d learned from every one of them. He needed to start letting Grace make sense of the world on her own terms, not his.
“I can’t stop wanting to take care of you,” he whispered. “But I know you need to learn how to take care of yourself, too.”
“I’m not going to make the same mistakes my mother did,” she answered. “I’ve got you and Sam to look out for me.”
He forced out an even breath. His daughter was still so young, but she was right. He couldn’t do this on his own. “Ok, sweetheart. Let’s get home and figure out our plan.”
Grace gave him a watery smile. “Superdad and Wonder Daughter to the rescue.”
“That was a killer, right?”
Sam jumped at the voice that spoke behind her as she hurried across campus, then pasted a smile on her face when she recognized the woman from her human behavior class.
“The final exam,” the young coed clarified. “I thought I’d studied, but now I’m terrified to get my grade.”
Better than being terrified of an assault by a paparazzo hiding in the bushes, Sam thought, but said, “The questions were definitely intense, but I’m sure you did fine.”
“Fingers crossed for both of us,” the girl answered as they crossed the street toward the dorms. “Do you have plans for the summer?”
Sam swallowed and cleared her throat. “Not really.” She pointed to the parking lot at the end of the block. “I’m headed that way.”
“See you in the fall,” the brunette said with a smile and they parted ways.
“Enjoy your summer,” Sam said and was proud her voice didn’t wobble, a discordant mix of peace and emptiness filling her at the thought of the future.
For the first time in years, she trusted that she was going to make the right choices in her life. Her mistakes were part of who she was, but they no longer defined her.
A few short weeks with Trevor and Grace had made her understand she needed to own the woman she’d become because of her past. She was finally able to see the good parts of herself that her friends had been trying to point out for years. But hope was still a fragile thing in her hands, delicate and easily broken, like a bird that had fallen from the nest too soon but was determined to survive.
She walked past a gardener planting an arrangement of colorful annuals along the path near the university’s main hall, and the ripe scent of dirt reminded her that life always held the possibility of renewal.
She’d used the initial commotion over the hotel photos as a catalyst to make changes that would have normally frightened her into inaction. The first step had been resigning from her position at Bryce Hollow. It was a big shift, moving on from the camp that she’d made successful. At the same time, it was liberating to step out from the shadow of her sister’s memory. Sam had something Bryce never would—her life. She vowed to cherish every day.
