Page 13 of Always a Chance
I found a movie, hit play, and pulled the tray onto our laps.
We watched the movie as we ate every bite. When I set the tray aside, Gianna leaned her head on my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I rested my head against hers. “Me too, kiddo.”
She didn’t fight the term as she would have when she was fifteen, before everything happened. I smoothed her hair back and settled into the pillows.
“I think you’d like my new friend, Johnny.” She yawned.
“Yeah?” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d known Johnny my entire life, that it was yet another thing she couldn’t recall.
She nodded against me. “He’s the best. He comes to see me a lot.”
“What do you two do?”
“Play games, sometimes. Cards. I like go fish. If it’s nice, we go outside or to the beach. The beach is amazing. Have you been?”
“I have.” I smiled. “There’s no place like it.” Though, it had been a long time. The beach was just a reminder of what I’d let happen to my sister, how I’d failed her.
She gave a tired sigh. “I think you and Johnny could be the best of friends.”
“Is that so?” I couldn’t help myself. “Why?”
Her eyelids fluttered closed. “Because—” She paused, a sleepy smile on her lips. “You’re my best people. Why wouldn’t you love each other if I love you?”
Her voice faded as she drifted into sleep, her breath evening out.
On the screen, a prince ran through the streets of a small town, trying to find the woman he loved to prove he could be what she needed. He searched for his own happily ever after kissy scene just like two little girls would have loved many years ago.
For them, the past was something to overcome, an obstacle on the way to what they truly desired.
For me… it was different. The past was an intangible concept, a rainbow I grasped at and never truly held. A trick of the light.
Everything broke so completely, and it made me wonder if we’d ever truly been whole.
No, it wasn’t the past standing in my way. All those old feelings of anger and regret were very much still alive in the present, clouding the future. No point in time could be separated from any other. They were like building blocks. Pull one loose and the rest came crumbling down.
And I was so tired of crumbling.
8
TALIA
We were living in a nightmare, one created by my own sister. That was dramatic, but she was the one who insisted we celebrate her birthday with dinner out… together. As in all the people she cared most about.
It was her birthday, and honestly, I’d do anything for her, but it didn’t lessen the anticipation as I sat in the formal dining room of the Beach Club—crystal chandelier overhead and goblet of wine in my hand—waiting for the last invitee to arrive.
The moment Gianna woke at the end of the movie this morning—I couldn’t remember a movie she didn’t fall asleep during—Dad asked her where she wanted to go. We weren’t exactly Beach Club people with their expensive clothes and sixty-dollar steaks. Emma’s Diner was more our speed. But just like me, my dad couldn’t deny Gianna anything when she seemed so excited.
And then, she called him.
The man in question strolled into the room as if he belonged here. As kids, we made fun of the townies who frequented the fancy members-only club. The restaurant was the only part of the building they let the riffraff in. Riffraff meaning us.
Yet, the man strolling between tables, smiling at those seated around them with all the charm I could never master, couldn’t possibly be out of place anywhere. Not like me.
My eyes tracked him as he wound through the dining room, sidestepping a waiter carrying a tray laden with glasses of water. That smile… it spread across his lips as he said something to the waiter and nodded.
“He’s so handsome.” Gianna gave me a pointed look from her place across the square table.
