Page 88 of Only Mine
“Miss Wrenley!” Ivy’s voice carries across the clearing, bright with joy and disbelief.
My heart stops. She’s alone, which can’t be right. I scan the trail behind her, but there’s no sign of an adult.
“Ivy?” I’m already moving toward her, my stomach clenching with worry. “Sweetie, where’s your dad? Where’s Miss Erin?”
“I runned away,” she announces, like it’s the most reasonablething in the world. “Miss Erin was being mean, and I told her I was going to the bathroom, but I went outside instead.”
Oh god. “Ivy, how did you find this trail? How long have you been walking?”
She shrugs. “I asked Mr. Marcus where you went, and he told me about maple tree paths. It wasn’t very far.”
My mind races. Saint must be frantic. The school must have called him. And here’s his five-year-old daughter, alone in the woods because she ran away from school.
“We need to call your papa right now,” I say, backtracking enough to grab my phone off the log. “He’s probably so worried?—”
“No!” Ivy wraps around my thigh with surprising strength. “Please don’t call him yet. I missed you so much, Miss Wrenley. Miss Erin doesn’t know anything. She tried to make me eat eggs with cheese, and she said my unicorn drawings were ‘unrealistic.’“
Her little face crumples, and my heart breaks all over again. I crouch down to her level, smoothing her wind-tangled hair.
“Oh, honey. I’ve missed you too. So much. But running away isn’t safe. Your papa must be terrified.”
“He doesn’t care,” she says, voice small and defeated. “He likes Miss Erin better. She talks to him about ‘devopmental milestones’ and uses big words.”
The pain in her voice guts me. I pull her into a hug, breathing in her familiar scent of strawberry shampoo and playground mulch.
“That’s not true, Ivy. Your papa loves you more than anything in the world.”
“Then why did he make you leave?”
Oh, man. How do I explain adult complications to a five-year-old? How do I tell her that sometimes people make smart choices that still can hurt everyone involved?
“It’s complicated, sweetie. Sometimes grown-ups make choices that seem right but feel wrong.”
Ivy assesses me with her little perceptive face. She’s so direct that it makes me want to avert my eyes.
“I missed you so much. Papa’s being extra grumpy, and he burned the toast three times yesterday, and he keeps staring at his phone like it might blow up.”
My chest tightens at the image of Saint struggling just as much as I am. But I push that thought away. I can’t let myself hope that his difficulty means anything beyond parental stress.
“We still need to call him,” I say gently. “He’s probably calling the police right now.”
Ivy’s bottom lip trembles. “Can’t we just stay here for a little bit? Please? I promise I’ll go back, but I haven’t seen you in forever, and Miss Erin said you probably forgot about me.”
The casual cruelty of that comment makes my teeth clank together. What kind of person tells a grieving child that someone who loves her has forgotten her?
“Ivy, listen to me.” I cup her small face in my hands. “I could never, ever forget about you. You’re one of the most important people in my whole world.”
Her expression brightens. “Really?”
“Really. But that’s exactly why we need to get you back safely. Because people who love each other don’t let each other worry.”
My pulse picks up when I find Saint’s contact, then turns into a hammer when I press the green button and put the phone to my ear.
It rings once before he answers.
“Wrenley?” he rasps. “Please tell me you’ve seen Ivy.”
“I have her,” I say quickly. “She’s safe. She’s with me.”
