Chapter 30. The Deal With Dad

Wyatt’s POV

She said nothing.

She looked me dead in the eye at center ice, and said, “Nothing. The lights. They buzz,” and skated off toward the bench, wobbling, with her heart going a hundred and forty.

She wasn’t lying, exactly. She wasn’t telling the truth either. I know the difference now. I’ve been listening to her heart for three weeks.

I drove her home. She did her executive summary in the passenger seat with her laptop on her knees and didn’t look up once. When she got out, she said, “Thank you. For the skates. For everything.” And she meant it. And she went inside without letting me walk her up.

I sat in the car outside her building for twenty minutes afterward.

Her mother used to give her this medicine to help her sleep. She’d put it on a spoon. It was bitter. It made everything go soft.

And her mother told her to be careful with those Pendant people.

My mother had a word for that bitter thing on a spoon. She us