“Yep.” I shoot her a grin when she turns her head to look back at me. “You could say it’s a spot for lovers.”
“You could say literally anything else,” she quips.
I chuckle at that, giving her another push. “I used to push Dee just like this,” I explain. “She’d always yell at me to go higher.”
“Was it hard? Being here?”
I consider that. “I guess we were lucky in a lot of ways. We had someone trying to fight for custody of us. Not everyone here could say the same.”
“I’m not asking if you were lucky,” she says. “I’m asking how it felt being here.”
I almost smile. There’s my little shrink.
“It was hard,” I admit. “Dee was so small when it happened, and neither of us knew what was going to happen to us. I never knew what I was doing half the time. I just knew I had to make sure that Dee didn’t feel too sad.”
“You took care of her,” she comments, not like a question, but like a fact.
I nod, even though she can’t see me. “I did. Or at least, the best that I could as a twelve-year-old.”
“Do you still feel like you should be taking care of her?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just…” She turns her head to look back at me, and I’m momentarily stunned by the way the thin sunlight streaming through the trees above makes her eyes sparkle. “I saw the way you looked when she announced everything back there. You looked…I don’t know. A little lost.”
I stop pushing her, my fingers resting gently against her back as I consider. “It’s strange. My entire life I’ve always felt like I have to be one way. Like I have to be the happy one so that Dee never has to bear any sort of burden. I guess I started doing it when our parents died, and ever since…Well. It’s a habit that’s hard tobreak. Now that she’s with Ian…It’s just odd. Her not needing me anymore.”
“She’ll always need you,” Abby says quietly.
“Maybe,” I say, giving her another push as my throat starts to feel thick. “Tell me about what happened back there.”
“Always changing the subject,” she says with a quiet laugh.
“I’m just worried about you.”
She bites her lip as she looks forward again, shrugging. “I don’t know what he wants from me. I don’t know what he thinks thatIcan do for him. But whatever it is, he seems adamant on getting it.”
“He’s just an asshole,” I remind her. “You don’t have to listen to him.”
“I know that,” she answers softly. “I’m trying not to.” She squirms a little. “I still can’t believe Lila and Ian are engaged.”
“Now who’s changing the subject?”
“Do you want to be the pot or the kettle?”
I laugh, then I grimace. “Ugh. They’re probably doing unspeakable things to each other right now.”
“You know, you don’talwayshave to dwell on their sex life.”
“Trust me, I really wish that were true.”
She’s quiet for several moments as I push her gently back and forth. When she speaks again, she’s quieter than before. “What do you think they’d say if they knew about us?”
“Ah, there’s thatusagain,” I tease. “You’re obsessed with me.”
She tries to jab an elbow back at me, narrowly missing my stomach. “It’s like you want me to hurt you.”
“I can handle a little pain,” I say with a laugh.