Page 72 of Challenge Me

“For what? You never did anything wrong.”

She sniffled and squeezed my hand. “This entire time, ever since you first brought up the divorce, I’ve refused to accept it. I thought you needed time, that if I just waited and gave you your space, you’d come back to me.”

“Avery . . .”

“No, this is a good thing, because you told me it wasn’t anything I did, but I could never believe that. Now, I can accept it. I won’t lie and say that I’m not still in love with you. That feels unfair, but it’s the truth. At least I can work toward the future, though.”

“There’s always going to be a part of me that loves you,” I said.

Swiping her fingers beneath her eyes, she smiled. “I like Remi, you know.”

“You do?”

“He’s . . . different, but he’s genuine. There’s something inside him that I think will be good for you.”

“Yeah,” I agreed quietly. “I think so too.”

“I have a feeling it’ll bring out a part of you we’ve both lost somewhere along the way.”

“What part did we lose?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I think we’ll both find it again, just not with each other. And that’s okay.”

I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. It was freeing in its own way, and just like that, one of the things that had been weighing me down drifted away.

Chapter 19

Remi

A bridge of silence, wide and still;

I toss my words, they sink at will.

My patience hums, a quiet art,

To learn the language of a guarded heart.

I’ve bargained with gods for lesser quests,

But never one so strange as this—

A child’s trust, sealed tight as fate,

Won’t open just because I wait.

After the door closed behind Amir, I shifted my weight back and forth. Making pancakes wasn’t a stimulating enough activity when the place was eerily quiet, especially considering there was a child having a bit of a meltdown on the couch.

Why was she having a meltdown? Over math? I mean, I could sympathize to a degree.

I set everything down and went over to the island, then I spun the paper toward me and read the problems. It would be a lot neater if she used a pencil, considering there were so many scratch-outs that it was difficult to follow what was going on.

Tapping the pen on the counter, I hummed. She seemed to mix up the order of things often, but judging by how far she took the problems, she didn’t realize until she’d spent a lot of time on it. I could see how that would piss her off. There were some other ways it went wrong, like mixing up her twos and fives, but that was the biggest one.

Glancing over at the couch, I found her peering over the top of it. Once I met her eyes, she dropped down again, hiding herself away.

I grabbed the paper and quickly swiped some things from my bag in the room, then walked over to the couch and looked over it. She was lying on her back, rotating her head from right to left rhythmically. When she noticed me, she turned onto her side and rocked a little.

“Math sucks, huh?”