Page 39 of What Maple Heard

“Can you forgive his mistakes? The way you forgave mine?” River asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I genuinely don’t know, River.”

He nodded again. Still not looking at me.

“I really liked him,” he said. “Like, from the very first time. You wouldn’t know that, because I gave him a hard time at the beginning, but that was just because—“ He shrugged. “You know. I didn’t want some guy coming in and pretending.” He handed me another plate. “But he didn’t pretend. That’s the thing. He wasn’t faking it.”

“He made you happy,” River continued. He looked back at the sink. “I saw it. Every time he came around, you were — I don’t know. Different. The good kind of different.” He was quiet for a second.

“And I want you to be happy, Maple.”

I didn’t say anything.

River’s voice cracked slightly. “You’re always making sure I’m happy. Now it’s my turn.”

He scrubbed at a pot that didn’t need that much scrubbing.

The kitchen was very quiet.

“I liked you both together,” he said. Quietly. A little sadly. “I just — I liked it.”

I put the dish down.

I put my arm around his shoulders and pulled him sideways into me, this fourteen-year-old who was already taller than I remembered and still the same four-year-old I carried onto a bus in the dark.

“When did you get so wise?” I said.

“I’ve always been wise,” he said into my shoulder. “You just don’t notice because I’m also an idiot sometimes.”

I laughed even as I felt a weird tug in the back of my throat. Before I could stop it, a tear rolled down my left eye. River reached out and brushed it with the back of his hand.

We stood in the kitchen like that for a minute. Then he straightened up and went back to the pot.

“I’m just saying,” he said, scrubbing again. “Think about it.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

***

Chapter 12

Cade

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I knew pressing the elevator key four times wouldn’t make the elevator arrive faster, but I couldn’t help myself. Kyle’s office was on the nineteenth floor, and to add insult to injury, I had exactly fifteen minutes to drop the legal papers for his attorney, pick him up, and get us back to my office for the board meeting.

We both had worked late the night before on his business plan which we were to present to the board, and between hanging from the ceiling in a tutu in the mornings and advising a fourteen year old on the proportions needed to paint a mural in the evenings, I had enough hours during the day to keep the business running. Just smooth enough to not raise any eyebrows.

I was only getting a few hours of sleep each night, but I was happy.

At the end of day, I was driving home, eager to do it all again the next day. Not because it was easy. Because at the end of it, somewhere in all of that, I was making Maple’s life a little lighter. I was watching River take his anger and pour it into something on a wall that was becoming, honestly, one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen built by a fourteen-year-old who didn’t know yet how talented he was.

That was worth every squeezing inch of the leotard.

The elevator doors opened on nineteen and I nodded at Jenny, Kyle’s secretary, who was on the phone but waved at me with her free hand.

“Mr. Sonnenberg,” she said, covering the receiver. “He’s in his office.”