Page 49 of Library or Lattes?

“What’s up?” I examined some burnt meat and nibbled from the other side.

“Well. You know Jo …?” Pop said, then cleared his throat.

“Yeah. I’ve heard a lot about her recently …”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this for a while. I don’t find this sort of thing simple. Well, look … We’ve been seeing each other for a while now.”

My heart broke.

Not because I didn’t want Pop to have a girlfriend. I had never thought that Pop should stay single forever to honor Mom’s memory … It wasn’t that at all.

I was feeling sick with guilt when I hadn’t told him right away about some email, and here he was, hiding a whole relationship?

I pushed my plate away, no longer hungry. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t think it was serious …”

“But it is?”

“Maybe.” Pop looked at me apologetically, but anger rose in my chest.

“You still need to tell me things, you know. Even if it’s not serious, it affects my life too. Keeping secrets just makes me feel alone, Pop. I hate secrets. I hate them.”

James had secrets too. About April, about why he came back, about what he actually thought of me. Sara’s secret had gotten me into huge trouble I might not be able to fix. Everyone had these stupid walls up except for me, yet I was getting shut out by all of them.

I stood up and pushed my chair back. I hadn’t done anything about that email and the letters because I wanted to stay close to him. And here he was, leaving me in his own way?

“I didn’t want to disrupt your life,” Pop said, his eyes pleading.

“Well, it’s too late for that,” I sniffed. It was also too late to hold back tears, because they were streaming thick and fast down my cheeks.

“Last night, you said you were coming to Harvest Festival. You said you were coming …” My face crumpled again and I felt like a child.

“Willa, sweetheart, I meant to come, but Jo … we stayed in to have dinner, I didn’t realize. I thought you’d be busy with the stall and your friends …” Pop’s words were coming out fast. Panicked.

“I was ignoring the attorney stuff because I didn’t want to leave you right now. I thought, I don’t know, I thought we were on the same page.” I barely got the words out through the tears.

“Willa—”

But I’d grabbed my coat and slammed out the front door before I could hear whatever it was he was going to say.

7 Library

I LET IT ALL OUT. A full, uncensored rant about everything that had happened. And even though the problems were still there, something felt lighter. And when I’d finally calmed down, we sat in our usual seats. Theo shifted uncomfortably in his and cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” I said, my voice still thick from crying. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine, Doc, fine.” He moved a sketchbook away from him, then pushed his glasses up his nose. “Do you want to talk it through?”

I shook my head. Talking about Pop and Lennie would just make me cry all over again.

He picked up a pencil and tapped it on the table.

“Okay, something else, then. What about your essay? Any more thoughts about what you want to say?” he asked.

“Not really,” I admitted sadly. The essay hadn’t even crossed my mind today.

He nodded at his sketchbook. “Well then, want to see what I’m working on instead?”