Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
“Yeah, well, deal with it,” her friend muttered. “And stop deflecting.”
“I’m not. He does have a lot going on. Trying to stay out of the courts with his father; starting the foundation for his brother …”
Delaney trailed off with a shrug.
The Jacob Dalton Foundation came as a surprise to her—something Lucas didn’t mention until the paperwork had been filed, and the founding of the foundation was officially, official. Or, that was how he explained it to her. Meant to be a non-profit organization to help teenage boys and young men struggling with substance abuse, either in their lives or at home, through community support and programs that would give them teachable life skills along with mentors to guide them, it was still brand new.
At the beginning of something amazing.
Probably.
Lucas planned to sit in a chair for the foundation’s committee, but those things still had to be worked out and set up. Other people, interested and driven in helping the same group he was, needed to be found and placed on the committee as well.
Official just meant it existed.
A lot of hard work, and time, lay ahead yet.
“I don’t really know what the foundation means, yet,” Delaney said after a moment.
Gracen, who leaned her back against the far side of the doorjamb opposite to Delaney, asked back, “For you guys, you mean?”
“Yeah—so, will he be staying there now? Which I get it, I’d probably do that, too, but I can’t stop feeling bad that I …” Delaney took a deep breath, trusting that judgment wouldn’t come from Gracen when she admitted the truth. “I really just want him here with me.”
“And you haven’t said that to him.”
Delaney scoffed. “No, and I don’t plan to.”
“Because that serves you how, exactly?”
“Well, I don’t have to be the person who takes him away from doing something he feels like he has to do,” Delaney said. “To start with.”
“How do you know he can’t do that thing and be with you?”
“Gracen—”
“Delaney, you’re talking yourself in circles,” her friend interjected, although with kindness.
“Okay, so maybe I’m scared he’s gonna say no—that he doesn’t want those things, or that he doesn’t want them with me.”
“I can’t see that happening,” Gracen muttered.
“I guess if I don’t say anything, then I don’t have to find out, huh?”
“And that’s not realistic, so …”
There was that part about it, too.
“He told me things are better when he’s with me,” Delaney said, picking at her thumbnail again while she considered that afternoon in bed with Lucas three weeks earlier. “Maybe it’s just hard for me not to get scared when things around me are good and happy.”
“It takes a while to get beyond that,” Gracen said, shrugging when Delaney glanced her way. “A year after Malachi moved in, I still thought I would wake up one day and the other shoe would drop. He couldn’t be that perfect. He couldn’t love me that much. Sure, he made it easier on me by proving me wrong every chance he could, but … I think being the person you are, Delaney, who had to grow up really fast, and learn to take care of yourself because you didn’t have a lot of people to fall back on when you needed them the most taught you not to be so quick to depend on others. You look within to find what you want and need, or to make things happen for yourself, first before you go looking for someone else.”
“And?” Delaney asked.
Gracen reached over to tug supportively on the black apron Delaney wore while she worked. “And it’s okay to be afraid that you found someone who makes you want to tell them that what you really need is them. You gotta be brave enough to tell him as much, though, and trust that he’s not going to leave you in a situation where you’re doing it all alone.”
Delaney tried to blink the wetness forming in her eyes away, but no surprise, the tears remained until one finally rolled down her cheek. “So, hey …”
“Yeah?”
“Can I eat stew here with you guys, instead?”
Gracen crossed the three feet between them to hug Delaney so hard she squeezed the breath right out of her lungs. Her friend’s tiny swell, bouncing with her laughter, pushed against Delaney’s side as the hug dragged on.
“You don’t even have to ask, Delaney.”
Right.
So what if her biological family had left Delaney a broken person, who even as an adult, struggled to find stability and emotional support sometimes? Who knew self-dependence, even to her own detriment, could be a by-product of the way she’d been shunned and abandoned as a teen? The family she had made, and still was, counted for a lot where her biological one had failed.
“I am happy here,” she told Gracen. “I don’t regret this.”
She whispered it like a promise between them.