Let It Be Me by Becky Wade (top young adult novels .TXT) 📕

It accepts as logic several illogical conclusions. That women need a man. That women expire at a certain age. That—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I haven’t dated because I haven’t met a man I wanted to date.”

“Well.” Dylan angled his chin toward where Sebastian had disappeared from sight. “Now you have.”

You have a crush on her, don’t you?” Markie asked Sebastian an hour later. “The woman who visited you today?”

He accepted the coffee he’d ordered from the barista at the coffee shop a half block down from the hospital. Slowly, he faced Markie. It might be coincidence that she’d made a coffee run at the same time he did. It was far more likely that she’d followed him here like a bloodhound trailing the scent of new gossip.

“That’s none of your business,” he answered.

“So you do have a crush on her. How’d you two meet?”

“No comment.”

“How long have you known her?”

“I draw the line at sharing her with you,” Ben had told him. “No comment.” He pushed through the door onto the sunny, busy city sidewalk.

Leah. Impossibly beautiful. Completely off-limits. He hadn’t had enough time to talk with her, look at her, memorize her presence before he’d been called away. And now she was gone.

He’d have liked to spend the rest of the day hitting a punching bag, but he had work to do. Which meant no vent for the grief and anger and desire twisting within.

Markie caught up to him, moving quickly to keep pace. “She told me that she doesn’t do romance. What in the world does that mean?”

“She’s not interested in falling in love.”

“Everyone’s interested in falling in love!”

“Not her.”

“But—but I could read her like a book. She does like you, Dr. Grant.”

“She’s never said so.”

“Maybe she hasn’t admitted it to herself. In time, she will. Don’t give up.”

“I wish I could give up.”

“Why?”

“Because even if she is interested in me, I can’t be with her. Ben loves her.”

Markie gaped at him, fell back, then rushed up to him again. “Does she love Ben?”

“No.”

“Well. Has anyone had the sense to ask her how she feels about you?”

“No.”

“I see. You’re determined to be a martyr.”

He grimaced. “I’m determined to do right by my best friend.”

“So you’re not going to do anything where this woman’s concerned?”

“No comment.”

He was going to do something.

He was going to fix things with Ben. They hadn’t talked since their phone call because he’d been giving Ben time to cool off. Soon, though, he’d contact him.

Ben was a brother to him. If Sebastian couldn’t keep his relationship with Ben strong, then something was even more seriously wrong with him than he’d feared.

It was never a ringing endorsement of Leah’s teaching style when one of her students fell asleep in class.

It wasn’t terribly unusual to catch a student snoozing. She often dimmed the lights in order to illustrate examples on her whiteboard. And teenagers weren’t exactly known for their disciplined sleeping habits.

Her policy upon noticing a sleeping student: Do nothing while the other students were present to avoid humiliating the napper in front of their peers.

Two days after Labor Day, she activated her policy when she spotted Claire Dobney asleep in the back row. After the dismissal bell rang and the rest of the class filed out, Leah approached Claire. The girl had rested her head atop her folded arms. She dressed her round body and soft limbs in enormous shirts, as if hoping the shirts would provide her with a mobile tent to hide inside.

“Claire,” Leah said.

Claire’s torso snapped upright. She held her eyes unnaturally wide, in a bid to show how awake she was.

Lunch period had just begun, which meant they both had a brief pocket of time. Leah made herself comfortable on the chair next to Claire’s. “You fell asleep in class.”

“I did? Oh. Gosh. I’m sorry, Ms. Montgomery.”

“Apology accepted. Is everything all right?”

“Mm-hmm.” Perfectly groomed eyebrows capped small eyes accented with unflattering green eye shadow. Her cinnamon-colored curls formed an oval around a circular face.

“You’ve looked tired to me for a while now,” Leah said. “I’m just wondering if there might be something in your life that’s bothering you.”

“Not really.”

“I’m a good listener.”

Though Claire existed in a perpetual state of uncertainty, she was bright enough to have made it into Leah’s class—the highest level of math available at Misty River High—last year and this year. Last year, Claire’s sophomore year, she’d earned Bs. So far this year, she was struggling to maintain a C.

Leah waited, saying nothing.

“I guess I haven’t been sleeping that well,” Claire confessed.

“Any particular reason?”

“There’s been a lot of—” she rolled her wrists in the air—“fighting at my house.”

“Who’s fighting?”

“My parents.”

Leah knew what it was to live on the turf of that battlefield. “Is anyone hurting you physically?”

“No.”

“Verbally?”

“No. . . . I mean, not much.”

“My parents used to argue, too. I understand how hard that is.” She also understood why Claire would fall asleep here. Here, it was safe.

“It’s not too bad,” Claire said.

Claire had confided in Leah, her teacher. Which probably meant that it was really, really bad. “Do you want to talk to me about it?”

She gave a worried shake of her head.

“Do you know Ms. Williams, the counselor?”

“Not really.”

“She’s great. I’m going to contact her and have her reach out to you and set up a meeting.”

“If I talk to her, will my parents get in trouble?”

“At this point, you’re simply going to have a conversation with a counselor. That’s all.”

A package arrived for you,” Leah told Dylan the following evening when he returned home from football practice.

“Huh?” He made his way from the mudroom into the kitchen, where Leah was eating one of Tess’s cookies as an appetizer before dinner.

“A package. Arrived for you.”

He followed her into the living room, where she’d propped the large rectangular box near the inside of the front door.

“Who’s it from?” Dylan asked.

“An art supply company in Atlanta. Did you order art supplies?”

“I can’t afford more art supplies.” Sweaty and smelling strongly of teenage boy, he carried the package to the