All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

to follow up on everything we discussed,” I replied, though my eyes never left the woman in front of me.

I observed the way Glo pulled Molly into a hug and then pushed her back to assess her feet with suspicion. “I thought you said you didn’t wear flats. Those sneakers look pretty flat to me, Kitten Heels. Next thing I know, you’ll be asking to borrow my Birkenstocks.”

Molly’s laugh was thin. “Maybe so.”

Glo squeezed her shoulder and quirked a telling eyebrow at me as if to say Fix this, Silas before she clacked away in the shoes she hadn’t taken off since Molly first gave them to her.

“How are—”

“Is everything—”

I gestured for Molly to go first.

She studied the floor. “Your meeting wasn’t really over, was it?”

“It was over enough.”

She glanced up. “Is everything okay—I mean, it seemed serious when I walked in.”

If only to put her mind at ease that the subject matter Glo and I had been discussing had nothing to do with her, I pulled back the proverbial curtain. “We have some concerns about Sasha.”

“About what?”

“Several things, but currently, we’re concerned about the possibility of an inappropriate relationship. Between Sasha and one of the male residents.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Not sure yet. We don’t have actual evidence to go on right now, just a suspicion.”

Molly nodded. “And if you find evidence, what happens then? Do you call the two of them in for a meeting and ask them both outright?”

The optimism in her response caused me to smile. “Have you ever cornered a toddler who had melted chocolate on their fingers and asked if they knew anything about a missing cookie?”

“You don’t think they’d confess?”

“No one ever has before.” I paused a beat, weighing my words. “Given their age and freedoms, it’s impossible to account for every moment of a resident’s day, but we do try to make it as difficult as possible for our residents to break the rules on campus. And due to our long waitlist, they know how serious we are when it comes to the consequences.”

Her eyes rounded slightly. “Getting caught means they’d have to leave?”

“It depends on the circumstances, but if there’s evidence that things have . . . evolved to a certain extent, then we have no choice but to ask them to go. Everyone here has signed a commitment statement. They are well versed in the expectations.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Glo’s words boomeranged in my head. Why not let her try? “As you’ve likely noticed, Sasha can be . . . challenging. But her past has been marked by tragedy and rejection. She was born in Ukraine and adopted as a young girl by an American couple from Oregon, but that adoption dissolved two years post placement due to certain behavioral issues the family felt underprepared to deal with long-term.” I cleared my throat, unwilling to debate the morality of such a life-altering decision, even inside my own mind. A disruption like that was damaging for everyone involved, but it was nothing short of devastating for the displaced child. In this case, Sasha. “She was never adopted again and instead was raised in and out of several foster homes up and down the West Coast. The manifestations of the kind of trauma she’s faced in her young life are more evident than in some of our other residents, but even still, we’ve tried our best to connect with her, to help her understand the value of real, trust-based relationships.”

“That’s so sad.” Molly’s face contorted with compassion. “I never would have guessed that about her.”

“Like many kids raised in traumatic situations, she’s become an expert at concealing her pain.” I hesitated. “Maybe, if you see an opportunity, you could try to talk with her, too.”

“Of course. I’ll do my best.”

And I knew she would. “Thank you.”

She nodded, then slowly glanced away, the sparkle in her eyes dimming to match the rest of her uncharacteristically sheepish body language today.

“Molly,” I hedged, unsure of how to start such a conversation. “You and I—we’re good. There’s no need for you to tiptoe around here as if last night was—”

“I feel like such a fool, Silas.” When her eyes met mine, it took every shred of willpower I possessed not to reach out for her. “I have no clue how I should be now after . . . after everything I said to you last night. I don’t know how to act around you or what I should say or when I should—”

I worked to douse the flame of heat her words ignited. “I don’t want or expect you to be anything other than who you are.”

“But do you really even know who that is? Because I’m not even sure I know. What if I’m just a fraud through and through and the hope of me actually being able to offer something of value to one of the residents here is nothing more than a really bad joke?”

I studied her, working to unscramble her fears one by one, sorting the obvious lies from the truth I’d come to believe about her in such a short period of time. While I was in no way blinded to her faults or flaws, the number of positive adjectives I’d use to describe Molly McKenzie had only multiplied each time I was near her.

“You are confident and eager, witty and inviting. Empathetic and invested when engaging with our young ladies, and you’ve shown generosity in providing for needs spoken and unspoken alike.” I let my gaze linger on the sectional sofa beside us. “All of those are valuable qualities to offer a hurting world.” I waited until her searching eyes met mine again, and when they did, I spoke the rest, unfiltered and unrestrained. “You are everything you were last night before we talked, minus the burden you were carrying. So if anything can be called fraudulent here, it’s the timidity you came in wearing like a cloak.”

After a silent moment, her lips quirked. “Only a duke would use the word cloak.”

“Doesn’t make it any