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

Bossy. Hard-charging. High maintenance. That’s how Markie, his co-worker at the hospital, had described Sebastian the day of Leah and Dylan’s tour. All true.

Except Markie had also said, “A few of the kids he’s treated have lived mostly because he was so determined that they wouldn’t die.”

Some of the qualities that were trying in a non-boyfriend were to be commended in his exponentially more important role—pediatric heart surgeon.

At every stage of her acquaintance with him, she’d debated whether to move forward. Each time, she’d deemed the next step safe enough to take. Worth taking. And, indeed, her time with Sebastian had been a great deal of fun. So diverting! Through him, she’d learned a lot about herself.

But suddenly—like tree branches coming into view beneath the surface of a lake—she could see the dangers inherent in their relationship that she hadn’t been able to see before.

Her mom was similar to Sebastian in several ways. Mom struggled to trust others. She’d constantly sought and never found satisfaction. Because of those weaknesses, Mom’s marriage and her relationships with her kids had crumbled in the most miserable way possible.

Leah had no desire to subject herself to the pain of an ill-fated relationship. This was an opportune time to bring her extended flirtation with Sebastian to a close.

Assured of the rightness of that choice, she pulled into her garage. A slice of her reflection in the rearview mirror caught her eye. With dismay, she saw that her lower lashes were wet. So was the skin beneath her eyes.

Without realizing it, she’d been crying over the choice she’d just proclaimed to be the right one. For some terrible reason that she didn’t want to examine too closely, her heart felt as though it was ripping down the center.

“Leah,” she whispered scoldingly, whisking away the moisture with her fingertips. She patted her cheeks a little harder than necessary, then rolled her carry-on indoors.

Tess and Rudy had left for their Monday night Bible study group, so she found Dylan alone on the sofa watching a ghastly show about monster trucks.

“Brother of mine!” She gestured for him to stand, then hugged him. He was much too thin. Mental note: Feed him more protein, dairy, and fruit. “Did you miss me?”

“Sure.” Which meant no.

“I brought you a gift.” She knelt to her suitcase and came up with a vintage-style T-shirt that read 404—Atlanta’s area code—across the front.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

He admired the shirt, then slung it over his shoulder. “Hey, next time you leave . . .”

“Yes?”

“Can I stay by myself?”

She bit her bottom lip to keep herself from exclaiming, Not in a million years!

“I don’t need babysitters.”

“Tess and Rudy aren’t your babysitters—”

“They act like it. They were all over me this weekend.”

“That’s because they care about you.”

“I think it’s because you gave them a long list of all the things I’m not allowed to do.”

“I mean . . . Well. The list wasn’t that long.”

“It’s way too long. It’s crazy.” His curls bounced with agitation. “I’ll be eighteen soon.”

“Yes.”

“Have I done anything to make you think I can’t take care of myself? No. I haven’t.”

He made iffy choices in his social life all the time. He hardly ever studied for tests. He’d eat nothing but Cheez-Its if she let him. “When you were in middle school—”

“That was years ago.” His chin set. She could see that he felt passionately about this and yet was making an effort to talk with her about it maturely. “Next year I’m going to go away to school, and then I’ll have total freedom.”

“Right, and between now and then, my job is to ensure you’re ready.”

“I am ready.”

“You’ve made huge strides.”

“But you don’t let me go to parties. You won’t let me take weekend trips with my friends’ families. You’re always tracking the location of my phone and asking me to come straight home after games and practices. All my friends—every single one—has more freedom than I do. It’s like you don’t trust me.”

“I do trust you. It’s just that I’m trying to keep you safe.”

He studied her, mingled obstinacy and sympathy in his face. “I don’t think you do what you do to keep me safe.”

“What do you mean?”

He remained quiet for several moments. Her autumn three-wick candle, which smelled of pumpkin pancake, burned sedately on the coffee table.

“I think you put all these rules on me because you want control,” he said.

“No. I do what I do because I love you.”

“Okay, sure, you love me. But that’s not why you’re so strict.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You got stuck with a kid when you were around my age.”

She blinked at him because, of course, he was correct. Yet the thought of his taking custody of a child at his age was abhorrent. He was a kid himself, in no way prepared to take charge of a child. Her eighteen-year-old self and Dylan’s seventeen-year-old self had little in common. By that point in her life, she’d lived away from home for four years. She’d come out of the womb a small but old and serious person. Her parents had ensured that she grew up quickly from there.

But Dylan, and thank God for this, had been afforded the chance to be young. After Mom had left him in her care, Leah had done her best to give him an elementary school experience free from worries graver than memorizing multiplication tables. As a middle school kid, he’d spent chunks of his weekends immersed in video games. As a high school kid, he had the luxury of playing football and hiding in his room and regarding the adults in his life as hopelessly uncool.

“I did not get stuck with you,” she said.

“Yeah you did. You were supposed to go and get your PhD, and it makes me feel like dirt when I think about how you had to take care of me and couldn’t go.”

She stepped to him and held his face in her hands. The soft little boy face had turned firm and angular. But this was still her