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

that smelled so strongly of flowers that he felt like he was choking.

“Sebastian,” she said, when they arrived at a brown house, “this is Mr. and Mrs. King. They’ll be looking after you for the time being.”

“Sebastian! Welcome,” Mrs. King said. She and her husband were both round, pink, and smiling.

She looked nothing like his mother.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t know them, and his mom had taught him not to trust people he didn’t know.

“Come inside,” Mr. King said.

He was numb. Dead, like his mom.

His mom was gone.

His mom was gone.

She’d been here this morning. And now she wasn’t.

The social worker held the door of the house open for him. Mrs. King was saying a lot of things he didn’t want to hear. They passed a room where two kids, one older than him and one younger, were finishing dinner. He pretended he hadn’t seen them. He followed the adults to a room that had bunk beds with red covers.

He decided he hated red covers.

The social worker was talking to him. The strangers were talking to him.

His mom was gone. His mom was gone.

All he’d been able to do in that moment was wrap his hands around his backpack and stare at the strange room where they expected him to live with a kid he’d never met.

A bird’s cry fractured the memory like glass. The wind absorbed the shards, and Sebastian came back to the present.

This separation with Leah might be for the best, darkness inside him whispered.

It concerned him, how invested he was in Leah. Yet he wanted to see her again far too much to consider making this separation permanent.

Just like it was not an option to keep Isabella at status seven, it was not an option to leave things the way they were with Leah.

The stalemate between them could not continue.

The following day, Leah sat at her desk in her classroom, prepping for upcoming lessons during her free period. Beyond her windows, the weather was as gloomy as her disposition had been since she’d left Atlanta. The moaning wind whipped trees into unnatural angles.

“I found some blueberry muffins on my desk.”

She lifted her face toward the voice, which belonged to Ben. He stood framed by her doorway.

“Are you the anonymous donor?” he asked.

“I am.”

“Mystery solved.” He took the chair across from her desk, just like old times. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Did this visit mean—please, Lord—that Ben was willing to get the ball of their friendship rolling again? She leaned back in her chair and focused solely on him. “How are you?”

“My third period class is causing me migraines.”

“Sometimes there’s not enough patience or Excedrin in the world for this job.”

“How are things with you?” he asked.

“Very well.” Not true. “I’ve been doing a bit of research into my family history.”

“That’s cool.”

“I think you mentioned to me last year that Genevieve did some research into her family history, too. Is that right?”

“Yeah. I know that she and Sam drove to Clayton at one point to look at records. If you need tips, you should reach out to her.”

“Will do.” Genevieve had given Leah her number the day Leah had toured Sebastian’s house. . . .

Sebastian. For the past three days, every thought of him had affected her like a pin skewering a pincushion. The most painful memories were the tender ones. The way he’d looked at her during their weekend together. The irresistible things he’d said.

This is an opportune time to bring your flirtation with Sebastian to a close!

The sound of footsteps reached her, and she turned to see Claire enter her room for tutoring.

Ben tapped twice on Leah’s desk and rose. “I’ll see you later.”

“Thanks for coming by,” she said, meaning it.

“Sure.”

Ben greeted the girl, gave Leah a salute, and departed.

Leah waved Claire into the chair he’d vacated.

A few stains smudged the girl’s sweater. Her eyes were puffy. She’d bitten her nails to the quick and picked off most of her white polish.

“Everything okay?” Leah asked.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“That didn’t sound very convincing.”

“Everything’s mostly okay.”

“What’s the latest with your mom and dad?”

“My mom, um, moved out last weekend. Which is probably the very best thing.” The girl injected a note of levity into the sentence that fell completely flat.

Leah knew what it felt like to be abandoned by your mom, and it didn’t feel like the very best thing. “Did you and Becca and Mason and Annie stay at home with your dad?”

“Uh-huh.”

Had Claire’s mom’s departure made things worse for Claire and her siblings? Would they now have to bear the brunt of their dad’s anger? “Where has your mom gone?”

“She hasn’t let any of us know. Which is also probably for the best. That way Dad doesn’t know where to find her. She told us she wants to bring us to live with her as soon as she can.”

“Has she given any indication of when that might happen?”

Claire shook her head. “I’ve been texting her, but she hasn’t answered much. She knows Dad checks my text messages.”

“Who’s been handling your mom’s responsibilities for the past few days?”

“Us kids.”

“Do you have all that you need? Enough to eat?”

She nodded.

“And has your dad been managing his temper?”

“It’s been all right, Ms. Montgomery.” But the bleak light in Claire’s eyes told a different story.

“If you have any concerns, or simply want someone to talk to, I strongly encourage you to speak with me or Ms. Williams. In fact, I’ll send Ms. Williams an email right now.” She typed out a brief note, hit send, then faced Claire. “Ready to work on math?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Outstanding. We can always depend on differential calculus to lift our spirits.”

Later that evening, Leah dialed Genevieve from one of her patented out-of-Dylan’s-hearing-range spots: inside her turned-off car, inside her garage.

“Anyway,” Leah said, wrapping up a very vague description of her attempt to learn more about her genealogy, “I was told that birth certificates are only made available to the person named on the certificate or a primary family member.”

“That’s true.”

“Since I’m neither, I’m not sure what to try