“Well, if we were keeping score.” I raised my eyebrows. “I can remember a certain episode where you took out my dad’s baseball bat and charged Scott Malone to come to my rescue.” It was one of my favorite memories of her.

“That hardly counts! You were in a fight with him because of me. Yet another example of you coming to my rescue.”

“You were a twelve-year-old girl with a bat. I didn’t rescue you; I just gave you time to choose your weapon wisely. Man, you were pissed.” I grinned at the memory. The next day I’d broken into her locker and left the knight—the first of our chess pieces.

“Well, yeah, he’d called me an ugly boy and asked why I didn’t look more like Charity, and it wasn’t the first time. But when he put all that mud in my backpack, I was done.” Her cheeks flushed. “Then you flew at him, and what was I supposed to do? Let you take him on? Not with those other boys joining in.”

“Exactly. You didn’t need saving. You just needed a head start.” I laughed.

“Fine, what about that time I got stuck in the pine tree up on your dad’s land? You had to climb up for me,” she challenged.

“Doesn’t count. You were getting the Frisbee I’d thrown, and man, you’d scrambled up there so fast, I didn’t even have time to beat you to the tree.” I shook my head. “You would have made it if you hadn’t gotten your braid caught.”

“Fair point. I almost chopped it all off that summer.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Shit, I hadn’t meant to say that.

Her eyes widened.

I could either back down or own it. What the hell.

“Your hair is beautiful, and I know you like it long. You would have regretted it. Now, when you got gum stuck in it, that’s when I thought the scissors were coming out.”

She huffed. “I didn’t get gum stuck in it. Sullivan dropped it in my hair.” Her forehead puckered. “What were we? Ten?”

I nodded. “It was the summer Mom died, so yeah, you were ten.”

“She spent an hour getting it out so I wouldn’t have to tell my mom,” she said softly, a wistful smile sweeping across her face.

“She was pretty amazing like that. Plus, she knew it was my fault, so she was quick to cover for me.” I looked up to the picture on the mantel, in which Mom stood smiling with the three of us decked out in ties for her last Mother’s Day. Except she hadn’t known it was her last.

“How can you possibly blame Sullivan’s choice on yourself?” She flat-out glared at me.

“Oh come on, you didn’t know?”

“Know what?”