He grinned. “Damn straight they are. Ready?”
I nodded, and he lifted me up smoothly. I felt kind of stupid as he carried me over to the blanket, but the ground was uneven and the crutches would’ve been a real bitch. When he sat me down, I reluctantly loosened my hold on him. “Using crutches on campus is going to suck butt.”
“It is.” He sat beside me, facing the pond. “But from what the doc said, it didn’t sound like you’d need them for long.”
I stretched my legs out on the blanket and reached down, adjusting the brace through my jeans. It had taken me forever to get used to it the first time. At the thought of having to wear this for weeks, if not months, my mood plummeted as if I swan dived off the top of the Empire State Building.
Tucking the loose hairs back behind my ears, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. With the exception of the chirps from the trees around us, there was no other sound. The place was tranquil. A place I wondered if Jase visited when he needed to think or get away. “Does this place get a lot of traffic?”
“We’re at least two miles from the farm, where Mom and Dad are, but this is still our property,” he explained. “No one comes out here except us, and they aren’t going to be coming anywhere near here, so we can stay as long as you want.”
I dropped my hands into my lap. “Thank you for bringing me out here.”
“No problem.” He nudged my arm with his. “You sure you don’t want to pick up those pain meds the doc gave you a prescription for?”
The script was burning a hole in my pocket. “No. I mean, it would be nice to take them and just not care, because that’s how they make me feel, but I need to deal with this. You know?”
“I get that, but you shouldn’t be in pain.”
“I’m not in a lot of pain.” And that much was true. It hurt, but it was manageable. Beside me, Jase lay back, folding his arms under his head. For a few moments, I got a little lost staring at the straight line of his nose and the way his lashes fanned to an indecent length. “Can I ask you something?”
“Something.”
I smiled, remembering my drunken response from Saturday night. “Why don’t you live at the farm? You love being around Jack. I’m surprised you’re not living there. I mean, can I ask you that?”
“Yeah,” he said immediately, frowning slightly. “I want to. You know, I’d be able to spend more time with him, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. It makes it . . . harder, especially when Mom and Dad do the parent thing with him. I want to step in and that would just confuse him.”
“Understandable.” I wet my lips. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
I gave a lopsided shrug. “It’s just, what you face with Jack is hard. You’re trying to do the right thing, but what’s really the right thing? No one knows. It’s got to be hard.”
“It is. That’s why I’m not sure if telling him the truth will ever be the right thing,” he admitted, and I was relieved that he was talking to me about this, because this was more important than my stupid leg. “On the flip side, shouldn’t he know? And what if he finds out by accident when he’s older? That kind of shit keeps me up at night.”
Reaching over, I squeezed his hand. “I think you’ll figure it out.”
He didn’t say anything, but there was something about the way he looked at me that forced the words beyond my lips.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I whispered, switching my gaze to the still waters. That’s how I felt. Too still. As if my life was stuck on the pause button. “I thought . . . I always thought I’d be able to go back. That I would dance again. That’s what I always thought I’d do and now . . .” I trailed off, shaking my head.
“Everything has changed,” he added quietly.
I nodded as I blew out a breath.
“I said it before and I’ll say it again. Sometimes some really good things come from something unexpected.” His lashes lifted, and the intensity in his gaze was unnerving, as if his words meant more than what he was saying. “I know that’s not easy to swallow right now and doesn’t help you, but I’m speaking the truth.”
I nodded again. “You’re talking about Jack?”
“I am.”
I looked over my shoulder at him again. His gaze was trained on the cloudless, deep blue sky. One side of his lips curled up. “You know, you’ll make a great teacher, Tess.”
A strangled-sounding laugh escaped me. “You said I’d be unhappy being a teacher.”
“No. I said that you’d be happy doing it, but it’s not what you want.”
“How’s that any different?”
He slid me a sideways look. “It’s very different. Teaching could become something you want and something you love to do. You just need time.”
Time was a funny and fickle thing. Sometimes there was never enough of it, and other times it stretched out endlessly.