I hadn’t touched it since.
Ethan held the little wooden guitar.
“You stopped.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“You were good.”
“Not really.”
He frowned.
“You were.”
“I messed up.”
“One time.”
“It wasn’t just—”
“You cried in the laundry room.”
My face burned.
Apparently Ethan had inherited the family talent for remembering everything I wanted forgotten.
He looked at me.
“You still sounded good before you cried.”
There was no inspirational speech attached to it.
No dramatic lesson.
He simply placed the little guitar on the table.
“You were still good.”
That was when I began to cry.
Not the graceful kind of crying people do in photographs.
I mean real crying.
My nose hurt.
Mascara ran under my eyes.
My chest tightened.
And Ethan hadn’t even finished.
He reached inside again.
This time he pulled out a wooden compass.
It didn’t actually work.
The needle was carved into the face.
