The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)(37)

I had to let go.

I had to allow life to take her the way she was meant to be taken and stop fighting the inevitable.

That was until everything changed.

Until the ninth week of school, when autumn arrived with bronze leaves and blustery chill and our time at Polcart Farm came to a sudden end.

Just like I knew it would.





CHAPTER NINETEEN





DELLA



Present Day




THIS IS WHERE the assignment gets hard, Professor Baxter.

I can tell you right now that there are things in my life—sorry, my story—that won’t be approved by some, won’t be believed by others, and will be judged as downright idiotic by most.

You see, if you ask someone how many birthday parties they’ve had, they’d most likely list the number of years they’ve been alive. If you inquired how many pets they had, they could probably give you a definite answer.

I have definite answers, just not on those subjects.

My subjects are strange.

Such as I hear you asking…

Well, I can tell you that there were four times that Ren and I separated. Only four, but they were the worst times of my life.

The first was his fault.

The second was mine.

The third and fourth…well, I’ll save those for another chapter.

Other topics that I have definite answers for are on trickier subjects than birthdays and pets. They are what you’d call confessions, I suppose.

Confessions of things I did because of hurt feelings and broken promises. Things he did because of loyalty and propriety and his unbreakable sense of honour. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself.

What I wanted to write today was the second time we separated, and how it was entirely my fault. He’d warned me what would happen if I went to school, but as a bold, invincible five-year-old, I didn’t believe him.

I teased him for being such a worrier. I made jokes at his ever vigilante watching, and even went so far as to yell at him for never relaxing and trusting other people.

He was right.

I was wrong.

It all started on a Wednesday morning I believe.

Ren dropped me off and I went to class, I smiled at Jimmy who loved dinosaurs, I drank my carton of milk even though it tasted like paper and glue compared to the freshly milked stuff from Snowflake, and I enjoyed yet another day of education.

My teacher—I can’t remember her name—made us copy a few math equations, and I think we did a science experiment…again, I can’t remember, but what I do remember—and this isn’t because Ren told me this story because he wasn’t there—but after lunch we had Show and Tell.

I didn’t know what that was to start with until other kids stood, talked about a toy or special possession, then sat down with praise from the teacher.

Sounds easy, right?

Yeah, I thought so too.

Seeing as I hadn’t brought anything to school with me, I asked if I could borrow Frosty the rabbit, and beamed as the teacher carried the white rabbit’s cage to the front of the class and smiled at me encouragingly.

I pulled Frosty from her hutch and held her tight just the way Ren taught me.

And then I told them what he’d told me.

I explained as detailed as I could how to kill a rabbit quickly and painlessly. How to nick its fur around its neck and then rip off its jacket in one move. How to gut it fast so bodily fluids didn’t contaminate the meat, and how to cook it properly so we didn’t die of rabbit fever.

I was so proud.

So self-satisfied as I stood before my class of students and nodded matter-of-factly; so happy that they could now fend for themselves—just like I could. I fully believed in my na?ve little heart that I’d just delivered a perfect lesson on things everyone should know.

I didn’t see the horrified glances until it was too late.

I didn’t hear the sniffles and crying as children squirmed in their seats.

I didn’t understand the jerky movements of the teacher as she snatched Frosty from my arms and stuffed her back into her cage.

And I didn’t know why I was grabbed by the arm and escorted to a room with a stern-faced man and the nice lady from the diner who gave me cupcakes.

I didn’t know any of that until Ren arrived.

And then…it was too late.





CHAPTER TWENTY





REN



2005




SHE NEVER APPEARED at three p.m.

By 3:01, I was hammering on the receptionist’s desk demanding to know where she was.

Instead of a worried woman bending over backward to produce my tardy Della, she gave me a grave look and quick shake of her head, ordering me to follow her. She said in an appalled, judgy tone that there’d been an incident. That the principal wanted to talk to Della’s parents.

Alarm bells clanged in my head, drowning out the squeals and giggles of kids as they spilled from classrooms and into caregiver’s arms. My legs were stiff wooden posts as I trailed after the woman, fighting every urge to kick her to the floor and run down the halls screaming Della’s name.

She couldn’t be here anymore.

I couldn’t be here.

And there was no way to fix it because we had no parents to call.

My fists curled hard as rocks as the woman opened a door and said, “Go in. They’re expecting you.”