First-Time Caller (Heartstrings, #1)

by B.K. Borison

My mom laughs. The same way she did when I was a kid with my chin on her shoulder, my arms wrapped loosely around her neck. She always smelled like soap and the pages of a book. Paper and well-loved leather. Stories in the middle of the night.

“What about the parking lot of the abandoned Burger King? Would you go on a date there?” “Am I being murdered?”

“Mom?” she calls blearily. I wonder if I’ll ever stop hearing her voice in an echo of a memory, my name called out a thousand times through the dark. Maya then and Maya now.

“How do you do it?” I choke out. “How do you love her when you’re scared?” My dad laughs, a gruff, thick sound. “It was never a choice, Aiden. I was always going to love your mom. And I would never have chosen different, even with everything we’ve endured together. It makes it better, doesn’t it? To know how temporary it all is. To know how special. Love isn’t”—he sighs, a deep, rumbling sound—“love isn’t always sunshine and daisies. Sometimes it’s hospital beds and shaved heads. But I wouldn’t trade any of it. Because all of it is with her.”