Madison

I jogged down the familiar path at Memorial Park, taking the long way around.

It was a beautiful spring morning. Not a cloud in the sky.

It would be a good day for flying.

Daddy had me behind the wheel of a Cessna before I could even walk.

He would have loved it if I’d taken to flying.

But it didn’t take and my sister Ainsley had been the one to grow up in our father’s footsteps.

One of the best pilots in the country and only one of his five children took to flying airplanes.

I felt bad for Daddy. But me. I took after Momma. Though she’d gotten a bit of a late start, Mom had been a top-notch psychologist. Still was. Part time.

Now that was something that intrigued me. She’d been the one whose footsteps I’d followed. It had come so easy for me. 

Didn’t mean I still wasn’t Daddy’s favorite.

It was an ongoing argument between me and my sisters.

Noah insisted that he loved us all equally. 

But I knew that I had to be his favorite since I was most like Mom. 

The sun was warm on my skin, but the breeze was light. 

I was wearing a baseball cap, my hair pulled high in a ponytail in the back. I had on tights and a little skirt. 

It was early, but I wasn’t the only jogger out early.

Today was Saturday and I had the weekend off. 

I hadn’t seen Kade at work yesterday, but I hadn’t expected to.

He didn’t start work until Monday.

That hadn’t kept me from watching for him. It had been quite distracting. 

Fortunately, we hadn’t had any visitors and the phones had been relatively quiet.

I looked down at my hand. At the numbers Kade had written on my skin. Little shivers ran through my system.

I’d been careful not to scrub the ink off, but it had faded a little anyway. By tomorrow, there would be no evidence left.

When I thought about how he’d so seamlessly replicated that first day we’d met, my eyes misted over and I had to wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

I would have bet he didn’t even remember how we’d met, but he must have remembered as clearly as I did.

I kicked a pinecone off the path, sending it flying out of the way.

But he’d let me go.

I’d be stupid to just fall back into his arms.

Besides, I was leaving for Denver in three months.

I’d thought about going early. Getting settled into the city. 

It would have been the smart thing to do. To get ready for my new job.

But nope.

I had to come back here.

To spend the summer with my family.

At my old job.

A job I certainly didn’t need.

I was a psychologist now. Not a student.

Dr. Worthington.

It had taken me eight years of school to achieve that. After undergrad.

It should have taken me six, but I’d done an extra postdoc, then a year of training at a neuropsych institute.

Every one of my supervisors had tried to convince me that I needed to practice psychology, not take a job as a professor.

But they didn’t understand. It was a goal I’d set in undergrad and once I set a goal, I went for it.

I veered left and sprinted the rest of the way toward my car.

A man with a beautiful black lab was jogging toward me. 

My heart skipped a beat. Just for a moment, I thought it was Kade.

But then he ran past me and I knew it had just been my imagination.

This was going to be a difficult summer.

But there was one thing I was happy about.

I was happy that I’d decided to spend the summer here in Houston.

Even though I was still mad at him, I felt like the stars had somehow aligned to put us back in the same place at the same time.