you.” Dad frowns. “But now it’s too late, isn’t it? I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “It’s not too late. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I applied anyway. I hoped that if I got accepted, I could persuade you and Mom to let me go.”
His brows lift. “And?”
“I got an acceptance letter last month,” I say.
“You’ve been accepted?” He hugs me. “Congratulations, sweetheart!”
“You’re not upset?”
“Upset? No. I’ll worry about you,” says Dad with a chuckle, sitting back. “I’ll miss you, too. But it’s time for you to go. You should be around people your own age. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, living out here so isolated.”
Something Mom said to him earlier comes back to me: Is this life we’re living really enough for you? Anger rises up in me. Anger at her. Feeling defensive, I say, “I love our cabin. And I love Silver Lake. You know that, Dad. But I feel like I have to go away for a while. I can’t explain it.”
“You don’t have to. You’ve grown up.” Dad loops his arm through mine. “Why OU? I hope you’re not just following Wyatt there. You should go to a school that’s right for you.”
“OU is right for me,” I say. “It’s right for both of us. Wyatt and I want to go to another state—just for a change, you know? But it’s still close enough that we can drive home if we want to.”
“That would be a long drive,” he says.
“It’s only 491.94 miles. We could make it in eight hours.”
“Is that all?” says Dad, sounding amused, his breath a white plume on the cold morning air.
“Not exactly.” I grin. “Eight hours and two minutes.”
“You really have done your research.”
“MapQuest,” I say.
“Just so long as Wyatt didn’t influence you.” He winks.
A laugh bursts out of me. “Dad. You know it’s not like that with Wyatt and me. We’re just friends.”
“So you say. But I wonder if Wyatt feels the same.”
I bump my shoulder against him. “Wyatt’s chasing after a different girl every week. He doesn’t think of me like that.”
“Okay, okay!” Sighing heavily, he mutters, “Oklahoma. I’ve never been. It might be a good place for you. . . .” His voice trails, and the humor on his face fades, leaving behind an expression I can’t identify.
“Mom won’t be as easy to persuade as you were,” I say.
“Don’t worry about your mother. I’ll talk to her.”
Gathering my nerve, I stroke Cookie’s silky ear and say, “I heard the two of you talking this morning. You said something about the truth protecting me and needing to prepare me for something. What did you mean?”
Dad tenses and inhales sharply. “I’m sorry you heard that, but it’s nothing to worry about.”
“But Mom said the two of you had to give up everything for me.”
“Lily . . .” He hugs me tightly. “Nothing could be more important than you. You can’t even imagine what a miracle you are to us. When you were born . . .” Leaning back, he cups my chin in his gloved hand. “You saved us, Lily.”
“Dad, you’re freaking me out,” I say. “What are you planning to tell me when we get home?”
“We’ll talk about it later, okay? Everything’s fine, and right now, I just want to enjoy the sunrise.” He nods toward the sky. “Look.”
On the horizon, light erupts, setting the east peak’s snowcap on fire. I try to relax as Dad drapes an arm across my shoulder. But for the first time in my life, his nearness isn’t enough to make me feel safe.
The trail becomes steeper as I lead the way down the mountain past blue spruce trees, green firs, and towering white aspen, their branches shivering in the wind. Dad follows on his four-wheeler close behind me. The sun is bright enough now that we don’t need our headlights.
As I round a curve, a deer darts across the snowy path a few feet ahead. I don’t have time to react, but out of nowhere the four-wheeler seizes up, as if someone slammed a foot down hard on the brake. My head whips forward, then back again with the sudden jerk, and the ATV skids sideways, blocking the trail. Iris, I think, feeling her terror spike up inside of me. She pressed the brake to keep me from hitting the deer. I’m sure of it, even though she’s never done anything like that before.
The roar of Dad’s engine drowns out every other noise around me, and a warning catches