Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,53

right out of the ground by the roots—difficult and very, very painful. “I’m not sure how to do all of this. I mean, it sounds good, but…”

Merel smiled softly. “It’s…”

“A process,” Taylor finished for her. “Ugh.” She put her head back and shook it like she was frustrated. “Why can’t this just be easy?”

“Learning and growing is never easy,” Merel said.

Taylor blew out a long rush of air. “Tell me about it.”

“Did you apply for the tech job?” Barry asked. “They’re closing it tomorrow, I think.”

Honestly, Greg couldn’t find enough space in his head and his heart to even care. He’d only been thinking and praying about Taylor all day. With the jury selection for the trial starting in the morning, his every free moment was spent worrying and praying about that. “No. Not yet. I’m supposed to get my test results tomorrow, but it’ll probably be too late.”

“Aw, that’s too bad,” Barry said.

Greg closed his eyes and pushed the thoughts of his own crushing issues down. Right now, he couldn’t think about himself and all the ways he was failing at this thing called life. That would have to wait. “Yeah, well…”

The light over the X-ray lab flipped off.

Barry straightened. “That’s me.”

“Taylor?”

Having left Merel’s office with her backpack slung over her shoulder, Taylor made it all the way to the outside doors, seeing the dreary, depressing scene that had literally overtaken everything outside. She hadn’t been thrilled about walking before, but walking in this new drizzly misty-mess that had come in with the cold front was going to be even worse. However, even that thought was overtaken by the sweet voice, and when she turned, it was hard to hold onto all she had talked about with Merel.

Taylor couldn’t be sure, but she had the feeling that Clara had been sitting in the little library waiting for her. “Oh, hey.” She had never felt more like lead in her life. Shrink. Disappear. Run. To keep standing there as Clara approached was nearly impossible. She fumbled with the little knit cap in her shaking hands that were no longer cooperating.

Clara’s eyes never lost the softness as she came all the way over. “How are you?”

Wow. That wasn’t the question Taylor was expecting. It was more like she’d expected Clara to declare her worthy to be burned at the stake. She shook her hair back to get the cap on. Nothing in her could hold Clara’s steady gaze. “Oh, uh… Good. I guess.”

But it was clear Clara knew better. “That’s good. You headed home? I mean… back…?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Well, I mean…” Cap on, there was nothing left to distract her, and in that moment, Taylor realized that this was incredibly, heart-stoppingly awkward. Clara was, after all, Greg’s ex-, and Taylor had no idea how the young woman would take Greg’s generosity toward her. “Uh, actually, my dorm is all the way across campus.” She dug the key out of her pocket so Clara wouldn’t think she’d already gotten the guys to give her one or something. “Greg gave me his key and said I was supposed to go to their house, and he said he’d take me back after work.” She shrugged and put the key back in her pocket, letting her gaze fall with it. “I don’t know.” Glancing outside into the chilly, damp, gray soup, she shook her head and tugged on her cap. “I’m thinking maybe I’ll just ride the busses home and be done with it.”

The thought of getting to the dorm only to find a closed door with a hair tie on it did nothing good for Taylor. Her heart panged at the thought.

However, instead of whatever she had expected, Clara simply smiled, slowly at first and then bigger. “You know that won’t do any good, right? Greg will come looking for you. You know that, right?”

At first Taylor didn’t understand, and then she did. Her gaze fell to her shoes. “Yeah. True that, huh?”

“Tell you what,” Clara said, and Taylor couldn’t account for the young woman’s kindness. “Why don’t I take you over to their house? I’ve got my car out back. At least then you wouldn’t have to walk around in this crazy thing we like to call weather around here.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that anyway?” Taylor asked. “It wasn’t this bad when I went in there.” She looked at her phone and was surprised by the time. “Okay, well, that was like three hours ago, but still…”

“That’s Merel for you,” Clara said