I cried after that final phone call with Kaden. After being the key word, there. I was mad at myself for it, too, lying there in bed sniffling and wiping my eyes at the same time I was clenching my fists and telling myself to stop being such a baby. He ended up going to Brooks and I couldn't even say I was surprised. It was the right decision for him. But I can't deny how the sudden knowledge that he was hundreds of miles away from me, and would be for at least the next two and probably four years made everything real in a way it hadn't been before.

He wanted to be with me, I knew that. And I wanted to be with him. It's just that, of the two of us, I was the only one who had had enough exposure to the harsh realities of life - the fact that we don't always get what we want, even if we really, really want it - to understand that it just wasn't going to happen. Not if he left to go play football - and how could he not? It didn't even cross my mind to ask him to somehow cancel his dreams of playing in the NFL for me.

So I cried myself to sleep that night, angry at myself and angry at the world for being so unfair. And then I got over it. Or, I appeared to get over it. I didn't mention Kaden to anyone anymore - none of my friends or family, no one at work. I didn't even allow myself to think about him. Anytime he popped into my head I just pushed the image of his face, or the memory of how perfect the sweet weight of his body on top of mine had felt, away. Every now and again a feeling of sadness would creep up on me, as if out of the blue. Often it was when I saw him on the front page of the Little Falls Times newspaper - he was still a local boy and everyone in town was still just as interested in his career as they had been when he'd been playing for Reinhardt High.

About eight months after he left there was a new photo of him on the front page. It caught my eye as I walked past the newspaper kiosk on the way into work and I couldn't keep myself from picking up a copy. There he was, still the same old Kaden. He had a different haircut now, less shaggy high school boy and more smoothly groomed up-and-coming NFL player. He was also standing next to an absolutely gorgeous woman. They appeared to have their arms around each other. I walked into the office and threw the paper onto the table in our waiting room, desperately fighting against the horrible sinking feeling in my stomach.

And what did I expect? That he wasn't going to meet girls at Brooks? That he wasn't going to be swimming in a sea of pretty, smart, ambitious young women who were willing to do anything they needed to do to land a football player?

In November of the year I graduated high school, Ray got a raise at work. Between his new salary and my earnings from work, we as a family were in a better financial position than we had been for a long time. We even managed to start saving a little each month. Not much, but enough to give everyone a sense of security that had been sorely missing from our lives for as long as I could remember. Christmas that year was a good one. My mom, still very sick, was going through one of her better phases. Ray, Alisha and I took charge of the gifts and made sure that CeeCee, Rosa, and my mother had a nice, big stack of neatly wrapped gifts under the tree on Christmas morning. It was early that afternoon, as we all sat in the living room with the smell of roasting turkey wafting through from the kitchen and wrapping paper scattered all over the living room, that Ray caught my eye across the chaos.

"We did good, Tasha."

I smiled. "Yeah, we did. Did you see mom's face when she opened that necklace?"

Ray nodded, grinning. "I'm just glad we could do this, Tash. Who knows how many more Christmases-"

"Ray," I begged, "don't."

I still couldn't handle talking about my mother's illness. I couldn't even think about it. No matter how clear I was on the prognosis (and I was clear, because it was usually me or Alisha who took her to her doctor's appointments), it simply wasn't something I felt able to face. Ray was different. His way of dealing with things was talking about them, meeting them head-on. I knew my refusal to talk about it upset him. But it was Christmas, so he let it slide.

"OK, Tash," he said gently. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"Dinner's ready!" Alisha's voice interrupted us, calling from the kitchen. My stomach rumbled in anticipation. Ray grabbed Rosa and I helped my mother make her way to the table where a feast - a feast I had had a huge hand in preparing - awaited us. We said grace and tucked in.

About half an hour later, just as everyone was starting to slow down, my mother looked up at me and said:

"Tash, why do you look so sad?"

Suddenly everyone was looking at me. There was real concern on their faces, too.

"Darn," I said, forcing a small laugh. "I didn't realize I was being so obvious." A weak attempt at a joke - and one everyone saw through right away.

"Young lady, there are more fish in the sea," my mom said. "I see you working so hard for this family, trying to put a happy face on, but do you think I don't also see that look in your eyes sometimes when you think no one's watching? We all see it. This has been going on since before the summer and I just think it's time to put it to rest now. Everyone at this table - except CeeCee and Rosa, and believe me, they'll know soon enough - knows what it is to have a broken heart. Now you listen to me. You are smart, beautiful, kind and loving. There are a million men who would be lucky to have you."

The last few bites of candied yam on my plate blurred as I looked down at them. Dammit. Don't cry. Don't cry! But it was happening, whether I wanted it to or not. Someone squeezed my hand - Alisha.

"You're not as good at hiding your feelings as you think you are, Tash. And no one here is telling you how to feel. What we're saying is, we appreciate everything you do and we love you. You're not alone, you know. Just like your mom said, we've all been there."

Maybe it was that enough time had passed by then, maybe it was the fact that I was feeling emotional about Christmas anyway, but for some reason, their words just sunk in a little deeper that time. When I went to bed that night I felt something I hadn't felt for a long time - hope. Kaden was gone, it was true. But where that fact used to fill me with a feeling of devastation, that night it just presented itself as what it was: a fact. He was gone. I was not. The power to make my life as good as it could be was in my hands, not his.