Free The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos Page A

(although, as always, Caro felt like an afterthought, someone I had to remind myself was part of the picture) reunion outfit. I wouldn’t go so far as to get an entire new wardrobe. Wilson would have to see me in jeans eventually, despite his bone-deep loathing of them. But the initial meeting outfit seemed especially crucial. I needed to look accomplished, pretty, smart, grown-up, offhandedly chic, emotionally independent, and as though I weren’t trying at all.
    The first thing Trillium found for me was a pair of leather shorts. And while they weren’t especially short and weren’t especially tight and could indeed be worn with black tights and a silk blouse, and while I do like to wear clothing that shows off my legs, since they seem to be the part of my body that is best hanging in there, the leather shorts were leather and shorts , and, as I reminded Trillium, my father had once, not so long ago, called me “whorish.”
    “Seventeen years ago,” singsonged Trillium, turning down the waistband. “ Look at how immaculately they’re lined. You don’t see a lining like that every day. And the seams!”
    “Lining, seams, blah blah blah. No.”
    “Oh, you!” She gave me a grandma-style cheek pinch. “How about this: you forget about pleasing him? Let your outfit scream, ‘Go to hell, ya big bossy galoot!’”
    I did a little internal squirming at this because, obviously, Trillium was right. “Go to hell, ya big bossy galoot” had always been the appropriate response to Wilson, and I hadn’t given it anywhere close to often enough. When I had, there’d always been a thrill of satisfaction—anda lot of high-fiving from Marcus. But the thought of doing it now, with the anxiety trifle growing more layered by the minute, just made me tired.
    “Don’t want to give the man another heart attack,” I mumbled.
    Trillium raised an eyebrow at me.
    I sighed. “Okay. For the time being, I’m in path-of-least-resistance mode.”
    Trillium considered this for a moment, then nodded. “So be it.”
    We found some narrow, charcoal gray, almost black (“but much wittier than black” according to Trill) pants made of some kind of smooth, non-itchy, stretch wool (“like wool when it dreams it’s silk; this puts the ‘fab’ in fabric!”) and a loose ruby-red cashmere sweater with an open neck (“perfect for the dark-haired girl who what she lacks in cup size makes up for in collarbone gorgeousness”). After I swore on my life to wear a certain pair of flat-soled, black, knee-high boots that Trillium had bought for me for my last birthday (she has a habit of giving gifts so extravagant that you must protest, even though they are so perfect that you sort of hate to), I said, “Are we allowed to eat now?” And we were.
    Never one to mince words, as soon as we had placed our order, Trillium leaned in and said, “Okay, let’s talk about ‘whorish.’”
    The waiter, a skinny handsome boy with Tin Tin hair, began, with grave nonchalance, to whistle, never taking his eyes off his notebook, before walking away, “Moon River” trailing in the air behind him.
    I sighed. “Wilson never name-calls. He just uses hideous adjectives and stabs people with them.”
    Trillium made a gnat-swatting motion. “Pfft! Who cares about Wilson? What I want to know is: who was the boy ?”
    For a few seconds, I ceased to breathe. Then, I began whistling “Moon River.”
    “Nooooooo you don’t,” said Trill. “Where there’s a father saying ‘whorish,’ there’s a boy. Spill it, missy.”
    I opened my mouth. Shut it.
    Trillium reached for my hand. “Hold on. The boy wasn’t a bad one, was he? He didn’t abuse you or something?”
    I shook my head. “He was good.”
    My mouth was dry. My heart was marbles in a tin can that someone was shaking.
    “Name?” asked Trillium.
    “Ben Ransom.” The tin can shook harder. Clatter, clatter, clatter. After all this time, all it took was saying his name.
    “Tall or