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For lunch we ate hot dogs froht the

Sam to where ashort-sleeved collared shirt, had entered the gate housing a s on his fist as he spoke, spreading theup into his nose Tanner reached out and wiped his face with a napkin

"You gotta watch the pond buddy," Tanner said, pointing to the water When the trainer tied a piece of redpole, the audience of around twenty people went quiet He pushed the pole out over the water and shook it so that the rope and thefroators rose to the surface in a series of splashing and thrashing, opening their strong jaws and cliest of the his razor sharp teeth around theback under the water as quickly as he’d appeared Tanner and Sa with the rest of the audience but the entire thing felt unsettling tobeasts kept in captivity

It felt wrong

There was enough trouble in the world; there was no need to go looking for it by dangling bait in front of a hungry beast with sharp teeth

Tanner nudgedshow never was always your favorite"

Either that has changed or Ray was a really good liar

I shrugged and looked down to Sa so hard his hands would miss each other every so often and land on his chubby arms He looked back at me and smiled, mustard crusted around the corners of his mouth I didn’t care if it left me with a bad taste in ht by reat"

On the way back to the car, Sa hi a little flip every ti I’d done

We’d done

"You knoe had our first kiss here Right in the parking lot We actually couldn’t afford to go inside so we set a blanket on the grass by the fence to watch one of the shows until ere told to leave by security," Tanner said, his eyes squinting as a low hanging cloud rolled away froht sun

"We did?" I looked around to the lot croith fa that would snap it all in place for ot too tired to keep walking, Tanner lifted hih the parking lot When Tanner’s hand sought mine out, I could already see where the truck was parked The happiness radiating off of the boys was infectious as they listed all their favorite parts of the day I didn’t want to ruin the a Tanner that the girl he loved wasn’t his anymore So for the twenty or so feet to the truck I let Tanner hold

After we’d left, I was surprised when instead of taking me back to my house, Tanner passed it and instead pulled into the driveway of his parents fla?" I asked as Tanner pulled continued down the long winding driveway to the back of the house

"I live in the pool house out back," Tanner explained

"No, I ht want to give Sammy a bath, read him a bedti the truck right outside a sht pink version of the htly lower than the roof of the pool house

The truth was that I wanted to do all of that and more I didn’t even have to think hard on it to know that what I really wanted was to keep Sammy with me Have him sleep in his room down the hall fro, and who rocks hi I was still the girl with the brain injury Of course no one would trust hi aSammy’s mom to actually be hisin the rearviewelseto that boy that he wanted me to be