The next morning, Lyla hummed a melody as she poured cereal into her bowl.

Ryan entered the kitchen. "You're eating? And you're humming?"

She smiled around a spoonful of cereal.

He dropped a slice of bread into the toaster. "I haven't seen you this happy since... " He thought for a moment. "Since you passed your driving test."

During the course of their seventeen years together, she had grown accustomed to her father's gentle teasing. He kidded her to take Lyla's mind off her troubles or to make her smile when she was feeling down.

She loved the way his eyes became crescents when he smiled. It wasn't so long ago that she feared she might never see him smile again. During those long dark days when her mom was sick - and after she passed away - there were no smiles. Her dad put on his bravest face pretending that he wasn't devastated. It was heartbreaking. He did it for her, but she wished that he would be real and admit that he was as grief-stricken and as lost as she was. But he would never let that happen. Never.

"Better get moving." He buttered his toast.

Lyla spooned the last of the cereal into her mouth. She put her cereal bowl in the sink and darted up the stairs, two-at-a-time.

She slipped into her best jeans, the ones that didn't make her legs look stumpy and she ditched her t-shirt in favor of a loose-fitting checked top, the shirt that Darcy always said looked cute.

She squeezed a strip of toothpaste onto her toothbrush, looking at herself in the mirror as she brushed. She wasn't a bad looking girl. She could never compete with Carissa, but for a regular girl, Lyla was kind of cute. Maybe she was more than cute, maybe she was almost pretty.

She wondered if she had fallen into a familiar pattern of behavior. Was she making a big deal out of something that maybe didn't exist? She needed to consider the situation objectively. Could a guy like Jack Bentley ever be interested in a girl like Lyla? In what world could that be possible?

Her mind raced back to that evening in Jack's car when they parked on the side of the road before returning to the party at Coughlin's Farm. She didn't imagine that. They really did kiss. He held her in his arms. That really happened. She would never forget those kisses as long as she lived.

While rinsing her toothbrush, her eyes went to the doorknob when she heard it rattle.

"I'll be out in a second," she said.

The doorknob turned back and forth.

"Okay, okay. I didn't realize it was an emergency." She opened the bathroom door. No one was there.

"Dad?" she called as she stepped cautiously into the hallway.

Suddenly, a blackbird shot out of her bedroom with Lyla as its target. She shielded her face and ducked. The bird's talons grazed her scalp, knocking her off her feet.

The next thing she knew, she began tumbling down the stairs.