“I remember the day you finally told me why you avoided photographs.”
“And what did you say?”
“That I thought your smile was beautiful.”
I squeezed his fingers.
“He said it so often that I eventually started believing him.”
Emma looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”
“I suppose I didn’t think about it much anymore. It happened a long time ago.”
“Did you forgive that boy?”
“I stopped being angry eventually. But forgiveness didn’t mean I had to keep dating him.”
Emma lowered her eyes.
Across the table, Tyler had stopped eating.
He was staring at his plate, his face growing red.
Daniel noticed, but he didn’t turn the conversation toward him.
He simply said, “It’s strange how one person’s opinion can stay with us long after that person has stopped being important.”
Then he asked Tyler about his science project again.
