It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

them. I only ever want to be honest with you, but you are your own person,
and if you want to give your father a chance to get to know you, I’ll put a
smile on my face and walk you straight to his front door. You just let me
know how to be here for you and I’ll be here.”
Josh nods and uses his shirt to wipe away another tear. He inhales, and on
his exhale, he says, “He has a truck.”
I don’t know what he means by that, but I follow his line of sight back to
Tim’s truck.
“All this time I imagined him to be really poor, without a way back to
Boston,” he says. “I even thought maybe he never came because he wasn’t
physically able to drive, like maybe his vision was too bad or something. I
don’t know. But he has a truck and he never even tried.”
I don’t interfere with his thought process. I just want to be here for him
when he finalizes it.
“He doesn’t deserve me, does he.” He says it like a statement rather than a
question.
“Neither of them deserves you.”
He doesn’t move for an entire minute as he stares past me out the window.
But then he looks at me firmly, sitting a little taller. “You know that
homework I’m behind on? The family tree?” Josh pulls at his seat belt and
begins to fasten it. “They never said how big the tree needed to be. I’ll just
draw a baby seedling. They don’t have branches.” He pats the dash. “Let’s
go.”
I laugh hard at that. I wasn’t expecting it. The way this kid weaves humor
into the most depressing moments gives me hope for him. I think he’s gonna
be okay.
“A seedling, huh?” I start the car and pull on my own seat belt. “That
might work.”
“I can draw a seedling with two tiny branches. Yours and mine. We’ll be
on our own brand-new, tiny family tree—one that starts with us.”
I feel heat behind my eyes, so I grab my sunglasses off the dash and put
them on. “A whole new family tree that starts with us. I like it.”
He nods. “And we’ll do a much better job of keeping it alive than our
shitty parents did.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.” I am absolutely relieved by this decision.
Josh may change his mind in the future, but I have a strong suspicion that
even if he contacts his father going forward, he’s never going to choose him