“You can leave early for lunch,” I told them with a quick look at my watch. We weren’t meant to let classes out early, but these were seniors, most of them about to turn eighteen, so they could be trusted—I hoped.
Cheers rang out, and I shook my head with a grin. It was hard getting used to the fact I was the teacher and not the student. I had a feeling I’d never quite get used to it. Inside, I’d always be the sixteen-year-old kid who loved lacrosse and any kind of competitive sport.
Students filed out of the room as I closed my laptop and slid it into my bag, but I was hyperaware of Aria taking her time to leave the class. When I looked up, she was standing in the aisle, looking down at her hands and gnawing on her bottom lip.
“Aria?” I called.
“Cade—I mean…” She cleared her throat and stepped toward me, her gaze landing on mine. “Mr. Easton.” She shook her head and wrinkled up her nose. “That’s so freaking weird.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “It is when you’re saying it. Sounds like you’re talking about my dad.”
She snorted and gripped the edges of her leather jacket, causing me to flick my gaze down to her T-shirt and the rainbow painted onto it. “Uncle Brody would kill me if I called him that.”
My lips quirked on one side. My dad wasn’t really her uncle, but she’d taken to calling him that when she was ten and had to stay the night after Jan had broken her arm at the diner. Pretty sure that was the night Sal had finally told Jan how he felt about her.
Things changed so fast, and I wondered how many things were now different. It wasn’t that I hadn’t visited, because I had. It was just…different because I hadn’t seen her.
“How’s your mom?” I asked, trying to make small talk. I’d seen her mom on my last visit home, but that had been six months ago. The way her eyes stared at mine was the same as always—like she saw right through me.
The bell rang out for lunch, but neither of us moved. “She’s good. Sal is practically living with us now.” She glanced away, staring out the wall of windows that looked out onto the field and track. “No one told me you were back.”
I shrugged even though she couldn’t see it. “I didn’t know myself until a couple days back.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything else. She was always good at that: internalizing everything she was thinking. Aria never said anything unless she meant it. She had always been an overthinker, whereas I spoke first and asked questions later, and the way she was talking and acting meant that hadn’t changed.
There was a time I knew her better than anyone. Knew when she was sad and what she was sad about. Knew when she needed distracting or when she just wanted to talk. Most people wouldn’t have thought it normal for a sixteen-year-old to be so close to an eight-year-old, but they hadn’t been through what we had. They didn’t understand the darkness that surrounded our history.
But I’d dropped her as soon as I started college. I’d forgotten all about Aria and what she’d been through, and I was only now realizing what a shit thing that was to do.
“There you are!” I whipped my head toward the open door and frowned at the dark-haired girl. “Come on, Aria. We need out of these hallways—” The girl finally looked at me and stumbled back a step. “Crap. Sorry, sir, I didn’t realize—”
“You’re fine,” I said, waving my hand and shouldering my bag. “Aria was just leaving.”
Aria hesitated and then shook her head. She walked forward, stopping a couple of feet in front of me, and whispered, “I’m glad you’re home.”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat and croaked out, “Me too.”
Neither of us looked away for a couple of seconds, and then her lips lifted into a small smile. A smile I hadn’t even known I’d missed until she flashed it my way. “Don’t think this gives you automatic Belle and Asher rights,” she warned with a raised brow. “I still get first dibs.”
She sauntered out of the room, and it wasn’t until she was turning out of the doorway that I managed to say, “They’re my siblings, not yours.” And I realized that I sounded like a kid again. I’d only been around her for an hour, and
she was already bringing out the old Cade. The Cade who didn’t have a care in the world. The Cade who flew by the seat of his pants. That Cade had disappeared and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted him back or not. He was the old me, but also the me I craved to be again.
Life had a way of throwing things at you, but surely there was a time when there was too much shit flung your way? They said things happened in threes, and that night, it was the exact number of people who had died. People who had their lives cut short.
All because of me.
If I hadn’t stepped in the car at that exact moment. If I hadn’t forgotten my wallet and had to go back inside to get it. If I had left only ten seconds later or ten seconds earlier…
The world was full of what-ifs.
What-ifs that kept me up at night.
What-ifs that changed the way I thought.
What-ifs that had changed my life.
* * *