No questions. No judgement. Just warmth.
Aly bumped her knee against mine under the table. “Next time, warn us before you drop the whole ‘mysterious bombshell’ thing. Some of us here areveryopen-minded.”
“Shut up,” Layla said, laughing, flicking a napkin at her.
I couldn’t help it; I laughed too, quiet and small, but real.
The girls kept talking; the conversation drifted back to classes, assignments, and the stupid vending machine that kept eating coins.
I sat there with my coffee, cheeks still warm, and let the sound of their voices fill the space where fear used to live.
They remembered. But they didn’t care.
And that was enough.
Chapter Twenty-One
Joshua
The rain started just before I was ready to leave for class, and since it was Thursday, it was important because we had a game on Saturday, and practice shouldn’t be skipped.
But I can’t move, the rain… the fucking rain wouldn’t let me. It was soft at first, harmless, almost quiet. Then harder. Louder. Until it was all I could hear. So I decided to stay back.
I sat on the floor, leaning back against my bed, phone in hand, thumb hovering over the screen.Cancel practice. Tell her not to come.
The words blurred together. My hand wouldn’t stop shaking.
It shouldn’t have mattered. It was just water. But the sound… God, the sound. The hollow tap against the glass. The way it slid down in uneven trails, catching the light before vanishing. The smell of it in the air: wet asphalt, metal, ghosts.
My chest tightened. I swallowed hard, throat dry, the phone screen glowing pale in my lap.
Hey team, practice’s off today.
Hey, Campbell, don’t show up.
I could type it. I could. But my fingers wouldn’t move.
The room felt smaller, the air heavier, the rain louder. Every drop against the window hit like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
Mom.
My eyes squeezed shut. The memory crawled up anyway, like it always did when the rain came.
Her voice downstairs. The slam of the door. Bare feet on wet pavement. Me, five years old, trying to keep up, my shoes slipping on the sidewalk. Her hair sticking to her face. The streetlight turning red.
She didn’t stop.
The car didn’t stop.
Just the sound, the crack, the scream, the silence after. And me, standing there in shoes too big, staring at the road where she’d been.
I pressed the heel of my hand against my chest, hard. Tried to breathe through it.
I hate the rain.
I hate it.
It’s been years. I’m twenty. Captain of Silverwood’s football team. I’ve been hit, broken, bruised, but nothing ever hits harder than this.
