My vision blurs completely this time.
“Sebastian…” I whisper, my voice breaking just a little. My fingers brush over something else, a cassette tape, and I pull it out slowly, turning it over in my hands.
He watches me closely as I rub my fingers over his scribbled writing. For my songbird, it says.
“That’s for you to listen to later,” he says.
I glance up at him. “Later?”
His lips curve slightly.
“I have a lot of those for you,” he adds. “I wanted you to hear it the way it actually was. Not just me telling you now.” His gaze holds mine. “It’s easy for me to say how much I cared… how badly I needed to find you.”
My heart stutters.
I swallow, tightening my grip on the tape. “Can I listen now?” I want to hear his reverent words. I want to hear every emotion he felt when I wasn’t with him.
He smiles cheekily at me and then takes the box gently from my hands and sets it off to the side.
“Unfortunately,” he says, completely serious, “Sparkles is on a very tight schedule today. Jeremy has an appointment with her to try and trick Soph into thinking he’s a decent human being this afternoon.”
I think he’s going to say he’s kidding, but no, he’s completely serious. Juniper is going to start charging the guys for walking her dog, I can see it happening now.
Sparkles trots ahead of us, her leash loose in Sebastian’s hand, her tail wagging like she owns the entire campus, which, honestly, she kind of does.
I tuck my hand under his arm and hold his bicep, leaning slightly into his side as we walk along the path, the water stretching out beside us, sunlight dancing across the surface.
It’s quiet here now, so peaceful, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for something bad to happen.
Everything is…okay.
More than okay.
“Sprinkles,” Sebastian says suddenly, his tone serious, like he’s addressing a person and not a very spoiled Dalmatian, “remember what we talked about.”
Sparkles stops mid-step, slowly turns her head and bares her teeth at him.
Not a growl…it looks like she just got the ick, and I’m trying so hard not to laugh at this man who I love so much.
Sparkles huffs at Sebastian,actually huffs, before turning forward again like she’s choosing to ignore him.
I smile to myself, watching her, then let my gaze drift out over the water again.
Everything bad that happened feels far away now, like something I lived through in another life.
Nathan wasn’t lying, he was my half brother. That the man I grew up calling Dad, the man who raised me, who stood beside my mother, who loved me in the only way he knew how, wasn’t my biological father.
The monster who tried to ruin my life was.
It should feel bigger than it does, heavier I think.
But it doesn’t, because to me, my dad will always be my dad. He wasn’t perfect, but he loved me.
And I know deep down that everything he did, he believed was for the best.
Sparkles suddenly veers off the path, pulling slightly on the leash as she makes a beeline toward a tree near the water. It’s one of the prettiest ones on campus, its branches stretching out over the edge like it’s reaching for the lake.
Sebastian glances down at her, then back at me. “We should probably follow her.” He sounds giddy, and I don’t know what he’s up to.
