He was all alone.
He only had me now.
His dad was working more than ever.
The house next door had gone quiet in a way that made our house feel louder just by comparison.
Cassian was carrying something all by himself over there.
I was the only door he’d left open.
So I stayed open because he needed me.
I didn’t know yet what that would cost me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THIRTEEN YEARS OLD
• • •
We were both changing — internally, externally. In all ways that mattered.
Mostly for the regular reasons. The ordinary teenage ones that everybody warns you about but don’t make sense until you’re already inside it.
But the directions we were changing in were different.
I was becoming more myself — while Cassian was slipping. Disappearing more and more right before me since that day.
Not dramatically. Not all at once.
I didn’t know how to bring him back this time.
He was having problems at school again.
Skipping class. More withdrawn. An attitude that had always been there but was sharpening into something with edges.
We found this out from his father.
More accurately — my parents drew it out of him. Because that’s who they were. They cared about Cassian in a way that didn’t require anything back, and they weren’t going to pretend otherwise just because his dad made it uncomfortable.
And his dad did nothing but try his hardest to make it uncomfortable.
I didn’t understand it then. The way he kept a wall between Cassian and our family. My parents had never been anything butgood to his son — fed him, cared for him, loved him without condition.
And still his dad looked at all of it like it was something to discourage. Kept us at a distance. Especially me.
There was something specific about the way he watched my parents with Cassian. Not just cold.
Calculating. Like he was keeping track.
I just knew Cassian needed people who loved him.
God knows my parents tried.
They never stopped trying.
• • •
