“She wouldn’t be there to help me get ready for prom, or to adjust my veil when I got married.” I sniffed and just let thetears fall because not once in the seven years since she died had I let myself think those thoughts again.
Until now.
“I miss my mom every fucking day, and it has never—not once—gotten easier. That was what I didn’t know that day. I knew everything I would never have, but I didn’t know how to carry the forever part.”
“Pip—”
“No, I’m okay. Just let me do this my way.”
And when he closed his hand over mine, I just… let it go.
“I left the gathering and went to my room and cried about all the Nevers. I didn’t tell anyone where I went, but they knew. I just wanted to ugly cry without my aunts and uncles and my mom’s friends whispering about all the Nevers in my future when Luke knocked and poked his head in. When he saw me crying, he came in and closed the door and locked it.”
Cade’s entire body went still above mine, and for one second I felt the violence in him rise so sharply I thought it might split the room open. His jaw locked, the muscle there jumping once, but he didn’t move away from me. He didn’t interrupt. He lowered himself beside me again instead, pulling the blanket higher around us before threading his fingers through mine like he was giving me something solid to hold while the floor disappeared beneath me.
“Please,” I whispered shakily. “Just let me get this out of me.”
For a second, I thought he might refuse, not because he didn’t want to hear me but because hearing me was visibly destroying him. Cade was tough as nails, though. He just scooted closer, pressing his shoulder against mine, his thumb dragging once across my knuckles.
“Tell me, Pip.”
I swallowed hard against the pressure building in my throat, and the rest came out like blood from a vein. “I remember feeling invisible and angry and completely broken.”
Tears blurred my vision again while Cade’s thumb brushed slowly beneath my eye, catching them before they could fall. His face looked carved from restraint, every line of him held too tight, but his hand stayed gentle on me.
“Everybody else was downstairs grieving, and Luke came upstairs and held me. He told me all the shit a grieving fourteen-year-old needed to hear. ‘You aren’t alone.’ ‘I am always here for you.’ ‘Let me hold you.’”
He started checking in with me daily. Little text messages telling me he was thinking about me or that he missed me. It happened so fast that my head spun. When he showed up a few weeks later, I was in my room crying because I had been crushing on Drake Jensen since sixth grade and found out he asked Aura to be his girlfriend.”
Cade’s head lifted like I had personally offended him.
“Fucking. Drake. Jensen.” He said it like saying his name was similar to eating shit.
The laugh ripped out of me so unexpectedly it shocked me. It came out broken and wet and completely ridiculous, but it was still a laugh, and Cade looked so genuinely offended on my behalf that another one followed.
“Seriously?” I wiped at my face with the heel of my hand. “That’s your takeaway?”
“How could it not be? I might need a side quest so I can hunt this fucker down.”
“A side quest?”
“Pip, you’re telling me Drake Jensen—king of the fuckboys—chose Aura over you, and I need a minute to process this new information.”
I laughed harder, pressing my face into the pillow for half a second because it was awful and perfect and exactly the kind of stupid thing my brain needed so I didn’t drown.
“Brace yourself, Cade. He had frosted tips.”
Cade stared at me in mock horror. “Not the frosted tips. I bet he wore a puka shell necklace too.”
I laughed even harder. “Yep, and those fake diamond studs in both ears.”
“Drake Jensen—the blueprint for douchebags—broke your heart.” He paused for effect. “In turn, forcing you into the arms of an even bigger dick?”
“Broke my heart,” I said with mock sadness, nodding.
“Fuck Drake Jensen. He’s lucky I don’t find him and beat his ass. Give me time, Pip. I can find a way to make every bad thing that happened to you his fault.”
“Leave Drake alone, Cade. He probably spends his time singing throwback NSYNC songs at karaoke every Friday. There’s nothing you can do to him that’s worse than that.”
