I still remember the first time I came here, how I met my best friend, the boy who gave me the time of day and didn’t ignore me. Even knowing I had no money, and my dad was his gardener, he never made me feel little about it. Hayden Crawford saw me, and even after everything he still only sees me.
I smile at the memories we had in the treehouse, our first sweet and salty popcorn debate, the first gifts we got each other. It’s all in this tree house.
"Cain built everything," Hayden says.
I don't say anything. I just listen because I think he needs someone to hear him out about what he’s done and not hate him for it. I’m not going to hate him; he killed the man who raped me. I love him even more for it.
“After prison, Cain gave me something. Purpose, structure, a reason to get out of bed and be something. He trained me himself, built me up from nothing. He did it because I was his. Because that's what Cain does for the people who are his. Hisfamily.” Hayden shakes his head a little. “He was the only one who trusted me the most, with everything, and I’ve broken it.”
My heart breaks at the tone of his voice, and how it’s hard for him to talk about this. I knew him and Cain were close, but with how Hayden is right now, I understand it’s more than a family relationship between them, this is so much more.
"He's the one person," Hayden says quietly. "That I would do anything for. The one person I’ve never once let down." He looks at his hands. "Until now."
"Hayden—"
"Don't. Don't tell me he'll get over it."
I close my mouth, because I can’t say that I have no idea how long Cain will be angry about this.
He looks at me sideways, and something in his expression is almost a smile and isn't one at all.
"He’ll be angry for a long time," he says. "You don't understand Cain. You think you do, you've seen him at the house, you've seen him with Autumn, but that's…" He stops. "Cain would die for me. Even now, even with Autumn in his life, even with everything he's built, if it came to it, he would die for me." He looks back out at the night sky. "And I knew that. I’ve always known that, and I went and did it anyway without telling him, without giving him the chance to help me do it right. I broke his trust, Olivia. Not his rules. His trust. And those are not the same thing."
"Why didn't you go to him?" I ask softly. "If you knew he would have helped, why didn't you?"
Hayden is quiet for a long moment. Long enough that I think he might not answer.
"I told Cain it was for me," he says finally. "And that's true. Leo took things from me that I’ll never get back for years; my name, and everything that came after." He exhales. "But it was for you too. And I couldn't—" He stops again, taking in a deepbreath. "If I had gone to Cain, I would have had to say that out loud. I would have had to stand in front of him and tell him that I was breaking the rule for a girl. Cain, the person who has told me since I was eighteen that you never let your feelings make your decisions, that I was asking him to put Leo on a list because of what he did to you." He shakes his head. "I couldn't do it. I didn't want to say it out loud because saying it out loud meant admitting how much you—" He stops. Something moves across his face. "It was both. It was always both. And I couldn't admit that, not even to myself, so I went alone, and I didn't tell anyone and I didn't plan it properly and Cain has been in the Pit for two weeks paying for it."
The silence that follows is the kind that needs to be left alone. I don't try to fill it; I just don’t know what to say to him.
I just reach over and find his hand in the dark and I hold it, and he lets me, and we sit there in the treehouse where we were ten years old once and knew things we didn't have words for yet. It takes us back to a place where everything was good.
After a while he shifts. He moves so his back is against the wall properly, legs out in front of him, and he pulls me gently by the hand and I move without needing to be asked, settling between his legs, my back against his chest, his arms coming around me loosely.
We look out at the night sky.
I think about everything this place has held without knowing it was holding it, every version of us, every age, every season of something that was always going to end up here, with my back against his chest and his arms around me and the night sky through the gap in the boards.
It took us so long.
It cost so much.
And here we are anyway.
Hayden's arms tighten slightly around me, and I feel him breathe, slow and deep, and I think, not for the first time, not in a way that surprises me anymore, that whatever comes next, whatever Cain decides, whatever the brothers need from him, whatever the weeks ahead hold…He won't face it alone.
Neither will I.
I sit in the clinic watching my dad with the physiotherapist, and I can see he’s getting annoyed with him, and it’s the first time I’ve smiled in a while. For the first time in years, I’m not worrying about anything.
I have to hide the smile when I hear dad telling the physiotherapist that he’s doing everything wrong. He's been doing this for two weeks, and it’s only getting funnier the more I’m here. He’s lucky the physician likes him because I’m not sure anyone else would listen to him.
Sometimes I hear mom in the room telling dad to shut up and do as he’s told.
Hayden’s family have been coming to visit now again, which is nice. Hayden’s been here with me almost every day, I’ve told him to go back to class because we both have big goals and one of us needs to get back to class and get notes.
I stand up as the physiotherapist helps dad sit on the bed, I give him a smile and thank him. I take out some food for dad. He loves the food at the clinic, but he really wanted mom’s homemade lasagna. Now I know it won’t be as good as hers, but I tried my best.
