Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
CHRISTINE
Every time I hear a car drive by, I rush to the window to see if it’s Fletcher pulling in. They haven’t even been gone for twenty minutes, but it feels like hours.
Maybe it was a mistake sending Casey off with him. But then again, maybe Casey will be more willing to listen to him than me right now. That’s what him agreeing to talk with Fletcher in the first place suggests. And I try not to feel… hurt by that.
I’m his mom. But when I tried to talk to him, he just shut down.
Fletcher on the other hand…Fletcher isn’t just someone he looks up to. He’s someone he wants to be. His talented, impressive teacher. The friend of his cool older brother.
I have no idea if that’s going to help or hurt right now.
My shoulders tense as Fletch rounds the corner and pulls my car into the driveway. I half expect Casey to beeline for the door, but he hops out and waits for Fletcher, then the two head for the house hand in hand.
The sight of it does weird, cruel things to my heart.
I brace myself as they step through the door—I have no idea if Casey’s seeming forgiveness extends to me—but when he turns the corner and sees me in the living room, he beams.
“Mom, can we make a fort and have a movie night?”
I blink from him to Fletcher, who lingers a few steps behind. What could he have possibly said to Casey to get a full one-eighty mood switch? He widens his eyes and shrugs.
“Uh, sure,” I say. “I can make some popcorn. And we have fruit snacks.”
“Can Fletcher stay?”
I freeze. Fletcher freezes.
“Well,” I say slowly and meet his eyes. “Fletcher might have other plans…”
“I don’t.” He crouches beside Casey. “If it’s okay with your mom, I’d love to stay.”
I stare at my son, momentarily too stunned to know what to do. While they were gone, I’d been mentally preparing myself for days of pouting, maybe weeks, maybe more. A small part of me had worried this had irreversibly altered his trust in me.
I blink tears out of my eyes as my gaze drifts to Fletcher. “Of course you can stay.”
Fletcher pats Casey on the back once before rising to his feet and heading for the kitchen. “You two get started on the fort. I’ll get the snacks!”
We aren’t allowed to start the movie until the fort is perfect, which includes a lot of Casey barking orders and pointing at things he wants us to move. All of the kitchen chairs end up in the living room, and it takes two sets of sheets to drape on top to cover it all.
This is only the first step. The interior, apparently, is just as important. It requires the perfect combination of pillows and blankets for a comfortable seat, as well as enough pillows to lounge against.
Enough being every single pillow we have in the house, and even then, Casey insists on bringing down all of his stuffed animals too.
When all is said and done and the three of us are tucked together inside the fort, Casey lasts thirty minutes of the movie before he passes out. He’s curled into a ball on his side with his head in my lap, his favorite stuffed sea lion tucked beneath his chin, and his mouth wide open as he snores. The TV offers the only light in the room now that the sun set.
I run a hand over Casey’s hair, and when he doesn’t stir, I sigh and murmur, “I’m gonna take him upstairs.”
“I can do it,” Fletcher offers, then winces, like maybe he’s worried he overstepped. Truthfully, Casey’s getting a little heavy for me these days, but I’m in denial about it. I smile and nod. He slides Casey into his arms—Mr. Flippers still in place—and heads for Casey’s room.
I search for the remote and pause the dance battle between cartoon turtles currently happening on the screen. It doesn’t occur to me until Fletcher’s footsteps creak down the stairs that he left his car at the park earlier today.
“He is out .” He smiles as he reaches the bottom of the stairs.
“You can take my car to get yourself home,” I offer as I climb out of the fort.
He tilts the corners of his lips down and shakes his head. “I’m not leaving you without one here. I’ll see if Li or Leo can pick me up.”
“Thank you.” I wave a hand around us. “For everything today. For being so good with him. I don’t know what you said to get through to him, but thank you.”
He drifts closer and shrugs. “Just told him the truth. That I care about you, and I care about him.”
He stops less than a pace away. Close enough for me to smell his cologne, to have to crane my neck to see his face. His forehead creases.
“Chris, I just—I just want you to know that however you want to handle things after today, I understand. Between us, I mean. If this is still something you don’t want out in the open, I can…I don’t know. Keep my distance for a while? People will get tired of talking if there’s nothing new for them to gossip about. And?—”
“No.”
His eyes snap to mine, and for a moment, I’m lost in them. What he’s saying…he’s right. Things would be bad for a few days—weeks maybe—but if we stopped giving them new material, the gossip would get old and they’d move on to something shinier and new.
But something feels different today. Something’s changed.
Maybe it was seeing Fletcher give comfort to my son in a way I couldn’t, or maybe it was the comfort he brought to me , the kind I haven’t known in a long time—if I’ve ever felt it at all, really.
And letting this town take that away from me to save face, well, that feels more like letting them win than anything else.
“I’m tired of the secrets,” I whisper. “I’m tired of the hiding and pretending and feeling like I’m the one doing something wrong.”
Slowly, he lifts his hand and lightly traces his fingertips over my cheek. My eyes flutter shut as a million thoughts war in my mind. Because as much as I want to let it all go, the one thought that trips me up time and time again is…Casey. Tonight—the three of us spending time together—may have been a very, very bad idea.
“I’m just worried if Casey gets attached, that when you leave, it’ll just hurt him more,” I whisper.
He stares at me, the look on his face almost offended . “When? Why are you assuming I will?”
Did I say when? I hadn’t meant to…but I guess that is what I meant. I shrug helplessly. “Because everyone always does.”
His face falls. After a deep breath, he takes one of my hands in his and props the other beneath my chin. The intensity in his eyes pins me to the spot. “Not this time, Chris.”
I lay a hand over his and bring it down from my face. “Look, Fletcher, I’m complicated. I have enough baggage for a lifetime. And you’re young?—”
He tightens his fingers around mine before I can let go of his hand. “Don’t do that.”
“Just let me say this. You’re young, Fletcher. I don’t mean that in any bad way, and it’s never something I think about when we’re together, but it’s still true. And I wouldn’t hold it against you if you weren’t ready for everything that being with me— really being with me—entails.”
He’s quiet, and I search his eyes, pleading with him to understand.
But then he murmurs, “Don’t push me away because you think I’m going to leave. Because I’m right here. And I’m not leaving. There is nothing about you or your past that scares me. I have known what I was getting into from the start, and I never would’ve wasted your time if I didn’t think I could handle it.” My eyes burn, and I scrunch my nose as I fight back tears. He frames my face with his hands and angles it up, forcing me to meet his eyes. “I am all in, Chris. But I need to know if you’re all in with me too.”
I don’t know if I’ve ever been all in on something in my life. Keeping one foot out the door is what keeps you safe. Keeps you ready for when disaster inevitably strikes. It doesn’t protect you from the pain altogether, but I imagine it would be ten times worse without it.
“I don’t know if I know how to be,” I admit.
He gives me a soft, sad smile. “I know that feeling. I had it when my parents first took me in. But they helped me through it. Now all I’m asking is for you to let me help you.”
What he’s saying—it sets off every fight or flight alarm bell in my head. My mother’s voice is blended in there somewhere. You can’t trust him. He says that now, but what about in ten years when it’s time to trade you in for a newer model? You’re too broken by now. There’s no fixing you anymore.
“I feel like this is worth taking a leap of faith for,” he adds. “Do you?”
It doesn’t just feel like a leap. It feels like a drop. Out of an airplane. Flying over a deep and endless ocean when I don’t know how to swim.
But that fear tightening my chest, that instinctual urge to run , when I look into Fletcher’s eyes, it quiets in a way I don’t know it ever has before.
“I do too,” I whisper.