CHAPTER THREE
NINE YEARS OLD
· · ·
He became part of my family.
We were inseparable.
As much as was possible considering we didn’t go to the same school. But we were in the same grade. Same age. I went to an embarrassingly proper, overpriced prep school that ran kindergarten through twelfth grade.
And my parents wondered why I was bullied.
Cassian went to public school.
But every day, after school, he came over.
We didn’t question it. It was just what happened. My mom and his mom would talk over the fence sometimes — not for long, but enough. His mom was quiet. Soft-spoken. She had the same eyes as him, that particular shade of blue that didn’t look real in direct sunlight. My mom liked her. I could tell.
I liked her too, in the way you like someone you don’t fully know yet but feel like you should. She always smiled when she saw me, but there was something careful underneath it.
Something held back, the way you hold yourself when there are layers and layers carefully placed over what everyone else saw.
I just thought she was shy.
· · ·
Cassian would leave whenever it got dark.
But he always came back.
Sometimes without anyone else knowing.
My parents treated him like he was theirs too.
They’d yell at us when we were acting up — which was often — and then ruin it completely by smiling.
They couldn’t help it. Two giant softies who loved too loudly and never once apologized for it.
Cassian would get the same hugs from them that I did.
All of us huddled together.
I never told him how much I miss that.
The way he’d go still for just a second before he hugged back.
He always held us the tightest.
· · ·
We were constantly in trouble.
Not my fault. Never my idea.
I always went along with it. No hesitation. No questions asked.
Because I’d do anything for him.
Because when he smiles — really smiles — it lights up everything.
And it’s rare.
So when it’s directed at me, it feels like something I get to keep.
Something that’s mine.
I just didn’t know how much I would end up paying for it.
There was one time we snuck into the pool next door.
For absolutely no reason.
My pool was bigger. Better. Fully equipped — noodles, jets, a small slide, the works. Cassian had been in it a hundred times.
We went to this barely filled in pool down the street anyway.
Next thing I know we’re being chased down and sprinting for our lives. Cassian lost his shorts somewhere in the chaos — snagged on the fake rocks surrounding the pool — and as punishment for dragging me into it, I refused to help him.
I watched him James Bond his way home through every bush and car on the street.
I was laughing so hard I could barely keep up.
He was furious.
It’s one of my favorite memories.
· · ·
He came on our winter trip that year.
Colorado. A ski trip.
Cassian did not pack a single winter outfit.
My mom stood there staring into his bag like she was waiting for a coat to materialize. It didn’t. She looked at my dad. My dad looked at the ceiling.
They bought him an entire winter wardrobe that afternoon without making it into a thing.
That was always them.
· · ·
At night, in the cabin — which smelled like pine and fireplace smoke and something that felt dangerously close to Christmas — we’d sit in front of the fire while my parents read or talked quietly behind us.
And I’d watch Cassian go drowsy and still.
The tight thing he always carried in his shoulders just… gone.
His eyes half-closed. The fire catching the gold in his hair.
Content in a way he never quite looked at home.
I wanted to keep us there forever.