Chapter 12
The Drive Back
Ethan
Lily chose ice cream sandwiches, rainbow popsicles, dinosaur chicken nuggets, and a tub of strawberry ice-cream. I didn’t say no to a single thing.
She held the receipt on the drive home, examining it with the seriousness of an accountant.
“Uncle Ethan,” she said softly, “mom said not to eat so much junk food.”
The past tense sliced through me.
“We can do it just this once, kiddo.”
As we pulled into our driveway, I slowed.
There was a car I didn’t recognize parked along the sidewalk.
It was small, silver, it didn’t draw attention.
A whisper of recognition pulsed through, without knowing what I was recognizing.
My lungs stalled.
Shit.
No, it couldn’t.
Lily unbuckled before I did and dashed toward the house.
I grabbed the bags and followed, but every step felt heavier, like the ground knew something I didn’t want to admit.
◆◆◆
The grocery bags dug into my fingers as I nudged the front door open with my shoulder. Lily darted past my leg before I could say a word, her shoes squeaking against the hardwood like she was running from a monster or me. Probably the latter.
I followed slower, the cold of the outside still clinging to my clothes. The drive back from the store hadn’t been long, but my head was a mess. Too much noise inside. Too many emotions I didn’t have names for yet.
And the conversation with June Rivers, the sheriff now, not the babysitter who used to let us eat cookie dough straight from the bowl, had cracked something open in me I wasn’t prepared for.
I hadn’t expected to feel so…vulnerable.
My boots thudded softly against the entryway as I dropped the bags onto the counter.
Then I heard her voice.
Soft. Familiar. A sound that had lived in a locked drawer in my chest for years, untouched.
Claire.
The air in the kitchen shifted before I even saw her, something warm and steady, something scented like vanilla and chalk dust and the hint of rain. Something that still reminded me of home.
I froze just past the doorway.
Lily was already in her arms, climbing into her lap with the ease of a child who adored her.
Claire’s back was to me, her honey-blonde hair pulled into a loose braid that fell over her shoulder, a few strands escaping to brush her cheek.
She murmured something soft to Lily, smoothing her wild hair with one steady hand.
She looked older. Softer in places, stronger in others. A knit sweater hung loose on her shoulders, cream-colored and slightly oversized, the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her legs were crossed at the ankles; stockings and a simple dress turned her into a picture I wasn’t ready for.
God.
For a second, I genuinely thought my knees might give out.
Ten years should’ve dulled this. Should’ve removed that rush, that electric awareness, that invisible string tugging tight in my chest.
It didn’t.
Seeing her like this, gentle and solid, stitched unmistakably into Lily’s world, all I could think was: This could’ve been my life. Ours. If I hadn’t been young and stupid.
I stood there longer than I should’ve, gripping the grocery bag like a lifeline and trying to brace for the impact of her. She didn’t see me yet, which gave me time to absorb the sight of her.
She had changed. In ways that made her more…
real. More grounded. A woman now, not the girl whose heart I’d broken because I didn’t know how to love someone properly back then.
She’d put on the kind of weight that came from living a full life, not stressing over being enough.
Her curves softened her edges, and she carried herself like someone who was sure of her place in the world.
And yet…
She also hadn’t changed. That same quiet glow. Those freckles across her nose. The way she leaned in when she cared about someone, and the whole room shifted around her when she did.
She was still Claire.
Still the only person who ever saw the best in me before I knew it existed.
Still the person whose absence had carved out pieces of me I pretended I didn’t miss.
Lily murmured something into her shoulder. Claire’s hand stroked her back in slow, soothing circles. The kind of touch I still remembered, and sometimes if I’m very lucky, dream about.
But then Lily twisted, shifting off Claire’s lap.
And Claire tensed.
Barely. But enough that I felt it across the room.
I swallowed hard.
Lily turned toward the counters, spotting the ice cream we’d bought. She reached for a spoon. Claire caught her wrist.
“Small bowl,” she reminded, voice light but firm.
Then Claire lifted her chin and she turned. Slowly. Like bracing for impact.
Her eyes hit me like a punch to the ribs. Green, with flecks of gold I’d memorized once upon a time. Eyes bright enough to undo me, even now.
For a moment, one suspended, breathless moment, the kitchen shrank around us. Just her and me. Just everything we’d been and everything we weren’t anymore.
Her lips parted slightly. I felt every inch of space between us like it was charged.
She looked at me the way you look at a ghost you aren’t sure you’re ready to see, part shock and part ache, part something that hurt too much to name.
Memory. Longing. Loss.
Maybe all of them.
Her lashes lowered, and she exhaled in a tremor she tried to hide. Her fingers curled against her knee, tightening as if to remind herself she wasn’t sixteen anymore, wasn’t the girl who’d loved me with that furious, tender innocence that I didn’t deserve.
Years collapsed between us in a single, devastating heartbeat. And I felt the full, unbearable impact of, everything I’d lost.