Chapter 49
Changing Opinions
Sophie
I wasn’t proud of how long I’d been certain about Ethan Walker. Certainty was comfortable in a small town. Once you decided who someone was, you could stop paying attention. You could recycle the same opinions, pass them along like inherited furniture, never stopping to ask if they still fit.
With Ethan, my certainty had been forged early.
Claire had been in love with him since we were kids.
Not the fleeting kind either. The kind that grew quietly, that survived awkward phases and bad haircuts and long summers where nothing much happened except the slow realization that someone mattered more than they should.
Everyone had known it. Everyone had teased her about it.
Even when she pretended not to care, her eyes had followed him.
So, when he showed his true colors, it broke something in her.
He hadn’t even left dramatically. No shouting, no confrontation. Still young, still restless, still that reckless Walker boy everyone warned their daughters about.
And Claire, already humiliated, had absorbed it quietly.
She’d doubted herself for years. Her judgment. Her worth.
I remembered how long it took to get her to walk down Main Street again.
How she avoided certain places because she was convinced people were watching her, measuring her worth against the story they’d already decided on.
How humiliation settled into her shoulders, heavy and quiet, every time someone looked at her with pity.
Small towns loved neat endings.
They loved saying Claire had been young and naive. Loved pointing out that Ethan had always been trouble, as if that somehow made what he did inevitable instead of cruel.
Young love didn’t last, they’d said.
And the younger Walker boy? Everyone had known better than to trust him.
Claire hadn’t just been hurt by Ethan. She’d been publicly undone. And the town had nodded along, satisfied to be proven right.
So yes, my opinions had sharpened over the years. Not just because of him alone, but because of Claire too. Because I’d watched what that kind of betrayal did to kind people.
Loyalty, for me, had always been simple. I, protected the ones I loved.
So, when I walked into the Miller house and saw Ethan wearing Emma’s bright pink apron, cooking dinner from one of her old cookbooks with Lily helping, I stopped short in the doorway.
Lily, normally a constant blur of movement, leaned against his shoulder while he read the recipe aloud, calm and focused in a way I wasn’t used to seeing. She trusted him completely.
That was what unsettled me most.
Trust like that wasn’t easy, it was unconscious.
I stood there for a full minute before clearing my throat.
Ethan looked up first, clearly startled. “Hey, Sophie.”
“Hi,” I said, stepping inside. “Claire left some things here yesterday. I came to grab them.”
“They’re on the counter,” he said, nodding toward it.
I picked up the bag easily. It would’ve been simple to leave.
I didn’t.
Lily noticed me then. “Aunt Sophie! Look!”
She held up the bowl, beaming.
“It’s really good, baby,” I told her, and I meant it.
Ethan smiled at her, quiet and proud.
I hated that it affected me.
She skipped off to ask Emma about portions, and suddenly Ethan and I were alone in the kitchen.
I cleared my throat. “I should probably say something.”
His posture changed instantly. Not defensive exactly. Braced. Like someone who had learned to expect impact.
Good.
Some things were not erased just because time passed.
“I’ve been hard on you,” I said. “Not unfairly. You hurt people I love.”
Shockingly, he nodded and didn’t interrupt.
“Jenny never forgave you,” I continued. “I don’t think she ever could. Not for what you did to Claire. And honestly, I don’t blame her.”
His jaw tightened. That landed where it should.
“She tolerated you,” I added. “For Claire. That was the best she could do. And in her mind, that was more than you deserved.”
He exhaled slowly. “That sounds like her.”
It did. And the fact that he knew it, that he didn’t argue with it, shifted my opinion a little.
“I carried that with me,” I admitted. “The town’s version of you. The boy who ran. The man who betrayed and humiliated my best friend.”
He looked at the floor for a moment. Then back at me. “I did.”
I hadn’t been expecting that.
“And yet,” I said carefully, “I see what you’re doing now. With Lily. With Emma. With Claire, even though your methods are questionable.”
His eyes flickered at her name, but he didn’t look away.
“You’re here,” I continued.
He swallowed. “That’s all I can do.”
I nodded. “It is.”
The admission sat between us, awkward.
“I’m not saying you’ve made up for anything,” I told him. “You don’t get points for doing what you should’ve done years ago.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
“But I won’t pretend I don’t see the difference,” I added. “And I won’t poison the air for Claire if you’re actually being good to her.”
That was my line. The boundary I could live with.
His shoulders eased, just slightly. “Thank you.”
It was simple. Earnest. And it told me something I didn’t expect.
He cared what people thought now. Not for reputation. For consequence.
“Don’t make me regret saying this,” I said, stiff again.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “I won’t.”
As I headed for the door, I glanced back once more.
He was already back beside Lily, helping her measure the ingredients.
And I thought of Claire, of the girl she’d been before the town got hold of her story, who survived the wreckage quietly, rebuilding herself piece by piece.
I was still guarded. I always would be.
But for the first time in years, my certainty shifted. I believed Claire might actually be safe around him.
Maybe, even better off.