Chapter 40
FORTY
CONNOR
Ellie squeals on the other side of the rink, wobbling toward my sister while Daisy takes off after her. “I’m going to get you!”
“She’s good for you,” Mom says. We’re sitting on the bleachers, watching the girl I can’t stop thinking about chase my niece around. She fits in so seamlessly it’s hard to believe they only just met yesterday.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I tell her, feigning ignorance and scratching at the spot on my chest that feels tight again.
She laughs. “I see the way you’re looking at her.”
“I’m just looking.”
“You have that look on your face. The same one your dad did when I first met him.” She smiles secretly to herself before letting out a small laugh. “You’re smitten.”
I shake my head, eyes bouncing back to Daisy. I can’t seem to keep them off her for long, especially not when she has that big smile on her face, lighting up the entire place. “She’s going home soon.”
She snorts like I’ve just said the most ridiculous thing. “You know they make phones now, right?”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help the smile that spreads on my lips. “You used to be funnier.”
“Or maybe you just lost your touch.” As if sensing my reluctance to continue with the conversation, she changes the topic. “How’s school been?”
I stuff my hands into my coat pockets to try and warm them up. I gave Daisy my gloves because she forgot hers. “Good. I’m ready for a break before exams.”
“Have you thought any more about the draft?”
I groan, hating the fact that I never seem to be able to avoid this conversation.
I should have known it was coming—she’s brought it up every time we’ve spoken since Christmas, when I told her I was planning on graduating early and moving home. I didn’t have the heart to tell her then that I’ve already withdrawn my name from all team considerations.
I promised myself that I would tell her when I next saw her, but it never seems to be the right time. “I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“There’s nothing back home for you.”
I blink at her, not quite sure what she means. “There’s you and Sarah and Ellie.”
“You can’t shape your life around us.”
“Why not?” My heart does a loop in my chest before lodging somewhere in the back of my throat.
She scoffs, her eyes tracking my niece across the arena. “You were meant for something bigger, Connor. Don’t throw your chance away because of us. We’ve done just fine for the last four years without you.”
I swallow hard. “You don’t want me home?”
“Of course I do,” she exclaims, finally looking at me.
She must see the heartbreak on my face, because she reaches one gloved hand up to rest against my cheek.
“I want you home to visit and eat all of my food and complain about my unkempt lawn and to see you fight over the remote with Sarah. But I don’t want you to put your life on pause for us. ”
“Do you have the same conversation with Sarah?” It’s an immature thing to ask, but I get the sense that I’m being pushed out of the bubble I so desperately want to be in.
“Of course,” she answers without hesitation. I blink at her. “Did you think she would live at home forever?”
“No, I just thought…with Ellie.” I run both hands across my face, trying to scrub away whatever this conversation is.
If I’m really honest with myself, I guess I’ve been spending the last three years thinking my family would sit around and wait for me to come home—that we would pick up life together once we were finally all under one roof again.
“I’m helping while I’m needed, but Sarah can hold her own,” she continues, and I have the sudden nauseating feeling that everything around me is changing.
That it’s probably been changing for a while and I’ve just been too caught up in my own world to realize it.
“Once she graduates, she’s not going to want to live with me. ”
I swallow. “What about you then?”
“I’ll find a cute place nearby, close enough to help with Ellie if I’m needed and far enough away to figure out who I am without you kids around.”
I startle, staring at her like she just told me the earth is flat. “You would sell the house?”
“At some point, yes.” She laughs, clearly oblivious to the way my world has just collapsed around me. “It’s much too big for just one person.”
My chest constricts and I can’t breathe. It’s the final nail in the coffin on the plans I thought I had. The direction I thought my life would be taking. Everything’s slipping away, completely out of my control.
My head falls into my hands, elbows resting on my knees, frantically moving up and down as I tap my heels against the floor over and over again in an attempt to control the anxious energy zipping through me.
I squeeze my eyes so tight that when I open them again, I’m seeing little white spots on the floor.
They blur together with the tears threatening to spill.
“I don’t want things to change,” I finally croak when I’m sure I won’t cry. I feel Mom’s warm hand on my back, and it almost sets me off again.
“Change is the way of life. It’s how we grow.” Her voice is soft, the same way it was when I would crawl into her bed as a kid and ask about Dad, not quite understanding that he wasn’t coming home. I wish I could bottle it up and keep it with me forever.
Ellie shrieks somewhere close by and I hear her soft footsteps getting closer. I’m grateful for my niece’s everlasting ability to distract me when she collides with Mom’s legs and bumps them against mine.
“Gamma play,” she insists when Mom sweeps her off the floor and into her lap.
I force myself to sit upright again, focusing on my niece while I blink back the last traces of tears that never made it out.
When I look up, Daisy is watching me from the main floor three rows down, soft eyes seeing right through me.
Mom laughs and tugs the front of Ellie’s beanie down further on her head. “Are you sure you can catch me?”
“Gamma catch.”
“Of course.” She sighs dramatically, getting a thrill out of my niece as she carries her down. The moment she sets her on her feet, Ellie takes off in a flurry of purple and pink.
Daisy slides into the seat beside me that Mom just vacated. “Are you okay?”
I nod. Her eyes flicker between mine, and I feel like she would be able to read me from a mile away the same way I sometimes think I can her.
I can tell she’s not convinced by my answer, but she doesn’t push me. She just slips her fingers into mine. My knees buckle at the feel of her warm skin and I clutch her hand to me like she’s my lifeline.
“It’s all slipping away.” My voice breaks, the lump in my throat lodging itself tightly in place again.
“Change can be good.”
“What if I don’t want it?”
She doesn’t say anything in return. She just places a soft kiss against my knuckles. I lean into her, letting the sweet scent of her shampoo calm the anxious storm raging within me. I’m vaguely aware that she’s letting me touch her while my family is just a few feet away.
Our rules are slowly slipping away into the sand. Knowing that she’s willing to break another rule for me makes me feel like I can breathe a little easier. Maybe change isn’t so bad after all.