7. Taking a Chance
Taking a Chance
Cassie
On Monday morning, Jordan told me the part for my truck had to come from Pennsylvania, eight states away. And UPS apparently wasn’t in any rush to deliver to a tiny mountain town like Everwood. They took their time, like everything else around here.
Charming, if you had time to wait for life to unfold. And apparently, I did—
If my heart beat any louder, the squirrels outside would file a noise complaint. But I was finally leaping without looking. Well, without looking too far…
I stared at the sign taped to the office door of Everwood High— “Visitors please check in at front desk”—and briefly considered pretending I was lost. Or sleepwalking. Or here to donate decorative pencils. Anything but what I was actually doing.
Interviewing.
For a real job.
In Everwood. Not Miller’s Pass.
Kathy’s voice echoed in my head from earlier that morning at the diner.
Levi really should have warned me that the yarn club planned on meeting at the diner for their usual morning gossip.
I was completely unprepared when Kathy and a few of the girls looked at me as if they were conspiring to kidnap me and force me into their yarn cult.
“I know it’s a little odd, me approaching you like this, but I was wondering if you’d humor an old lady and meet with me at 10 this morning.
Our ninth-grade Biology teacher, Brandy, left us, and I’m up a creek without a paddle right now.
Will ya come?” When she mentioned the school, I knew. I could almost hear her inner voice.
“You’d be perfect for it. Apply this morning. I’ll be in my office at ten.”
She said it so casually, as if applying for a life-altering teaching position were the same as ordering the soup of the day.
But I’d done it. I’d sent in my application online and printed out my resume, small as it may be, with shaking hands and nervous energy I usually reserved for blind dates and DMV tests.
Then—because the universe likes a good dramatic flourish—I got an automated email inviting me to a “casual interview.” Casual.
As if any meeting involving my future could be paired with flip-flops and small talk.
The front office smelled faintly of copier toner and lemons to help diffuse the intimidation factor; it worked.
A friendly woman named Cheryl, who had clearly mastered the art of the librarian voice, ushered me into a surprisingly sunny room lined with inspirational posters and plants that were somehow both underwatered and over-loved.
Kathy sat behind the desk like she’d been waiting for this moment all weekend.
“Cassie!” she said, her smile bright. “You came.”
“I’m still not entirely sure how,” I said, clutching my tote bag like it contained a parachute. “My legs just sort of...walked me here.”
“Well, good thing they did. Let’s chat.”
We did. And it was—oddly—wonderful.
She asked thoughtful questions, nodded at my rambling answers, and sipped tea from a mug shaped like a llama.
I talked about my student teaching experience, about my mom’s legacy, about my passion for science, and—somehow—ended up describing how I once led a frog dissection lesson entirely in rhyme.
Kathy laughed so hard she had to dab her eyes.
“You’re a little unconventional,” she said at the end, “but I mean that in the best possible way. Everwood could use someone like you. Someone who sees beyond test scores and lesson plans.”
I blinked. “You mean...you think I’d fit in here?”
“Cassie,” she said, gentle now, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you already do.”
I walked out into the parking lot stunned, the sunlight too bright, the gravel crunch too loud under my feet. I’d come for a conversation and walked away with a door wide open.
Not the plan.
But suddenly, it felt like maybe...the right one.
I sat on the bench outside the post office, half in the sun, half in my own personal identity crisis.
The interview had gone well—suspiciously well. Kathy hadn’t just been kind, she’d been encouraging, which was dangerous territory. Encouragement leads to ideas, and ideas lead to decisions, and decisions...well, those tend to rewrite your whole life.
I pulled out my phone, thumb hovering over my contacts. There was only one person I wanted to talk to—one voice that could talk me down from the edge of overthinking myself into a pretzel.
“Cassie-girl,” Dad answered on the second ring, like he’d been waiting for me to call.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, letting the familiar sound wash over me. “You got a minute?”
“For you? Always. Just pulled a batch of cookies out of the oven.”
“Let me guess—raisin when you meant to do chocolate chip?”
“Guilty. Your mother’s recipe snuck its way into the flour bin again.”
That made me smile. It always did. The way he talked about her was like she was still planting herself into his day-to-day. Like she hadn’t left, not really.
“I had a meeting this morning,” I said. “Kind of...an interview.”
“Oh yeah?”
“At Everwood High.”
There was a pause on the line. More like a quiet inhale.
“I thought Miller’s Pass was the plan,” he said gently.
“It was. Still is. Kind of. Might be. But this came out of nowhere. And it felt...weirdly right? I walked in there expecting to feel out of place and walked out thinking maybe this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Cassie,” he said finally, “I know how much you loved your mom. And how much you’ve carried her dreams like they were stitched into your backpack.”
My eyes stung suddenly. He always knew how to hit the truth without hurting.
“But honey,” he continued, “sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit that you want something different. That your dream might not be her dream—and that’s not a betrayal. That’s just...growing into yourself. She’d be proud of you, no matter where you end up.”
A sparrow hopped across the pavement near my shoe, pecking at crumbs someone had left behind. I watched it for a moment, my heart doing somersaults I hadn’t authorized.
“I think I want to stay here, Dad,” I said. “I don’t know for how long. Or what exactly I’m doing. But this morning, I made a choice. Not Mom’s. Not anyone’s. Mine.”
He was quiet again, but this time I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Then I’m proud of you, kiddo. So proud.”
And just like that, the knot in my chest loosened.
It was still scary.
Still uncertain.
But for the first time in a long time, the road ahead didn’t look like something I had to survive.
It looked like something I could choose.
After I hung up with Dad, I just...sat there.
The town moved gently around me—a little schnauzer trotted past in his miniature hoodie, the church bell chimed one polite note too late, and the scent of bread from the bakery drifted over like it was personally invested in my emotional well-being.
I’d just told my dad I was staying in Everwood. No caveats. No maybe. No “just until the car’s fixed.”
Which meant I’d actually done it. I’d said it out loud. I’d admitted—first to myself, then to him—that I wanted something different than the plan I’d been clinging to like it was a life raft in a sea of grief.
And instead of unraveling me, that truth felt like a new kind of oxygen.
Terrifying oxygen. Possibly helium. But still.
I stood, stuffing my phone into my jacket pocket like it might try to argue. Then I walked. Not in a purposeful, let-me-solve-my-life way. More like a person who just stepped out of a bookstore and realized the story in their head was still unfolding.
The sidewalk under my boots felt more solid than usual, like Everwood had been waiting for me to stop treating it like an accidental detour.
I passed the hardware store, where someone had arranged the “SALE” sign to spell “SEAL” just for fun.
Two middle schoolers argued outside the ice cream shop about whether sprinkles counted as a topping or a texture.
A harmless debate, only a town this safe could make space for.
It hit me then—how gentle this place was. It wasn’t a sleepy, nothing-happens-here town. But it gave people room. Room to change their minds. Room to start over. Room to figure out who they were outside of someone else’s expectations.
Which, apparently, was what I needed.
Because for the first time in forever, I wasn’t moving because of someone else’s dream or timeline or absence. I was moving because I wanted to. I was walking back to the inn because I had somewhere to be—not as a guest or a visitor, but as someone who just maybe had a stake in this place.
And okay, sure, I didn’t have everything figured out. My resume still said, “in transition,” and my truck was still in pieces. But my heart?
My heart felt...braver.
It had finally stepped into sunlight after a really long stretch of shade.
By the time I reached the Everwood Inn, the shadows were longer, and the breeze had picked up just enough to make the wind chimes on Janet’s porch sing like they’d joined a whimsical barbershop quartet.
I opened the front door to the familiar creak and a waft of lavender and lemon polish—Janet’s personal blend of cleanliness and aromatherapy. She was behind the front desk, polishing the bell with the same devotion some people reserved for vintage cars or heirloom silver.
She looked up and smiled as if she’d known all along what I was going to decide. “Back already?”
“Just needed to clear my head,” I said, loosening my scarf. “Turns out walking helps when you’ve made a life-altering decision and don’t want to hyperventilate about it in public.”
“Tea?” she offered, as if the solution to emotional unrest was steeped in Earl Grey.
I smiled. “I’ll grab some later.”
The stairs creaked as I climbed, that old, familiar sound echoing behind me like a chorus of tiny, wooden cheerleaders. At the top, something had shifted. The hallway, the soft wallpaper, even the tiny window at the end with its lace curtain—all of it felt...known. I belonged here, just a little.
Inside, my room greeted me with the usual bouquet of cozy charm and slightly-too-floral bedding. The vase of wildflowers on the desk had a fresh daisy tucked in—Janet’s signature move. I didn’t even try to pretend I wasn’t touched.
I sat on the bed and looked around at everything that wasn’t technically mine but had somehow started to feel like it was. The quilt. The secondhand bookshelf was stocked with dog-eared paperbacks. The slightly crooked painting of a moose that I’d grown weirdly attached to.
I pulled out my laptop, opened the tab I’d been ignoring all week, and stared at the Miller’s Pass application page. The same hopeful language. The same crisp logo. The same plan I’d been following since before I even knew how much of it had been borrowed.
Then, slowly, I closed the tab.
It felt a little like exhaling after holding my breath for five years.
Maybe the biggest shift wasn’t that I was staying in Everwood.
Maybe it was that—for the first time—I was letting myself choose something without needing anyone else’s blueprint.
And honestly?
That felt like the bravest thing I’d done in a long time.
The kettle in the inn’s kitchen whistled like it had urgent gossip, and I padded over to it in my socks to silence it before Janet came running with her “that’s an antique, dear” face.
I poured the hot water over a lemon chamomile tea bag, resisting the urge to narrate my day like I was the heroine of a particularly cozy audiobook. Although considering the floral wallpaper and the warm clink of teacups, the setting was doing half the work for me.
Back upstairs, I curled into the window seat, blanket over my knees, steaming mug in hand.
The sky was doing that soft fade from lavender to navy, and the garden below glowed faintly under the porch lights.
Someone—probably Janet—had left the little solar lanterns on again.
They twinkled like the yard had secrets it was proud of.
I took a long sip, letting the warmth settle into my chest. The warmth that came from more than tea.
I’d done it.
I’d said no to a plan I didn’t choose. I’d said yes to a maybe. And even though my stomach still did the occasional nervous cartwheel, the rest of me felt strangely...calm.
My phone buzzed beside me with a message from Dad:
“Your mom would’ve been proud. And maybe a little surprised. But mostly proud.”
I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat, blinking hard.
Then typed back:
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
There was something freeing about not having all the answers but trusting myself to ask the right questions.
Outside, someone laughed—probably the couple in Room 3 who thought they were being discreet about sneaking cookies out of the dining room. A breeze pushed against the windowpane like it wanted in on the evening.
“Everwood,” I whispered into the quiet. “You sneaky, lovely little town.”
This place wasn’t perfect. It had nosy neighbors, slow Wi-Fi, and a suspicious obsession with themed bake sales. But it also had charm, and comfort, and a way of gently nudging you back to yourself.
I was starting to believe that I didn’t have to earn joy by proving something to the past. That I didn’t need to be the sum of my mother’s dreams to honor her. That I could be me—messy, curious, still figuring it out—and that could be enough.
And it felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.