Chapter 21 #2
“It was the last week of September. My brother—Evan—he’s a year younger than me. Not exactly built like a linebacker.” A faint, almost reluctant smirk tugged at his mouth. “He runs his mouth like one, though.”
I smiled a little, just to let him know I was still there.
“There’s this group of guys at my old school,” he continued. “They’d been on him for a while. Dumb stuff at first. Lockers. Shoving him in the hall. You know. The usual heroic behavior.”
My stomach tightened.
“I told him to ignore it. Told him I’d handle it if it got worse.” His eyes went distant, fixed on something across the street that wasn’t really there. “It got worse.”
He swallowed once.
“They cornered him after practice. Behind the gym. I wasn’t even supposed to be there—I’d left something in my locker. I heard shouting. By the time I got around the corner, he was already on the ground.”
My fingers curled into the sleeves of his jacket.
“I didn’t think,” Cole said flatly. “I just reacted.”
He didn’t look at me when he said the next part.
“I pulled one of them off him. Then another one swung at me. And then…” He exhaled through his nose. “I didn’t stop when I should have.”
The quiet stretched between us. My fingers itched to reach out to him, touch his arm, pull him into a hug, something to show him that I was here and listening and on his side. But I just stayed quiet.
“They were down,” he said. “But I was still angry. And I kept going.”
His voice wasn’t proud. It wasn’t defensive. It was steady and almost detached.
“They ended up in the hospital. Nothing permanent,” he added quickly. “Broken nose. Concussion. Couple cracked ribs.” His mouth twitched. “Guess I aimed well.”
I didn’t laugh.
“The school called it excessive force.” His tone turned mocking on the last two words. “Said I escalated it beyond self-defense. They were going to expel me. Cops got involved. It was a whole thing.”
My heart was beating too fast now, but not from fear.
“What happened?” I asked softly.
“My parents freaked out about my ‘future,’” he said, air-quoting the word. “Didn’t care much about why it happened. Just cared that it happened. The school said they could keep it off my permanent record if I voluntarily transferred. No formal expulsion. Clean slate.”
He gave a humorless smile.
“So my parents called my aunt. She lives here. Next thing I know, I’m packing a bag.”
Just like that.
“Did they talk to you about it?” I asked.
He shrugged, but it wasn’t careless this time. It was tight. Controlled.
“Dad told me I embarrassed the family. Mom cried. They said this was an ‘opportunity to start fresh.’” He stared at the streetlights, his posture rigid, his jaw clenched. Then he gritted out, “Nobody said thank you.”
The words landed heavier than anything else he’d said.
“For helping Evan?” I asked quietly.
“For protecting him,” he corrected. “They just kept talking about how I should’ve walked away. How I should’ve gotten a teacher. Like that was an option.”
He huffed a humorless laugh.
“Evan tried to say something,” he added after a moment. “But he’s fourteen. Doesn’t carry much weight.”
The wind shifted, colder now. I realized I’d stepped a little closer to him without meaning to.
“So no,” he said finally. “I wasn’t in juvie.”
I let out a breath, only now realizing how relieved I was to hear the confirmation.
I’d suspected for a while he wasn’t in juvie, but something in me relaxed at knowing the truth.
Maybe because I was one of the few who actually knew the real reason he transferred here.
Yes, it was because of a fight, but it was a fight to protect his little brother. It was a noble cause.
“And now everyone here just assumes I’m some delinquent who got kicked out,” he finished. “Which… I guess isn’t entirely wrong.”
My heart cracked slightly at the sad way he said it, like he was fully resigned to this untrue reputation everyone assumed of him. I turned fully toward him.
“It is wrong,” I said. His eyes flicked to mine, searching. “You defended your brother,” I continued. “Maybe you went too far. Fine. But you didn’t start it. You didn’t just decide to hurt someone for fun.”
He held my gaze, like he was trying to decide whether to believe me. “You don’t think I’m violent?” he asked.
I thought about it. About the pebbles against my window. The jacket on my shoulders. The way he’d refused to come inside.
“I think,” I said slowly, “that you care about people more than you’re supposed to.”
Something in his expression shifted. Softer. Unsteady.
“That’s not exactly a compliment,” he murmured.
“It is in my books.”
He stared at me for a beat, like he was trying to mull the words over in his mind. For a second, neither of us spoke, then he dipped his chin in a nod and faced toward the street again.
“You know,” I added, trying to lighten the air between us, “if you’d told everyone that story instead of climbing balconies like a cartoon villain, your reputation might’ve improved.”
A quiet huff of laughter escaped him. Real this time.
“Yeah,” he said. “But then I wouldn’t have gotten this.”
“Gotten what?” I asked, voice embarrassingly breathless as his eyes never left mine. Then he nodded at the jacket wrapped around me. At the balcony. At me. My pulse skipped.
“Gotten to see you. Like this. With your guard down when you’re not saying what everyone wants to hear..”
I stared at him for a heartbeat. “I take it you aren’t vulnerable with people a lot.”
He shook his head quickly, a few short movements. The confirmation was all I needed for my heart to swell at being the one he chose to tell. “Thank you for telling me,” I said, softer this time.
He nodded once, like that was all he could manage.
I stared out at the porch lights down the street, both of us seemingly lost in thought.
It was a comfortable silence. Companionable even.
Until my thoughts traipsed back to Lavender, to my mom in her special green dress going on a date.
To my dad begrudgingly agreeing to come to my birthday party.
Then Cole’s voice broke through the swirl of my thoughts.
“You’re quiet,” he said. “You okay?”
I hesitated. The jacket felt heavier now, like it was holding me in place. I picked at the cuff, tracing the stitching with my thumb. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Today’s just been… a lot too.”
He didn’t push. Just leaned his elbows on the railing, angling his body toward me without crowding my space. An open posture. Listening.
I swallowed. “I saw my dad today.”
His gaze sharpened, but he didn’t interrupt. Likely giving me the space to explain like I gave to him before.
“I asked him to come to my birthday party,” I continued. “I shouldn’t have—well, maybe I should have, I don’t know—but I did. And he said yes.”
Cole exhaled slowly. “How do you feel about that?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I was happy,” I said immediately, tears pricking at my eyes. Then I quietly added, “I am happy. Or… I was.”
He waited.
I loosened a breath. “My sister and I fought about it. She thinks I’m wrong for even wanting him back around. For wanting everything back the way it was. And then,” I said, my voice thinning, “I came home and my mom was getting ready for a date.”
He went very still.
“A real date,” I added, like that somehow made it clearer. “Dress. Necklace. Nervous smile. The whole thing.”
The words tasted strange in my mouth, like they didn’t quite belong to me yet.
“She left with him tonight,” I said. “Right after.”
Cole’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t say anything.
“I know she deserves to move on,” I rushed, suddenly defensive even though he hadn’t said a word. “I know that. I do. And I want her to be happy. I just—” My breath hitched. “I didn’t realize how much I was still hoping she wouldn’t.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was solid. Steady.
Cole didn’t tell me it would be okay. He didn’t say I was wrong or selfish or na?ve. He just stayed there, beside me, like the night could take its time.
“That sounds really hard,” he said finally.
My eyes burned. “It feels like I’m running out of time,” I whispered. “Like if I don’t fix things fast enough, I’ll lose the chance completely.”
He looked at me then—really looked at me.
“You’re not responsible for fixing them,” he said gently. Not firm. Not sharp. Just honest.
I shook my head, blinking fast. “It doesn’t feel like that.”
“I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t make it true.”
I let out a shaky breath and leaned forward, resting my forearms on the railing. The cold metal bit through the sleeves of his jacket, the sensation grounding me back to this moment, this conversation.
“She looked happy,” I said. “And that scares me.”
Cole didn’t answer right away. He just stood there with me, shoulder almost brushing mine, close enough that I knew he was there—but not so close it felt like pressure.
After a moment, he said quietly, “You don’t have to decide how you feel about all of it tonight.”
I nodded, even though my chest still ached.
Below us, a car passed slowly, tires hissing against the pavement. Somewhere down the block, a door slammed.
My mom was out there. Starting something new.
And Cole stayed, saying nothing else—just listening—while I tried to figure out how to breathe around it.