Page 3 of I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life

Are you sober?

Jack

Rude.

But mostly.

Kameron

Can you convince Cassidy to get out of bed and go to school?

She missed the first two days and she has to go.

Jack

You moved back to BH. I’m team Cass here.

I rolled my eyes, and I should've known this plan was terrible — Jack hated Briar Hill with every fiber of his being. He'd tried to pay off my mortgage to keep me from moving back, which I immediately refused. The last thing I wanted from my brothers was their money. I didn’t want to be in Jack’s debt for the rest of my life, not when he was the kind of person to hold it over my head.

I was about to try and figure out a Plan B when my phone rang.

“Where’s my favorite niece?” Jack’s voice rang out, and almost immediately, Cassidy ran out of her room, stole my phone, and began to explain to her uncle in great detail about how unfair I was. Which also ended her hunger strike as she devoured the sandwich. It was a win. I guess.

A win that reminded me of all the ways I was failing her. I'd always anticipated her puberty years would be something Julia and I would tackle together. Instead, Cassidy had raging hormones and was grieving her mom in a nightmarish combination I wished she could avoid.

Hearing Jack tell her something along the lines of how “he knew I was lame, but she had to listen to me anyway,” was just another reminder of how I was failing to do the “single dad” thing well.

Nobody talked about how hard it was to pick up the pieces of a life you’d shared with someone. Or how hard it was to patch up the missing pieces. Julia had been gone for a year and a half, and while I'd accepted it, it didn’t make her absence hurt any less.

I let myself have a few seconds, like my therapist recommended. I let myself feel it instead of letting my grief bottle up. I grounded myself and then focused again on Cassidy. Getting her clothed and in the car was still a fight, but Jack’s words were enough to at least make her willing to go to school.

As I drove her, a strange sense of déjà vu washed over me. Briar Hill was exactly how I remembered it. From the small businesses, landmarks, and even the elementary school I dropped Cassidy off at looked the same. The more I saw, the more Briar Hill felt like I'd come home.

Back when we'd first started the band, the three of us had assumed the endless money, the big house, and the adoring fans would feel like home. For Jack and Noah, I was pretty sure it had. However, for me? It always felt like I was missing something. Something I hadn’t felt until we'd driven into town.

I watched as Cassidy walked into the school, her teacher, Ms. Phillips, giving me a bright smile and a wave as she walked her in. We met briefly at Meet-the-Teacher Night, the only time I'd managed to get Cassidy on the school grounds, before she started her tantrum. I was glad I felt like she was in good hands, and I hoped it at least meant we were turning a corner.

One where Briar Hill might eventually feel like home to my daughter as much as it did to me.

I finally had free rein to explore the town center, which I’d wanted to do since we'd arrived. I hadn’t had a chance to go grocery shopping or see what had changed. The old video rental store had been replaced with the “Bent Out Of Shape” Yoga Studio, a few restaurants had been replaced, and the Homebrewed Coffee Shop replaced the Sweet Palace candy store I'd been excited to introduce to Cassidy. But the places I remembered most? Those were still exactly how they looked in my memories.

There was the One Page Bookstore where Nalini and I hung out almost every day after school. The Apothecary — a drugstore and soda fountain where we'd get ice cream every Friday. The small Mom & Pop grocery store where we'd load up on junk food and hide it under her bed. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: curly brown hair, hazel eyes, the beard I’d grown and mostly maintained after Julia’s funeral. But I couldn’t help but feel like someone was missing from the reflection — the person I’d had all of my Briar Hill adventures with growing up: Nalini.

I missed her, even though I had no right to. As disappointing as it was, Nalini would've moved on from the town — her dreams were always bigger than Briar Hill. She was out there somewhere with the giant book deal she'd planned, under some elusive pen name I'd never been able to figure out.

Nalini didn’t have any social media, and any Google searches I tried gave me the same old articles from when RaineFall first started. Even though she had every right to be mad at me, I still wanted to read her books and support her, even if it was without her knowing.

I hadn’t anticipated how lonely Briar Hill would feel without her. All of my best memories included her, and even though I felt like I'd come home, there was a warmth missing that could only come from her. I tried not to notice the side-eyes and glares from the people I recognized. I hadn’t expected a giant welcome back, but there was a surprising number of people who clearly didn’t want me here.

I decided to ignore it, figuring it'd be easier to get my footing back in town and let everyone realize I wasn’t trying to disrupt their lives. There were groceries to buy, library cards to get, and multiple websites to check for extracurriculars Cassidy might like. Her last friend group had been a bunch of mini-influencer mean girls, and I hoped the Briar Hill kids were normal. And less likely to bully Cassidy whenever the adults left the room. I knew she was lonely, even if she didn’t want to admit it herself, and a group of friends with similar interests seemed like a good way to help her adjust to her new home.

I’d narrowed my list down to a few extracurriculars to suggest to her as I made my way back to the school, turning into the parking lot. Only to discover I was nowhere near the parent pickup line. I looked around the parking lot, at the street, and realized I was in the teacher’s lot between the elementary and high schools. Logically, I knew there was a reason I wasn’t supposed to park here, but I was sure nobody'd actually care if it was a one-time thing.

I’d figure out the right parking lot tomorrow. A plan I was forced to commit to because as soon as I put my car in park, teenagers appeared all around the vehicle, and there was no way I’d be able to get out. I knew the high school got out before the elementary school, which allowed the teenagers and teachers there to leave before everyone started on the elementary side. I walked over, waving apologetically at the parents glaring at me from the pickup line. The mistake clearly wasn’t doing any favors to my weirdly terrible reputation.

I kept an eye out for Cassidy as the kids started streaming out of the school, only to be met with a storm cloud the moment my daughter appeared. Tear streaks were barely visible down the sides of her face as she clutched her backpack for dear life. I'd hoped she’d have a good day once she finally came — it seemed like I was wrong.

“Um, this way,” I said, motioning to the teacher’s parking lot. “Do you want to talk about it?”