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Her breathing had never evened out, so I knew, like me, she hadn’t found sleep either, but I was still shocked that she’d asked.
I don’t answer right away, weighing the question that I’ve been too afraid to admit to myself. Will Finn and Cole be okay? I want to say yes, but I honestly don’t know.
Everyone has grown so accustomed to walking on eggshells around each other. Afraid to speak that it made me doubt that there is the possibility.
I’d grown hopeful seeing them interact at school, or here at home. Cole would come to visit, but that easiness that was there before between them has disappeared. Now in its place, doubt hung. Clinging to the air with uncertainty and timidness.
It’s a strange thing to witness. The two most egotistical, confident, and sure people I know, unsure about even saying “hello” to the other. The friendship they’d shared their entire lives vanished, doubt and uncertainty sitting in its place.
“The answer should be an obvious yes, right?” Licking my lips, I chuckle but it’s hollow. “I mean, they’ve been there for each other through their best and worst. I don’t know how Cole would have gotten through losing his mom if not for Finn.”
I hear her suck in a sharp breath, but I don’t bother turning my head. Somehow not looking at her when I said the words makes it easier to admit.
“Then you add Eli and it’s like their little pack was complete, you know?” I pause, flustered. “But this, the way they’ve been acting it’s almost like they’re strangers now. So, I want to say yes but can’t.”
That thing inside me doesn’t grow lighter as I say the words, it only deepens as the truth sets in. I don’t know if they’re going to be okay and it’s scary. I need them—all of them.
I wish things would go back to normal.
“They’ll get through it,” she says, but I can hear the lingering doubt in her own words. She’s as reluctant as I am. “…They have to.”
A hiss rings, pushing past my teeth. I’m weak.
“Abram’s been helping though, right?”
I turn on my side staring at her with steeled irritation as prickled anger crawls its way up my skin. Hailey’s eyes widen matching the movement, adjusting herself to look at me more head on.
My disdain says it all but still, I explain, “He’s being patient but like everyone else, he also has an edge to him.”
If you thought Cole and Finn were bad, try having dinner with the man you thought was your father your whole life, then find out it was a lie. Now the one doesn’t trust the other.
Awkward is beyond what it is.
Is this how it was for everyone else when I’d come back? My distantness clinging to the air and I the only one who couldn’t feel it’s chill?
Finn has every reason to be pissed off. The documents I’d found on Abram’s desk told me he already knew that Finn wasn’t his son. How long had he known? Was heeverplanning to bring it up? Tell…anyone?
I understand how Finn feels. Growing up believing one thing your whole life for it all to be a lie. It’s devastating.
“No one interacts, no one talks. You hear more sounds of forks scraping plates than you do actual conversation,” I wheeze out on a disappointed sigh.
It’s so fucking hard to be around it all the time. I can’t escape it. If it’s not school, then it’s work, and if it’s not that, it’s here. It never ends. Running has been my only escape from it all.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit.
Hailey’s face softens, and it’s irritating. I hate that look. It’s all upsetting.
The edge of her mouth lifts as she reaches over, grabbing my hand and squeezes. Her eyes filled with too much compassion.
“On the bright side, you and Abram are getting better. I mean, you talked to him about figuring out he was the one who wrote that note in your book, right?”
My muscles stiffen all over again as her face falls catching the action from where our hands are still linked.Not exactly.
He’d told me I needed to calm down, and then there was the crash outside in the hall. So, no, we haven’t dug much deeper.
She groans, “Rory, why haven’t you talked to him about that yet?”
“There’s been so many other things going on I haven’t found the time.”
