Her brows rose.
And I wasn’t done yet. “I know you guys don’t really trust Rider and you don’t think he has a future, but what you don’t know is that he’s trying. He really is, and even if he decides he doesn’t want to go to college, that doesn’t make him less of a good person. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve your respect. He’s brilliant and he’s so freaking talented. The last thing he needs is yet another person not believing he’s worth the effort.”
She looked away as she pressed her lips together. “I don’t think he’s not worth the effort, Mallory. I just...don’t know what to think.”
My heart was pounding in my chest, a staccato of beats. “I just want you guys to really try—to try to see what I see in him.”
Rosa smiled faintly. “We just want what’s best for you and sometimes in wanting that, we mess up.” Reaching over once more, she placed her hand on mine and squeezed. “We can try, honey. We will.”
I closed my eyes. “Thank you.”
There was a smile in her voice as she spoke again. “I don’t know if you realize this or not, Mallory, but you’re not the same girl we first brought home. That’s a good thing.” Her hand tightened on mine again. “That’s a really good thing.”
She was right.
I couldn’t put my finger on the exact moment that I’d become a different Mallory. Maybe because it wasn’t just one moment but more of a combination of hundreds, even thousands of them. It wasn’t just going to public school or sitting with Keira at lunch. It wasn’t the conscious decision to make myself uncomfortable by taking speech class. It wasn’t just finally opening up about my past to Ainsley. It wasn’t just the day I stood in the hall and looked past the meanness in Paige’s words to the razor-sharp truth beneath. It wasn’t just what happened to Jayden and seeing life snatched away.
And it wasn’t just reconnecting with Rider, or falling in love with him.
It was everything.
It was making the decision to do things that frightened me. It was finding the courage that third day of school to walk up to Keira’s table. It was giving a speech during lunch, and then another, even if I only had an audience of one. It was failing at Peter’s party, but realizing that that was okay. It was accepting that my past would always be a part of me and a part of those who were close to me. It was finding something I was passionate about, something that made me happy. It was realizing that I didn’t owe Carl and Rosa my life. That my love for them was enough. That I didn’t have to become a carbon copy of their daughter. And knowing Jayden had changed me in ways I knew I would still be trying to figure out a lifetime from now. It was finding Rider again, and allowing myself to fall in love with him.
And it was knowing that I could still be...still be afraid of everything, but not letting that fear stop me from living.
The realization wasn’t due to some kind of earth-stopping epiphany. It was subtle and slow, a combination of a thousand moments rolled into one, but as I sat at the kitchen table with Rosa, I knew it was true.
I’d changed.
* * *
Keira stared at her untouched plate. “I still can’t believe it,” she was saying. The table was quiet. “He was just here, you know? Last week he walked into this cafeteria and he asked me out on a date.”
“While he stole my fries off my plate,” Jo added. “And then offered to take me out on a date.”
“He was always doing stuff like that.” Keira let out a choked laugh. “It just sucks. There’re no other words for it.”
That much was true.
“I heard that the police picked Braden up yesterday afternoon,” Anna said, keeping her voice low. “I didn’t know Braden well, but he’s, like, what? Eighteen? How can you kill someone when you’re eighteen? That’s just insane.”
“How can you be killed when you’re fifteen?” murmured Jo.
Keira and the girls didn’t know that Rider and I had been there when Jayden was killed. Surprisingly, that wasn’t something that had ended up getting out, and it wasn’t something I was really willing to share beyond Ainsley.
It was strange seeing the lives that Jayden affected, knowing that he probably hadn’t even realized how much he impacted others. And then there was the flip side; the people who knew only that some kid had died but who couldn’t place his face. It wasn’t that they didn’t acknowledge the loss. It just didn’t affect their lives. Today was just an average Tuesday to them. Wednesday would be no different. On Saturday they wouldn’t be going to the funeral of a fifteen-year-old. In their minds, they still had forever.
But we knew better.
Forever was something we all took for granted, but the problem with forever was that it really didn’t exist.
Jayden hadn’t believed his days were numbered. He’d made plans, had other goals, and he’d probably believed he had forever. Ainsley had assumed, rightfully so, that she would always have her vision. She wouldn’t have that, something most of us took for granted, for forever. Then there was me. I’d thought I’d be stuck the way I was for forever, always scared, always needing someone to speak up for me. I’d learned to cope with my fears, found my voice, and realized that Carl and Rosa would love me even if I wasn’t perfect.
Forever wasn’t real.
And I guessed, for me, that I was lucky it wasn’t. But for others, I wished it was real, that they had forever.
Taking my seat in the back of speech that afternoon, I found myself staring at Hector’s empty chair. When would he come back? I couldn’t even imagine what he must be going through.