Chapter Eighty-Two

Chapter Eighty-Two
Cassandra’s POV

I glanced down at the watch on my wrist for what felt like the tenth time in five minutes.

Still not out.

School release was dragging on longer than usual, or maybe it was just my nerves making everything feel stretched thin. I sat in the passenger seat of Levi’s truck while he refused—completely refused—to let me be the one driving to pick Silas up.

Levi refused to let me drive.

“You’re already pacing in your head,” he’d said earlier, guiding me into the passenger seat like I was suddenly fragile glass instead of a woman who had survived worse than rush-hour school pickup.

“You’ll run somebody off the road.”

“I do not—” I started, then stopped when he raised a brow.

“Cassandra.”

So now I was here, stuck in silence that felt too loud, waiting for Silas to come storming out of school like he always did when he was irritated with me.

Which, apparently, was still the case.

I exhaled slowly and stared through the windshield at the rows of parents and vehicles lining the pickup loop. The school sat ahead in a low, sun-washed stretch of concrete and brick, the grass beyond it dry from the late-summer heat. Cicadas buzzed somewhere in the treeline like they had all the time in the world.

The parking lot outside Silas’s high school was already filling with idling cars and parents leaning against doors; Georgia heat pressed down on everything, turning the asphalt into a wavering mirror that shimmered under the afternoon sun.

I should’ve been calm. Instead, my thoughts kept circling the same moment from this morning.

Silas is slamming the door.

No goodbye.

No “love you too.”

Just the hollow echo of it left hanging in the air like something broken.

Jordan had tried to brush it off.

Zach had joked that he was “just in his teenage villain arc.”

Levi had stayed quiet longer than usual, which somehow made it worse.

Now I just sat there, watching the school doors like they might fix it for me.

“You’re spiraling again,” Levi said beside me.
“I’m not spiraling,” I replied automatically.

His brow lifted slightly.

I sighed. “Okay. I’m spiraling a little.”

“A little,” he repeated dryly.

The tension in my chest tightened again anyway.

“Do you think I handled it wrong?” I asked quietly, staring out through the windshield. “With Beau? I mean—he’s failing history. I can’t just let him—”

Levi reached over without warning and placed his hand on my thigh.

I jolted slightly, more from the sudden grounding contact than anything else. His thumb pressed once, firmly. Intentional.

My words faltered. “What are you doing?” I asked, voice lower now, eyes flicking down to his hand.

“Interrupting the spiral,” he said simply.

“That’s not a thing.”

“It is now.”

His hand slid slowly upward, not rushing, not pushing—just steady enough to pull my attention away from everything else. My breath caught despite myself.

I shot him a look. “You think this is going to fix my mood?”

“I didn’t say anything about fixing,” he said, leaning back slightly, completely unbothered. “I said, interrupting.”

“And your solution is… this?” I raised an eyebrow.

A faint smirk tugged at his mouth. “If you’ve got a better one, I’m listening.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, trying very hard not to react to the way his hand stayed exactly where it was like he had no intention of moving.

“We’re in a school pickup line,” I muttered.

“I’m aware.”

“There are parents everywhere."

“Mm.”

“And teachers.”

“Also aware.”

“And—”

The school bell cut through my sentence like a starting gun.

The sound cracked through the humid air like a release valve.

Kids poured out of the building in waves—voices rising, backpacks swinging, laughter and complaints blending into one chaotic current. My eyes moved quickly, scanning faces.

There... Silas. My heart softened before my mind caught up.

He walked with Beau at his side, both of them moving with that confident, too-old-for-this-world energy that teenage boys seemed to develop overnight.

Silas’s brown hair caught the sunlight as he stepped off the curb, jaw still set in that stubborn line I’d seen that morning.

But then his eyes found me. And just like that, the walls didn’t fully drop—but they cracked. He slowed for half a second. Then continued.

Beau noticed first. “Oh, there’s Miss Cass.” Silas didn’t respond.

I stepped out of the car before I could overthink it, my voice lifting just slightly. “Hey, baby.” I told Silas. 

That did it. His shoulders shifted, just barely. I saw it in his face—the war between pride and instinct. Then he walked up anyway, stopping in front of me just long enough for me to take him in.

He was growing too fast. Too tall. Too much like George in the eyes. That thought landed heavy, and I pushed it down. “Hey,” I said again, softer.

Silas shrugged. “Hey.”

Not rude. Not warm either. Just… guarded.

Behind him, Beau gave a lazy grin and bumped Silas’s shoulder. "Is your mom still mad at you or nah?”

Silas shot him a look. “Don’t start.”

Beau held up his hands. “I’m just saying, detention builds character; I should know."

Silas tipped his head toward Beau like he’d been waiting to unleash the story on me. “Beau’s day has been tough,” he said, completely betraying his friend with zero hesitation.

Beau immediately groaned. “Oh my—don’t start, Si."

Silas ignored him. “Our algebra teacher tried to fail him for not showing his work.”

Beau pointed at Silas. “I did show my work. My work is called being correct.”

Silas continued anyway, far too pleased. “So he had to explain how he got his answers on last night’s homework.”

Beau stepped up beside him, long blond waves falling into his eyes as he shook his head. “I demonstrated intellectual superiority.”

“And then,” Silas added, leaning into it now, “he got detention for being a smart ass.”

“That is not what happened,” Beau said flatly.

I pressed my lips together, fighting a smile as I looked between the two of them—Silas looking entirely too entertained for someone who hadn’t been the one in trouble, and Beau looking like he was still personally offended by the injustice of math teachers everywhere. "Our teacher is a dick," he muttered.

“Language, Beau,” I said lightly, more out of habit than real reprimand.

Beau grinned anyway. “Sorry, Mama C.”

Silas let out a breath, still amused. “I told him he should’ve just shown his work.”

Beau turned on him. “I did show my work. I showed confidence.”

I couldn’t help it then—I laughed softly, shaking my head as the two of them kept bickering beside me like the argument had been going on for years instead of minutes.

When they stopped, Silas’s expression barely changed, but I saw it—his eyes flicking between us, measuring. “Your teacher called,” I said gently.

That got a reaction. His jaw tightened.

“He’s dramatic,” Silas muttered, already knowing why it was being brought up.

“I’m sure he feels the same about you.”

That earned me the faintest flicker of something like amusement, gone almost as quickly as it came.

A pause settled between us. Then—A ripple in the crowd near the school entrance. Not loud and not obvious. But my attention snapped there instantly anyway.

A girl stepped out with a small cluster of students, her black hair catching the sun like ink spilled across gold. Ten months older than Silas. Same grade. Same height range now, though she stood a little straighter than most kids her age—like she’d already learned how to take up space without asking for it.

Camryn.

Even after everything, my chest still did that strange, painful twist when I saw her.

Her brown eyes lifted briefly. George’s eyes. Then they landed on me. Not warm but not cold either. Careful.

Beside me, Levi shifted slightly. Not tense exactly—just aware. Always aware. “She’s here,” he murmured under his breath.

“I see her,” I whispered back.

Silas followed my gaze without thinking.

His expression changed in a way I couldn’t quite name. Recognition without connection. Familiarity without understanding why.

Camryn didn’t come over. She never did first. That was the rule that had formed without anyone saying it out loud.

But her gaze lingered on Silas just a second longer than it should have. Then she looked away. One of her parents—her adoptive father—called something to her from a parked car nearby. A normal voice. A normal life.

A life she had grown used to. A life I had only started trying to earn a place in.

Camryn turned slightly as she walked, her black hair shifting across her shoulder.

And for a moment, I felt it all at once: Grief for what was lost. Relief that she was alive. And the complicated, fragile hope that someday she might look at me without that careful distance in her eyes.

Silas noticed my silence. “What’s wrong?” he asked finally.

I blinked, forcing myself back into the present. “Nothing.” But Levi’s hand squeezed my hand, like he didn’t believe me for a second.

Beau cleared his throat. “So… am I still coming for dinner, or did I just get emotionally adopted and disowned in the same five minutes?”

That finally pulled a real breath of laughter out of me.

“Yes, but..." I paused, giving him and Silas a look. "Dinner only, then I'm taking you home." I said, glancing back at him.

Silas groaned softly. “Great. She's going to kill him on the drive home.”

I looked at him then—really looked. 'Not if you're with us. Then I'll be forced to drive safely."

That made him pause. Not a smile yet. But something close enough to hope that I'd forgiven him for his attitude that he gave me this morning.

"In that case," Levi grumbled. "I'll drive him home tonight."