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CHAPTER 50

SAY ANYTHING

WILDER

M y windshield wipers can’t go fast enough, which means I can’t go fast enough as I rush toward the house.

“Daddy?” Cricket asks from the back seat, worry thick in her voice.

She sees you’re upset. Calm the fuck down.

I take a deep breath and uncoil my shoulders. “It’s okay, bug. Everything’s okay.”

Maybe if I say it enough times it’ll come true.

Relief floods me when I turn onto our street and don’t see his truck. Hers is parked in the yard for some reason, so I pull in all the way up to the side door so we won’t get so wet, but we still end up drenched.

“Cass?” I call the second I pass the threshold, tracking sludge through the house without hesitation, my heart hammering. I approach our bedroom door just as she steps into view in fresh clothes, drying her hair with a towel.

“Thank God,” I breathe, scooping her up the second I can and burying my face in her damp hair.

She sighs, not seeming to care that I’m wet and my boots are muddy. “I’m okay.”

I let her go only to cup her jaw with both hands, inspecting her to make sure. “What happened?”

Her eyes cut behind me to Cricket, who has kicked off her shoes and is digging through her soggy backpack.

“Heya, bugalug,” I call, and she looks up. “Why don’t you go change into something dry?”

“Okay, Daddy,” she chirps, skipping to her room and shutting the door.

I follow Cass into our room and close the door behind me. “Tell me what happened,” I say gently.

She looks so defeated as she sinks into the chair in the corner, it hurts to look at her. “You should change. You’re soaked.”

I don’t argue, just toe off my boots. “I’ll change. You talk.”

She’s still holding the towel, picking at the edge of it with her eyes on her hands. “Trent was here when I got home. He said he wanted to see Cricket to say goodbye.”

I frown, pulling off my shirt. “Goodbye?”

“At first I thought maybe he was suicidal, but then he started talking about clearing his name. He said you wouldn’t let him see Cricket until he did.”

My hand pauses on my belt buckle. “What the fuck does he mean, clear his name? How’s he going to do that?”

“I don’t know. He wasn’t making sense and never really answered my questions. And then he just…left. I tried to get him to stay until you got back, but he didn’t want to for obvious reasons.”

“Do you think we need to call somebody?” I peel off my jeans and socks, then my boxer briefs, dropping them on the pile in front of my dresser.

“I don’t know. Maybe? But who? The police?”

“Patty and Paul?” The fresh clothes feel warm against my clammy skin.

“Yeah. Good idea.” She pauses as I zip up my pants. “There’s something else.”

I glance at her, adjusting my tee. “What?”

“I got fired today.”

An icy droplet of water from my hair slides down the back of my neck. I stare in disbelief. “Fired?”

She’s quiet, resigned, small in the chair, looking at her fingers again. “Fired. The school board called the principal today with a dossier of claims against me. You hitting Avery’s dad compelled them to have me fired.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? That’s bullshit! He swung at me , for fuck’s sake.”

A small shrug. “Doesn’t matter, Wilder.”

I’m so fucking mad, I can’t see straight. “It does matter. There has to be a way to fight it.”

“They’ll have a hearing, but in the end they’re the ones who decide. I won’t give up, but…I don’t know that there’s much I can do.”

“No.” I pace away. “No. I don’t accept that. We’ll get lawyers. We’ll sue them. You’re not going to get fired for something I did.”

“It’s too late. I already did.”

I pace back. “There has to be somebody higher up. There has to be?—”

“Wilder!” At the pain and sharpness in that word, my gaze snaps to hers. Her face is crumpled, her eyes shining, skin flushed with emotion. “It’s too late! It doesn’t matter that I didn’t do anything wrong. Cricket is fighting with Avery. You hit her dad. It doesn’t matter if Cricket didn’t cut Avery’s hair. It doesn’t matter that he swung first. Don’t you see? Don’t you get it?”

“Yeah, but?—”

“No!” Tears stream down her face, her voice wobbling and hitching with sobs. “I’ve lost the job I’ve w-worked so hard for because I agreed to do this for you . And I know it’s not your fault. I know that. But that’s the truth of it. I gave e-everything to you, agreed to this whole thing for Cricket, and somehow I ended up a wife and a mom b-but what I wanted, what I needed? It’s gone. I wasn’t supposed to be here, but I got caught up in this whole lie, pretended to be married to you so you could keep her. I did that for you . I did that for her. And the price I paid was the one thing I did for me .”

Cricket’s door slams.

Our heads turn to the sound. Cass is dead still, her face wide with horror.

We share a look before I walk to the door and open it. Cricket isn’t there.

Cass doesn’t move, but I go to Cricket’s door and knock.

No sound from inside.

“Cricket? You in there?”

“Go away.”

My stomach drops. She heard. But how much? “Bug,” I start gently. “Please, can I come in? Just for a second and I’ll leave.”

“I don’t want to talk, Daddy!” she says, her voice angry and wavering. “Miss Shannon said I can need spaces. Can I please have spaces?”

I lay my palm on the door, my eyes cast down. “Yeah, baby. Of course you can have spaces. I’ll come back later, okay?”

“Okay,” she mutters, then sniffles.

My hand leaves the door to scrub my face as I walk numbly back to my room. Cass is where I left her.

“Did she hear?” she whispers.

I nod, closing the door. “I don’t know how much. She asked for space.”

Cass sinks back into the armchair, miserable and sagging, bringing her face to her palms. She curls in on herself, her shoulders hitching with sobs.

The sight of her is a razor blade to my heart. I’m on my knees in front of her in a breath, pulling the top of her head into my shoulder, wrapping my arms around her. She unfurls, her arms circling my neck and face buried in the space beneath my jaw.

And she cries.

She cries and fucking cries, and I hold her until my knees are screaming, stroking her back, holding her close.

“I’m s-sorry,” she croaks after a while.

“You don’t have to apologize. I’m sorry. For everything. For what I did to you. You’re right. You gave everything and lost everything, and it’s because of me. It happened just like before, like with him , even though I tried to stop it.”

“No!” She leans back so she can see me, her face puffy and wet, her eyes a bright, electric green against the flush of her cheeks. “No—this is not that. It might look that way on paper, but nothing about it is the same. This is not your fault, it’s just the way it is. I need you to know that if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t change anything. I will always choose you and Cricket. I love you both, Wilder.”

“I love you too,” I whisper.

“Today was a lot.” The words choke off, and another tear finds its way free. “What happened at work, then coming home to Trent in the state he was in? I needed a minute after work that I not only didn’t get, but something scary and stressful happened that frayed me even more. That’s how I feel. Frayed. Raw. I’m sorry I said all of that like I said it.”

“You can tell me anything, even things that hurt. Especially the things that hurt.”

“But Cricket heard.” She looks toward the door, her brows drawn. “God, I hope I didn’t fuck anything up.”

“You didn’t.” I lean to kiss her temple and stand, my knees groaning. “Want to come sit with me while I cook dinner?”

She smiles up at me, exhausted and a little sad. “I’d love to.”

We spend a half hour in the kitchen while I work on the spaghetti sauce. The rain finally lets up, the sky still thick with dark and dangerous clouds, but they only bring a breeze now. Cass texts Patty and tells her about Trent, and she answers that they’ll look into it. I find that I feel raw and frayed myself, guilt eating at me. I’ve done everything wrong, from Cass to Cricket to this situation with her bully, and now it’s so fucked, I don’t know how to fix it.

But I know the first step is to talk to Cricket.

I leave Cass with a glass of wine in the kitchen, heading for Cricket’s room with my heart in a vise.

When I knock, she ignores me again.

“Cricket? Have you had enough spaces? Can we talk?”

Silence.

The corners of my lips tick down. I knock again.

“Cricket? Baby? You in there?”

Nothing.

“Okay, I’m coming in.” I pause in case she decides to answer, opening the door when she doesn’t.

Her empty bed is rumpled, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Frantic, I rip open her closet, calling her name, get on my hands and knees to look under her bed.

A crisp breeze brushes my cheeks, and my face whips to the open window. When I bolt to it and stick my head out to look down, I see two familiar little sneaker prints in the mud, trailing away to the fence, and it dawns on me.

She’s gone.