Page 8 of Overdue Feelings

You’d think after four weeks, I’d be used to my new normal; Zae popping in for midday quickies; Ares slipping in and out of the library on eggshells, always looking like he wanted to say more than hello and good morning.

I’d moved past spiraling. Now, I was a walking mess of chaos.

Nothing about this felt normal— not the pretending, not the silence, and definitely not me.

“You good, Ms. Delaney?” Raylin, one of the boys from basketball practice, peeked into the library. His backpack was slung over one shoulder and sweat was still drying on his forehead.

“Yeah, just finishing up the book fair decorations,” I said, smoothing down the last laminated book fair poster and taping it to the bulletin board.

“Coach told us to wait in here until our folks came.” He walked in with three other boys trailing behind him.

“Alright. Y’all have a seat. Let me know when you’re leaving,” I said, turning back to the board to press in one final staple as a violent gust of wind slammed against the library windows hard enough to make the glass tremble.

“Oh my…” I gasped. I knew it had been raining outside, but it had only been a light shower. I glanced out the library window. The sky outside had gone black, and trees were shaking like they were about to uproot. The lights blinked once, twice, and then cut out completely.

“Uh… Ms. Delaney?” One of the boys called, his voice cracking. “That’s supposed to happen?”

“No,” I said quickly, moving toward my desk. “It’s not. Away from the windows. Now.” Just as I found the emergency flashlight, the tornado siren began to sound, followed by the red emergency lights.

“You got kids in here?” Ares’s voice cut through the darkness, and he appeared in his office doorway, flashing the light from his cell phone.

“Yeah, four.” I nodded, moving toward the door to grab the emergency protocol binder.

“Y’all heard her. Over to the wall,” he told the boys. “Now!”

“Creek!” The library door banged open again, and Zae burst inside, his chest rising hard under his Sweet Pea Athletics hoodie like he’d ran here.

“We’re under a tornado warning. The window in the hallway shattered, and the automatic doors locked.

We’re stuck here until the storm passes.

” He stepped fully into the room. “You alright? The kids cool?”

“I’m fine,” I said, just as hail began pounding the windows.

“They need to stay low and away from the glass.” Ares moved past me, pulling a stack of emergency blankets from the nurse’s bag I didn’t see him holding. A crackle sounded overhead, then the intercom buzzed.

“Attention, Sweet Pea staff and students. Please begin immediate shelter-in-place procedures. A tornado warning is active. This is not a drill.” Principal Voss’s voice came through the intercom, and I froze.

I’d heard her, but my body wouldn’t move.

I’d been in countless storm warnings, but this one had my heart pounding.

“You’re alright,” Ares said low, just for me to hear. “You know what to do.” He gently placed his hand on my back. “Breathe.”

His hand lingered for a second before moving to my hand and pulling me to the other side of the library.

I followed behind him, unsure of what to feel as he led me toward the reading nook with the kids.

Even though more than a decade had passed and we were barely speaking, he still didn’t think twice about protecting me.

It was still second nature to him, and I didn’t know how to process that.

We entered the reading nook, and I could feel Zae’s eyes on me before I even looked up.

My eyes met his, and his gaze moved from me to Ares, to us hand in hand.

I watched as his jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything.

He just started dragging bean bags over, lining them up against the wall for the boys like it was nothing.

I knew Zae well, but I couldn’t read him.

I shrugged in his direction, letting him know it was innocent, before quickly dropping Ares’s hand.

“We should reinforce the corner,” was his response. “The way this wind is rocking, a tornado might actually touch down.”

“I’m on it,” Ares replied. He moved to help Zae place bean bags around the reading corner, while I guided the kids into the nook. We didn’t speak. We just moved in sync, like three parts of a well-oiled machine. The thunder outside provided the only sound in the room.

“Ms. Delaney, are we going to die?” Raylin asked, his voice cracking a bit. I looked around at the boys. They were all teenagers, but still just scared little kids. I crouched beside them to provide some comfort, even though my heart was pounding too.

“We’re okay, boys. We’re in the safest part of the school building.” I reassured them.

“How do you know?” one of the boys, J’Marcus, asked.

“Because we all got stuck here before,” I said. “Years ago, when we were all your age. A storm came just like this one, and this room held strong the whole time.”

“For real?” Raylin asked, glancing toward the window we could barely see out of.

“For real.” I nodded. “The three of us read books and played UNO till it passed. The lights came back on, and everything was fine.”

“You tell it so sweet,” Zae said sitting up. “But let’s not forget how you cheated in that Uno game.”

“I did not cheat!”

“You did.” Ares chimed in. “You just somehow managed to have a hand full of draw fours.”

“I didn’t deal. You did.” I shot back pointing at Ares. “If anybody was cheating it was you.”

“How I cheat and I’m the one that kept losing?” Ares laughed. “Y’all were ruthless.”

Zae chuckled, nudging my shoulder. “That’s because you talk too much trash for somebody with no wins.”

The kids cracked up, caught in the middle of our banter.

I couldn’t stop watching Zae and Ares. Laughing, joking…

like the past hadn’t broken us. Like the pain, the distance, the silence had finally loosened its grip.

This was the first time we’d all talked.

There was no bitterness. No unspoken blame. Just memories, just laughter.

“Can we play UNO?” Raylin asked mid-laugh. Ares unzipped the emergency backpack he had in his hand and pulled out a worn deck of UNO cards with a smirk on his face.

“Let’s play,” he said.

“You keep UNO cards in your emergency backpack?” I asked, stunned.

“Don’t question the method. It saved our lives that day,” Ares said, passing the deck to the kids.

“That it did,” Zae added, making the boys laugh as Raylin eagerly shuffled the deck.

“Why were y’all together so much!” J’Marcus asked. “Coach Bishop always telling us a story about the three of y’all.”

My eyes shot to Zae and then to Ares.

“Because we all used to be best friends,” I said.

“Y’all not best friends anymore?” Raylin asked, his eyes darting between the three of us. “Is it ’cause you and Coach are a couple now?”

I choked on a breath, and Zae dramatically cleared his throat.

“Dang, y’all just ask anything now,” Zae muttered, grinning. “Kids ain’t got no filter.”

Ares rubbed the back of his neck, and even in the dim glow of flashlights and emergency lights, I saw the awkward look on his face.

“It’s… complicated,” I said quickly.

Ares shifted, squatting down so he was eye level with the boys. “Grown-ups mess up sometimes. And sometimes, it takes a while to say sorry.” He looked over at me, then at Zae, then at the kids. “But real friendship can make it through anything, even time, distance, and stupid mistakes.”

There was a pause between us all. Even the kids were silent as if we were all sitting with his words.

“Maybe you all will be friends again one day,” Raylin said, then immediately tossed a draw two card on the pile. “Your turn, Coach. Draw two!”

“I don’t even know why I started playing this.” Zae laughed and shook his head.

“Stop whining and pick up your two,” I teased just as thunder shook the windows again. The laughter paused briefly as everyone looked around.

“We’re okay.” I reassured the boys. The emergency walkie in the corner sounded.

“Any updates on the library? Still no power?”

Zae walked over and picked it up, then pressed the button. “Still dark. We’re good, though, just waiting it out with a few kids from practice. Their parents must have gotten held up by the storm.”

“Okay. It looks like the storm is calming. Can one of you go check the secondary breaker panel in the back? Maintenance can’t get over there just yet, and you’re already on that side.”

“I got it,” Zae said, standing up. He stretched his arms before giving me a quick glance. “Y’all good in here?”

“Golden,” I replied.

He walked toward the back hallway with a flashlight, and the second he disappeared, Ares dropped back into the circle with the kids and picked up the UNO deck and started talking trash again like nothing had changed.

“Alright,” he said, cracking his knuckles dramatically. “Now that the competition is gone, let me school y’all real quick.”

“You stay talking trash like you ever beat me in a game,” I replied.

“Don’t let these kids gas you, Creek.”

“Ain’t nobody gassing me. You just make sure you don’t rage quit this time.” I threw down a reverse.

Raylin gasped. “That’s so disrespectful.”

“Thank you!” Ares said, holding his heart. “You see what I’m saying?”

“Shut up and play your card.”

He mugged me and then pulled from the deck. “You mad, huh?”

“Yep.”

We cracked up, the kids joining in like they were in on the joke. Just for a second, it felt like Ares and I were whole again.

“I missed this,” he whispered, and I froze. My smile faded.

“Don’t,” I said under my breath as I stood up, needing to grab some fresh air. The air around us was suddenly thin. “I’m gonna go see if we got any more water bottles.” I scurried out of the reading nook and over to the supply cabinet.

“I’ll help.” He made his way next to me. “You okay?”

“You shouldn’t say stuff like that.”

“Why not?” he asked softly. “It’s the truth, Creek. I do miss you.”

I turned to him, and in that moment, everything I’d been holding in spilled out.

“Because you left, Ares!” I whispered loudly through tight lips. “You left and didn’t say a word to me for twelve years! I needed you, and you vanished, and now you’re back without warning. In my space, acting like you miss me, like everything’s fine.”

He didn’t respond right away. He stared at me like he was bracing for impact.

“You didn’t just leave town, Ares,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “You left me and Zae like we didn’t matter.”

“I thought I was protecting y’all,” he said finally. “Protecting what we had by walking away before I could mess it up. It took damn near twelve years for me to realize I wasn’t protecting anything. I was a coward. I wasn’t man enough to stand up to my parents.”

He exhaled hard, eyes dropping for a second before meeting mine again.

“I lost myself up there, Creek. I had the job, the expensive high rise, the money. Everything I thought I wanted. But I looked up one day and felt nothing because you weren’t there, and neither was Zae.

I had it all and I still felt empty. That’s why I’m back, because Harvest was the only place I ever felt like myself. ”

My arms dropped to my sides, and I just stared at him.

“I thought leaving would make it easier,” he added. “But all it did was make me realize who I was without y’all, and I didn’t like that person at all.”

The lights flickered back on before I could respond, and a moment later, Zae walked through the door. He paused when he saw the two of us talking.

“You good?” he asked. Ares stepped back, and I nodded slowly, eyes darting between them.

“We’re okay,” I whispered.

“Not right now,” Zae said gently, putting his hand on my back already knowing what we were discussing. “Let’s just get back to the kids.”

We reentered the reading nook. Ares sat, I sat, and Zae joined the circle again. The tension between us could be cut with a knife.

“Can we finish the game now?” Raylin asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s do that.”

As we played, laughter slowly filled the room again.

The tornado warning passed, and the kids eventually went home, but inside, I was still spinning.

Because somewhere between all of this, I’d realized something I hadn’t been ready to admit to myself.

I wasn’t just still in love with Ares Knight, but I was starting to forgive him too.