Page 105 of Stone Vows

“It was last March,” he says.

“Oh.” I disappeared in February. There was no way for him to contact me. “I’m so sorry, Caden. I wish I’d been there for you. Maybe I could have helped.”

“You’resorry about not being there forme?”He looks at me sideways, studying my face. “Lexi,I’mthe one who should have been there foryou. I was so wrapped up in my own life—in baseball—that I couldn’t even bother to pick up the phone. Maybe if I would have, you’d have told me what was going on. I feel like all of this is my fault. I should have made more of an effort. Can you ever forgive me?”

I reach over the table and grab his hand. “Caden, there is nothing to forgive. You didn’t do anything wrong.I’mthe big sister. You shouldn’t have to look out for me. When Mom died, I should have made you my top priority. Instead, I was already in deep with Grant. I let him control me. I let him take me away from my friends. From you. If anyone is at fault here, it sure as hell isn’t you.”

“It’s not you either,” he says. “You know that, right? What he did to you—it’s not your fault.”

I nod. “I know that. I even knew it back then. I only stayed with him because I felt trapped. After he threatened you, I literally had nowhere to go.”

He smacks his palm on the table in anger. “You did, Lexi. You did have somewhere to go. You could have come to me anyway. I don’t care what he would have done to me. It would have been worth it to get you away from him.”

A tear rolls down my cheek as I smile at my little brother, knowing he’d sacrifice his career for me. I feel the same way about him. I’d do anything to keep him safe. “I wasn’t going to let that happen,” I say. “Baseball is your life.”

“But you’re my family,” he says, trying not to get choked up. “Family will always trump baseball, Lexi. Don’t ever forget that.”

“I love you, you know that, right?” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, getting up to come hug me. “I love you, too.”

I smile up at him. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that out loud.”

“Really?” he asks. “Well, shit. Plan on hearing it a lot more.” He does the sign for‘I love you’with his hands. He signs it to me and then he signs it to Ellie.

“You remembered?” I ask.

I showed him a few signs when he came for dinner last week.

“I’ve been practicing,” he says. “I happen to have the best niece in the world who has the coolest uncle who plans on talking with her every chance he gets. Don’t be surprised if I get her a phone when she’s two, just so we can text each other.”

I laugh, happy that he plans to spoil her. “Did you know that texting was invented solely to allow deaf people to communicate on cell phones?”

“No shit?” he says. “And now, it’s howeveryonecommunicates. Imagine that.”

I clean up Ellie and then take our dirty dishes to the sink. When I come back out, Caden is holding Ellie and she’s laughing when he makes faces at her.

“Speaking of family,” I say. “I have something I’ve been wanting to ask you, Caden.”

He stares at me for a second. “This looks serious.”

“It is,” I tell him, motioning for him to sit down on the couch.

He puts Ellie between us, giving her one of her plastic picture books which she promptly puts in her mouth to chew on. “Whatever it is, the answer is yes,” he says.

“Don’t say that until you know what it is. This is a pretty tall order,” I tell him.

“I don’t care, Lexi.”

I nod to Ellie. “If something ever happens to me, will you raise her?”

He looks from Ellie to me and then back to Ellie. I’m not even sure he understands the question. I open my mouth to clarify, but he holds his hand out to shut me up. “In a fucking heartbeat,” he says. “It would be my absolute honor to raise her. Of course, yes, Lexi. Butnothingis going to happen to you. I promise I won’t let that bastard hurt you ever again.”

“It’s not just about Grant,” I say. “I could get hit by a bus. Or I could fall down the stairs and break my neck. I could get bitten by a raccoon and die from rabies. Or get run over by—”

“Enough, Lexi. I get it,” he says, looking annoyed. “You really don’t need to chronicle all the ways you can die. It’s so morbid. And raccoons in New York City? I doubt it.”

I shrug. “I may not always live in the city.”

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