Page 12 of Born in the Spring

Asking for me or for the Cassidy name?And for the dirt on how I’m doing without my brother.

That’s why I quit snowboarding entirely. The sport—the career—Shepherd gave his life’s blood to, then his life. It’s something we shared, though he was famous for it, and I was left behind the scenes. He was the one who wasdoing, so I became the one who wasteaching.

I knew what would happen the moment people who wanted to learn saw my name still on the roster. Evenmorewould show up, and even more did at the start of this new season. I can always feel their positivity and eagerness, and I would let their energy feed me and pump me up to give the same. But this season, there was less buzz for the board, for me, for wanting to learn, than there was for Shepherd and the loss of him. People wanted to stick their nose in, give condolences, and I can’t deal with that. I couldn’t deal with it when the loss was fresh, and I can’t deal with it now.

My time on the slopes was stillmine. And I’d been looking forward to getting back on the board. Escape into something I love doing. Being reminded of why I loved it in the first place. Let my mind try to forget for a few hours in the day.

But everyone else still wants me to suffer through every detail.

So I marked off my name.

“I’m not teaching anymore,” I remind Court, trying to keep my tone neutral.

“You can still come and hang out. With Kaeden, especially. You two were kinda close.”

Court isn’t laying off because he has a soft spot for the guy. And I do too. He was like me. A kind of underdog who became outstanding on the board. He’s made friends on the mountain that I’ve spied him grouping back up with, so he doesn’t actually need me around. We’ve done allthe bonding we’re going to do.

“As teacher and student,” I say to thekinda closefront, before pointing out, “He’s seventeen.”

Court gives me a side eye that makes me regret the last two seconds, even without his next argument, still serious but still quipping. “You hung out with someone who was much older than your age now when you were seventeen.”

He’s stopped saying Elara’s name, thinking it helps with her being gone. I haven’t told him if it does or doesn’t, because I don’t even know that answer.

But she wasn’t asmuch olderthan me as he’s stressing. She was twenty-nine when I was seventeen.

No. I see his point, but I’m not accepting it. Who Elara is to me is worlds apart from who I am to Kaeden.

“Well, I just wanted to tell you you’re being thought about,” he says to my inattention to his previous comment. “You,” he emphasizes. “Your ass is missed out there.”

I breathe the chill into my lungs to ice over the chill those words give me, to become an offense to my own defense working its way up, mine more a mechanism against my entire life’s truth—and the truth of the past six months. The missing it’s easy to convince myself only I feel for the people still alive, who left and haven’t come back.

I could never hate Elara for leaving. I could never hate her for anything. She could break me beyond repair—and sometimes I feel this has—and I would still love her through each frayed heartbeat. No, this one was my fault. My snowballing emotions—that I’ve since quieted and made some form of peace with—pushed her away, andthatguy didn’t stop her. She didn’t leave me on this bench,thatguy left her.Hecouldn’t watch her fall apart over his brother and he couldn’tfall apart in the arms of his brother’s girl, knowing he couldn’t unbreak her heart. Her heart was always Shepherd’s. And not only would I never be him, but I shouldn’t have wanted to be in that case. Wanting Elara was wrong, and after Shepherd died, that want came on stronger than ever before and felt more wrong than it ever had.

But it still felt right to love her, and that’s the directionI’vecome to lean in again.

If she hadn’t also moved on, the real me, the man she knows, who would’ve never said those things to her, and knows better than to make her feel pushed away, would’ve asked her to come back the second I came to terms with our shifted situation.

But by the time I realized I should’ve put a sock in my damn mouth, and tamed my guilt, it was too late. My dumbass lost her twice.

And I’m still so insecure with my place in her life, that I need her to make the choice herself.

“Your ass is full of shit,” I deadpan as a tease, part of my defense having made the climb.

“Not since two hours ago,” he deadpans back. “But I appreciate the crack.”

My small smile makes a brief comeback as I return his smug-looking side glance.

He turns at the sound of crunching snow, slower steps on lighter feet, then scoots to stand. “Sure you don’t want the scissors?”

My eyes narrow at him as I shake my head, then I give his arm a pat with the back of my hand and a nod of thanks as he frees up the space for my mom. He nods back, then nods at her as they pass each other, Mom sighing back onto the seat.

“I keep finding you here,” she says, a change from her usual greeting of,you’re gonna wear a hole in this bench, and I pick up the low complaint in her voice.

I lean forward, my arms back on my knees, hands clasped. “You don’t have to keep finding me here.”

“I lost one son here.”

“Mom,” I start, softening my tone before cutting in right at the end of her worry, trying to keep my own complaint even lower, as I tell her again, “I’m not leaving you. I’m not gonna do what Shepherd, or Dad, did.”

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