Page 141 of Edge of Unbroken

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Cat’s curfew turns out to be midnight, and I tell Vada right away that I have every intention of taking Cat home tonight.

“Oh, actually, I drove,” Cat says, her tone decidedly giddy.

“What?” I’m confused.

“Oh, Ran, you’ll be so excited,” Vada says with a hint of sarcasm. “Cat got her car back. Didn’t you see it in the driveway?”

“No.” I gently shift out of Cat’s hold and get up to walk to the railing. I peer down to the driveway and only now notice the unfamiliar car parked behind Zack’s Honda. How the heck did I miss it when I pulled into the driveway?

Cat arrives by my side, a happy smile on her face. “What do you think?” She bites her bottom lip.

“I guarantee you my Mustang is a better match for you with how damn sexy you are, but I’m glad you got your car back. I know how much you missed it.”

Cat beams at me so brightly, her perfection threatens to blind me.

“Oh god, you’re disgustingly in love,” Vada groans, shaking her head.

“No truer words,” I say. “So, that means I won’t get to drive you home, huh?” It’s a disappointing thought.

Cat’s face falls. “I guess so.”

Vada huffs noisily. “God,fine. I’ll drive Cat’s car back to her house and she can ride with you,” she says with a self-sacrificing eye roll.

Steve stands. “Yeah, and I’ll hitch a ride with Zack. You two enjoy your half hour alone.”

Monday, March 21st

Ronan

“How fucking weird is it to drive past this place and know we’ll never have to go in again?” Shane muses from the driver’s seat of his Jeep. He briefly gazes out the passenger window at the large four-story brick building of our high school, or former high school, I guess.

It’s a quarter to six and Shane and I are on our way to pick up Cat and Tori from softball practice to grab some dinner and spend a couple of hours with them. Well, we’re really picking up Tori from practice because, as I learned only when I dropped Cat off at home after our overdue reunion Saturday, Cat quit the team shortly after I left for Montana.

“I just wasn’t in a place to give it my all,” she told me. “It wasn’t fair to the team, so I quit. But before you start thinking this is your fault, you need to know that it’s not. My heart wasn’t in it.”

Shane and I were supposed to pick up Tori at 5:30, then stop by Cat’s. But Shane and I are running late, and when I texted Cat that we’re behind on time, she let me know she would just walk the ten minutes to school, meet up with Tori, and wait for us there with her.

I nod at Shane. “Really fucking weird,” I say. “Feels like I’m playing hooky.”

Shane chuckles. “Yeah, it’s gotta be especially weird for you because youhaven’tactually graduated yet.”

I laugh. “Part of me feels like Mrs. Kavanaugh is going to find me, like, at the gym or at Murphy’s one day and drag me back to school,” I say of the principal.

“Fuck, do you remember when we ditched that one day last year in January and Mrs. Kavanaugh just happened to walk into the same damn pizza place we decided to eat at?” Shane laughs.

I nod with a frown. “Oh boy, do I. She gave you and Steve a total pass and made me and Zack go back to school. Such bullshit; just because you guys were seniors. You know she called my house that afternoon? Totally fucking ratted on me.”

Shane’s eyes snap to me, the color draining from his face. “Oh, shit…”

“Yep,” I say simply.

“Did… did you… I mean…” I know he’s trying to ask if I got in trouble with my mom, if she hurt me.

I grin at him mischievously, shaking my head. “Nope. My mom was asleep when her phone went off downstairs. I obviously saw the school’s number pop up, so I answered the phone pretending to be my dad.” The memory makes me laugh out loud. I may not have deserved a lot of the things my mom did to me, but I also wasn’t—and am still not—the personification of innocence.

Shane laughs throatily. “Did it work?”

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