Page 136 of Hot Shot

“Is there anything else?” I ask from what sounds like a mile away.

“No. Let me know if you’d like a reference letter, or any leads to neighboring schools, I?—”

“Thank you.” I’m standing up, driving my body like it’s not my own. “I’ll let you know.”

Christine looks concerned when she stands, but I turn for the door. “Cass, I really am sorry?—”

“It’s okay,” I say, even though it’s not. “Thanks, Christine.”

Before she can answer, I’m out the door and hurrying to my classroom. The moment I’m in the hallway, tears flood my vision. I blink them back, but it’s no use—they slide down my cheeks silently. With trembling hands, I start grabbing things and shoving them into my bag, gathering it up and all but running out the door, desperate for solitude. I even leave out the side door so I won’t run into anyone. I can’t explain this to Molly or one of the other teachers, and I don’t want to see Christine again. I’m too humiliated.

When I’ve climbed into my truck and the door is closed, I crumple, folding over the steering wheel, my shoulders wracked with sobs and my heart broken. The loss splits me through the middle, and I spill out. There’s nothing left to hold me together.

I’ve lost my job.

The one thing I’ve worked so hard for.

The only thing that’s truly and only mine.

It’s gone.

Despite doing nothing wrong, my dream is smashed and shattered. And why? Because the wrong kid picked a fight with Cricket. Because Wilder hit the wrong guy.

Because of my husband. Because of my stepdaughter.

Because I gave everything to them, I lost the one thing that’smine.

I’m crying so hard, I can’t breathe.

I can’t find it in me to be angry with them—we’re all victims of the circumstance. But I chose this. I chose to pretend to be married to him. I chose to take on the roles that have put me here. If I’d chosen differently, I wouldn’t be here.

But here I am.

Bile roils around in my ribs, climbing up my throat. I barely get the door open in time to avoid vomiting in the car, distantly thankful for parking next to a set of bushes between parking spots. The horrible violence of throwing up sobers me, and when I close the door, I’m only sniffling and can breathe again, though my chest feels crushed.

The keys shake in my hand, making it hard to get them in the ignition. A raindrop plinks against the windshield, then another in fat, heavy splats.I just have to get home, I say to hype myself.Just get home and then you can fall apart.

As I pull out of my spot and the sky opens up, I realize that I don’t have all that much time before Wilder and Cricket come home. In this moment, I don’t want to see them—I’m too raw, too frayed. I love them. I will always choose them. But right now, I need to be fucking hurt. I need a minute to acknowledge how fucked the whole thing is. And how I did it to my fucking self.

No one did this to me. It was all me.

Thank God we don’t live far, because I’m crying again when I turn down our street, rain falling in sheets. But when I approach the house, shock halts my tears.

A huge, gunmetal Dodge Ram is parked haphazardly in the driveway. My brows draw together as I sort through everyone I know to figure out whose truck that is.

And then I see him, sitting hunched over in the pouring rain on the front steps of the house.

Trent’s hair is plastered to his face, his eyes hopeful and tortured and wild when he sees me. The fabric of his soaked tee is plastered to his torso, his wet jeans painted on. He stands when I pull into the yard and park—the driveway is occupied with his oblique truck. Before I get out, I fire off a text to Wilder. Surely Trent is harmless. Surely I don’t need to call the police or anything, right? All I’ve got to go on are vibes. And the vibes are off.

I shake off the feeling, leaving everything but the keys and my phone in the truck, running for the front porch.

“What are you doing here?” I shout over the din of rain as I brush past him and under the cover of the porch.

“Where’s Cricket?” he shouts back, climbing the steps to get under the porch with me, leaving me wondering why he was sitting in the rain instead of up here where it’s dry.

But I realize then that he has cracked.

The wildness in his eyes is weighted by a vacant space. Fear climbs up my spine.

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