Page 83 of Losing the Rhythm

“By the way, here.” Hazel slid a piece of paper to me.

I looked down at it and both my eyebrows shot up. It was the doodle she did for me with all the guys and me. But this time it was colored in. The comp was pretty much the same, but she took time in fine-tuning it.

“Why did you do this?” I asked, blinking through my emotions as they tried to surge through me.

“Micah asked me.” She leaned back. “Said it got torn apart when they destroyed your locker. I was more than happy to redo it. It’s better than before anyways. That was half-assed, but this, this is pure genius.” She grinned back.

I slid the paper closer and looked down at it. Taking in all the spot-on coloring. All the features of each of the guys. Me among them.

“I love it,” I said.

“Good.”

I couldn’t stop smiling all through the rest of study hall and even all day as I kept it safely tucked away with me. I wasn’t going to let it leave my person this time, not willing to lose such a precious drawing for the second time.

Chapter Twenty-five

This time, we met in a more public place. In fact, it was the same bakery that he used to take me to as a child. The place was still thriving, claiming to have the best pies around, which wasn’t wrong. I had fallen in love with their cherry pie as a child.

And hadn’t had any since Dad left.

I hadn’t been here at all since I was a child. As I walked in, the only thing familiar about the place was the warm, sugary smell. At some point, they had expanded, taking over the space next door.

“Cadie,” Dad called from a table against the wall off to the right.

To get to him, I had to walk by the displays of sweets, my own taste buds coming alive at all the deliciousness that was so carefully laid out.

“I’m glad to see this place doing so well,” he said as I settled across from him. “Looks like they bought out the novelty gift shop that used to be here.”

“Is that what it was?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He smiled, his expression looking a little wistful. “We used to go in there to find little trinkets for your mom. They had a nice record section too. It’s also where I bought your second guitar after you outgrew the first one.”

I still had that guitar. Was even planning to gift it to Cal if he was still interested in guitar after a few more years. It was weird to think I had a little plan like that, to give him a gift in a few years. But it’d be worth passing it on to him if he continued learning. It had done well for me and it’d do well for him too.

“Cadie, I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” There were too many things he could apologize for at this point.

By the way he grimaced, he understood that too. “I can’t begin to properly apologize for the last seven years, and I’m willing to do what I need to do to make up for that. What I wanted to apologize specifically for is for the last time we talked. My therapist warned me—”

“You have a therapist?” I asked, cutting him off.

His mouth was still open from talking in mid-sentence. For a moment, it stayed like that before he finally closed it and cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Uh, yes. For a while now. He’s been, um, helping me…”

Dad seemed like he was at such a loss for words.

“Helping you to reach out to me?”

He licked his lips. His hands were under the table, but I had a feeling he was doing everything he could to hide his nerves. I was doing the same, gripping my hands together hard underneath the table.

“Yes. And what I did the other day was wrong of me. I told you I’d give you space, wait for you to reach out to me, but I didn’t follow through with that. Instead, I invaded your space, got upset. I’m sorry.”

“I’m seeing a therapist too,” I said softly. It felt a bit raw to tell him that, like I was admitting there was something wrong with me. That it was a huge weakness to talk about needing psychological help. “I talked with her yesterday.”

“And that’s why you’re willing to meet with me now?”

I nodded.

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