PROLOGUE
Isaac
Fourteen years old
I tugged at the stupid tie around my dumb neck.
Dad was married…married.
I couldn’t figure out how I felt about that. I mean, I liked Helena, my new stepmom. Oh crap. Would they expect me to start calling her Mom now that it was official? Nothing against her, but I wasn’t sure I could do that. Helena was nice and funny. She always asked how my day at school was, or if I was okay, because she’s big on emotions and sharing them. I never answer her honestly—not about how I’m feeling, at least—but it’s cool that she asks.
Dad had been eaten alive with his own grief in the beginning, and I hadn’t wanted to add to that, so I made myself be fine. I guess I played the part so well that when he got better, he didn’t ask… And I was okay, but I also wasn’t. I didn’t know how that made sense, but inside me it did.
All I knew was Helena made Dad smile again when nothing had been able to do that in years, not even me.
Especially not me.
A pang pierced my chest, making my heart feel like it shattered. Maybe he blamed me about Mom. Sometimes I did.
I pushed up from my bed, went to the window, and looked into the backyard. There were about fifty people down there celebrating. Music was playing. There was dancing, food, and smiles. When my gaze found Dad, he was laughing at something. Huge belly laughs, his head thrown back as Helena rested her hand on his chest, grinning at him like my dad was her favorite thing in the whole world. He looked at her the same. He used to look at Mom that way too.
I watched him watch her, and I could see how much he loved her. In a lot of ways, she’d brought him back from the dead. He’d been lost when Mom died. So brokenhearted that the house didn’t get cleaned, and food didn’t get cooked, and he didn’t go to work for weeks on end until I’d called my grandma to come and help.
She’d gotten him together some—got him back to work and helped me get the house in order. He was okay by the time she went back to California, but he hadn’t been happy. He’d hardly looked at me, and when he did, I’d seen the pain in his eyes.
Things got better, but he still didn’t laugh like he did today, the way he’d done with Mom, until he and Helena started spending time together.
Which meant I needed to stop being a spoiled brat. Maybe Grandma could help me get my shit together, like she had for Dad. But then, I guess they’d have to know how I felt for that to happen. I was better at hiding it than he was.
I swiped at the single tear that leaked from my eye, shoved closed the door in my head where I kept those kinds of feelings hidden, and blocked the memories from my thoughts.
My gaze tracked over the backyard, away from Helena and Dad, until it landed on Lane. We’d be going to the same school now. We were the same age too, but that was where our similarities stopped. His hair was too long, this mess of blond curls that looked like he hadn’t combed it in weeks, but I knew he had. Helena had made him before the ceremony, but it never stayed tamed. He wore a suit that matched mine, only his was baggier on him. He was kinda scrawny, all long, skinny limbs—that’s what Grandma said. He didn’t play sports like me or my friends. He didn’t ride bikes around the neighborhood or play night games on the streets until his legs hurt from running so hard. Even now, on our parents’ wedding day, he was sitting on the grass in the corner of the lawn, scribbling in the sketchbook he always carried around with him.
But hey, at least unlike me, he wasn’t crying in his room—which was now right down the hallway from mine because he and Helena had moved in.
This was so weird.
Lane was kinda weird too. Nice, but weird.
With a sigh, I turned and went for the door, then downstairs and back outside. By the time I got there, I’d pasted on the smile everyone was familiar with.
“Isaac! There you are! I was wondering where you went.” Dad’s eyes sparkled with joy. I went to him, and he wrapped an arm around me. “I’m so happy. I love you, kid.”
“I love you, Dad, and I’m happy too.”
Lane walked up then and stood close by, watching Dad and me, a curious look in his eyes, and cocked his head slightly. His gaze burned through me, like it slipped inside my pores somehow so he could explore parts of me I kept hidden from the world. I shifted uncomfortably, not liking that feeling at all.
Helena put a hand on my shoulder, then one on Lane’s too. “We’re a family now. I promise to love you and support you just like I would Lane. Family is the most important thing.”
I swallowed hard, liking her words, liking the thought of having that again. When my gaze flickered up, it met Lane’s big brown eyes, firmly on me, questioning.
I cleared my throat and nodded at Helena.
One of Dad’s friends handed him a glass of champagne, and he held it up. “To my family—my beautiful new wife and our incredible two boys. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”
And while everyone cheered around us, Lane and I just watched each other.
“How’s Isaac doing? That boy adored his mom,” Grandma asked Dad, and I hurt down to my bones at just the question.
“He’s good. He loved her so damn much, we both did, but Isaac…I don’t know, he’s just better at coping than most people. He’s the strongest kid I’ve ever known. Maybe it’s easier on him because he’s young and doesn’t quite get it?” I knew I shouldn’t be listening to them talk, but I couldn’t make myself step away. “I envy him. He’s like an adult in a ten-year-old’s body. Even the way he called when I needed you. He’s a good kid, the best. I wish I had his resilience, though. How sad is it to envy your own son?”
Dad was…what, jealous of me? He thought I was strong? I didn’t feel that way. I just didn’t have a choice but to pretend I did.
I’m hurting too. I just don’t know how to admit it.
But then, I wanted to make him proud. I wanted to be someone people could depend on. Mom had been like that. Maybe if I was that for Dad, he’d feel better again.
“You’re just hurting right now, Timothy,” Grandma said.
“It’s still not an excuse.” Dad was quiet for a moment, then added, “It hurts…to look at him sometimes. He favors her so much, reminds me of her so much. Both so strong, so resilient. What kind of father am I? What kind of father struggles to look at his own son?”
His words cut into me, slash after slash at my heart, and when Dad started to cry, I did too.
“Isaac, wake up. You’re having a nightmare or something.”
My eyes jerked open at the sound of Lane’s voice. He was sitting on the edge of my bed, had switched on the lamp on my nightstand, and I hadn’t even realized it.
“What are you doing in here?” I yanked my arm from under his hand.
“I went to the bathroom. Your door wasn’t closed all the way. I heard you crying in your sleep.”
I rubbed at my face, and holy crap, he was right. I was crying.
“Was it about your mom? I still cry sometimes too when I think about my dad.”
What the hell? How did he just say something like that? I didn’t get it, couldn’t wrap my head around it…or why I wanted to answer. Why would I want to tell him how I felt? This kid who’d just moved into our house because our parents got married today.