He Changed His Future For Her, Not Me Chapter 08

He Changed His Future For Her, Not Me Chapter 08

Calder didn’t leave right away.

He checked into the little motel outside the academy gates and stayed there for three days. Every evening after training, I saw him waiting by the entrance.

On the first day, he brought me a cinnamon roll from the bakery I used to like.

I didn’t take it.

On the second day, he showed up with hot chocolate.

I told him I didn’t drink sweet stuff during training.

On the third day, he carried over a bag stuffed with Flamin’ Hot chips and spicy jerky.

“Lark,” he said carefully, “you used to love spicy food. I got everything I could find.”

I looked at the bright, crinkling packages in his hand and almost laughed.

Back when I loved spicy food, he said Pippa couldn’t stand the smell.

Now that I had learned to live without it, he wanted credit for remembering.

Late kindness still arrived empty-handed.

That night, an unknown number called me.

The woman on the other end said she was my mother’s younger sister.

My aunt.

I froze for a long moment.

Mom and her sister had fallen out when they were young. After that, Aunt Leda moved away,

married, and never came around again.

I had only seen her in old family photos.

When the call connected, her voice trembled.

“Lark, it’s Aunt Leda. Your grandmother asked about you near the end. Your mother just wouldn’t

let me reach out.”

I held the phone without moving.

Then she asked if I liked Iron Mesa. If I was eating. If I had enough money to get through the

semester.

Not one word about Pippa.

Not one request.

Just me.

The kindness was so unfamiliar that it hurt.

A few days later, Aunt Leda came to Iron Mesa.

She wore a sharp wool coat, and her eyes looked a little like Mom’s, except softer.

When she hugged me, she held on tight.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered. “You’ve been hurt for a long time.”

That one sentence broke something loose in me.

For years, all I had heard was:

You’re the older sister.

Be mature.

Pippa’s health is fragile.

No one had ever said I had been hurt too.

After Aunt Leda heard everything, she didn’t tell me to be patient.

She didn’t ask me to forgive them.

She only held my hand and said, “Lark, family isn’t supposed to be the place you have to survive.”

Before she left, she booked a flight back to Marlowe Bend.