They Bet I Would Leave, I Proved Them Right Chapter 02

They Bet I Would Leave, I Proved Them Right Chapter 02

I wanted to return their things before I left.

Grant was twelve when he shoved his first basketball medal into my hands. He was afraid he’d lose it, so he made me hold on to it.

I brought the medal to the gym to find him.

He was on the floor, putting together a clothes rack for Brielle’s dorm.

A mattress, a desk lamp, and storage bins were stacked all around him.

“Can you move this part down a little?”

Brielle pointed to the top bar. “I can’t reach it.”

Grant took the whole thing apart and reassembled it.

He barely glanced up when he saw me. “What are you doing here?”

I held out the medal. “Giving this back.”

Grant blinked.

“Why? Just keep it at your place. Why are you giving it back all of a sudden?”

“I might not get another chance.”

He didn’t get what I meant. He tossed the medal into a cardboard box full of random junk.

“Great timing, actually. Brielle still needs a hook put up in her dorm. You’re strong—come help.”

I didn’t move.

Brielle jumped in.

“It’s fine. Mara’s heading to Westreach, so she’s probably got a ton of packing to do.”

Grant glanced at me.

“She’s been able to pack a bag in ten minutes since she was a kid. What’s she so busy with?”

I turned and left.

He didn’t even come after me to ask when I was leaving.

Graham was in the library.

I gave back the stack of competition prep packets he’d left at my place.

He took them, then his eyes landed on the camera hanging around my neck.

I’d saved a full year’s allowance to buy it when I was fifteen.

Almost every memory from our high school years lived inside that camera.

“Leave the camera, too,” Graham said.

“Brielle wants to put together a birthday tribute video. She’s planning to show it at the freshman showcase.”

“This is mine.”

“We’re just borrowing it. It’s not like we won’t give it back.”

He waved Brielle over.

She stepped up, her eyes fixed on the camera.

“Mara, I just want to pick out a few photos from everyone’s childhood.”

“But you weren’t part of our childhood.”

The color drained from her face.

Graham shot me a look.

“Did you have to say it like that?”

“She just wishes she’d met us sooner.”

“So my past gets handed over to make up for what she missed?”

Graham lost his patience. He reached behind my chair and grabbed the camera bag.

“We’re borrowing it for a few days. Stop being so dramatic.”

I grabbed for it, but he pulled it out of reach.

“When the video’s done, I’ll have Nolan bring it back to you.”

I held his gaze for a beat, then dropped my hand.

“Fine.”

There was nothing on that camera I couldn’t live without.

I’d already backed up everything that mattered.

Reid caught me at the entrance to our neighborhood.

“Oh good, perfect timing.”

He tossed an external hard drive into my arms.

“All our old videos are on there. You’re good at editing—make Brielle a highlight reel of her first eighteen years.”

“She doesn’t have eighteen years of footage.”

“That’s why we’re using ours.”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Just edit yourself out of the parts where you show up, then splice in some photos of Brielle. Problem solved, right?”

I looked down at the hard drive in my hands.

Our first bike ride was on there. Our first camping trip. Every single birthday the four of them had spent with me.

And now they wanted to cut me out of all of it.

They wanted Brielle to take my place and have the childhood she never had.

“Fine.”

I agreed.

Reid looked surprised.

“That easy? No fight?”

“Didn’t you say I’d get over it in a few days?”

He scratched the back of his neck.

“Good. Glad you came around.”

Not one of them asked when I was leaving for Westreach.

That night, Nolan took me out.

He picked the barbecue place we always went to, but he spent the whole time on his phone.

Brielle texted that her dorm bed was too hard.

He called the store right on the spot to order her a new mattress.

Then Brielle said she was nervous about her roommate.

He recorded three voice messages back-to-back, talking her through it.

The brisket in front of me had gone cold and tough. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Nolan.”

“Hm?”

“Do you remember what I’m doing tomorrow?”

He finally looked up.

“Packing?”

“Close enough.”

He relaxed and slid an ice cream sundae across the table toward me.

“Stop looking like that.”

“Don’t cause trouble out there in Westreach. I told you I’d come visit, and I meant it.”

Outside the restaurant, he leaned down and kissed my forehead.

“Just hang tight until school starts.”

“We’ll all come out to see you once we settle in.”

I didn’t call him out on it.

Back home, I plugged the hard drive into my computer and deleted every file we’d ever shared.

They didn’t get to take eighteen years of my life and use them to build hers.

I unplugged the hard drive and dropped it into a shipping box.

This was my last gift to them.

A perfectly clean past, scrubbed of every trace of me.