Free Let Love Shine by Melissa Collins Page B

night. The girls who
beat up Lizzy confessed, under direction of their parents’ lawyers, of course.
They were kicked off the cheerleading squad since the school has zero tolerance
for bullying. Having to do fifty hours of community service barely seems like a
sufficient sentence, but at least they aren’t going to get away with it
entirely.
    The football guys, on the other hand, well it looks like
they will. I mean without Cane coming forward to say what happened, there isn’t
much that anyone can do.
    “Where’d you go?” Reid looks at me as I’m lost thinking about
where Cane is. I don’t want to bring it up, being Christmas and all, but I can
still see the worry on Reid’s face, the lines of tension creasing the corners
of his usually bright blue eyes.
    “Nowhere. I was just thinking of how happy I am too.”
    We sit and watch Braden for a few more minutes before the
phone rings and Reid gets up to answer it.
    “Hey, Dyl. Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too.”
    Braden chooses this moment to start throwing a mini-tantrum,
his cries making it somewhat impossible for Reid to talk on the phone. After I
hear him ask Dylan to hang on a minute, he turns to me. “It’s about Cane. I’ll
be right back in.” My stomach twists in knots as I watch him walk down the hall
to our room.
    In the few minutes that he’s in our bedroom, I create all
kinds of crazy scenarios about where Cane is and what happened to him. Most of
them are just too scary to focus on for more than the briefest of seconds. Even
though I try to distract myself with Braden, driving trains and making silly
faces, I can’t shake the feeling that something horrible happened.
    I shoot up from the floor when I hear Reid walking back out
to us. “What did he say? What’s going on?”
    “He’s okay.” On those two simple words, I see the weight
fall from his shoulders, the lines around his eyes smooth, instantly.
    I band my arms around his waist burying my face in his
chest. “Oh, Reid. That’s amazing. Where is he? Did he come back home?”
    Reid pulls me over to the couch holding me in place on his
lap. “Cane ran away to his aunt and uncle’s house. Took the train there in the
middle of the night. It turns out that he came out to them over the summer and
they said if he ever needed anything, he could go to them, so he did.”
    I lace our fingers together and run my thumb over his wrist.
“Was he hurt?” I ask tentatively, not sure if I really want to know the answer.
    “No, thank God,” he sighs a deep breath of relief. I know
this is what was keeping Reid up at night, wondering if Cane was safe. “The
guys never got a hold of him, but he’s too scared to come back. Dylan just
heard from Lizzy this morning that Cane moved in with his aunt and uncle and
he’s going to finish out the school year in the new district.”
    “Reid…that’s…really good news.” A tear streaks down my
cheek, shed in happiness that things turned out the way they did.
    “Yeah, it’s pretty great actually.”
    We sit together for a few more minutes, not saying anything,
enjoying the sight of our innocent little boy.
    “There’s still a few more presents under there.” Reid tips
his chin towards the tree and pulls me down to the floor. Since I’m never one
to argue about getting gifts, I go all too willingly.
    “This is for you, babe,” he smirks as he hands me a
not-so-perfectly wrapped box. I give him the stink-eye playfully mocking his
sub-par wrapping skills. “Don’t look at me like that. He helped,” he adds,
pointing at Braden who is still blissfully unaware of anything other than his
trains.
    I can tell by the wrinkles and crumpled corners exactly how
Braden “helped.”
    I shred through the paper and actually gasp as I uncover the
book hidden under the wrinkled paper.
    “Oh, Reid. It’s beautiful.” I trace my fingers over the
hardcover image of Braden as newborn, swaddled in a pale blue blanket. I
remember taking the picture the morning