Free Snowflakes & Fire Escapes by J. M. Darhower Page B

to.
    His ten second hesitation returned, turning to twenty … thirty … forty …
    A minute later, after nothing from him, I knelt down on the floor, knowing he wasn’t going to move. He stared at me like he was looking through me, studying me, looking for answers to an equation he was desperate to solve.
    “I’m glad you’re here,” I told him.
    “I shouldn’t be,” he said. “I was told to stay away from you.”
    “My father—”
    “Not yours,” he cut in before I could even get it out. “Your father didn’t do it. He has no say over me.”
    “Yours,” I whispered, reaching through the window for him. He didn’t stop me as my hand covered the massive bruise on his face. “He did this to you.”
    Cody pulled his eyes away from me then, like I was just too painful to face. “Cormac figured since I wasn’t listening, pounding it into me was the only way to get his point across.”
    “I just … I don’t understand it,” I said, fingertips trailing his jawline before tracing his lips, reaching the scar. “You’re his family.”
    “Family doesn’t mean shit to him,” Cody said. “Family is just the people they go after when they want to send you a message. That’s it. They’re either a liability or an advantage, depending on which side of the game you’re playing. And Cormac? He doesn’t believe in hauling around dead weight. You know that.”
    There was no bitterness to his voice. He spoke matter-of-factly, like this was normal for families, like fathers were supposed to treat their children this way. But I didn’t accept it and I never would. It wasn’t our fault they did the things they did. We shouldn’t have been the ones who faced punishment. “It’s not right.”
    “But it’s life,” he said. “It’s my life.”
    “You don’t want it to be.”
    “But it is,” he said quietly. “It is.”
    I wasn’t sure what to say.
    I knew there was no room for argument, knew that any pleading or pestering from my lips would fall on deaf ears. We had been around in circles, back and forth, flipped upside down, and we ultimately ended up here after everything.
    “It is what it is,” he continued, realizing I was conceding, that I wasn’t going to try to argue with him. I could almost see the relief on his face, but in his eyes there was something else … something I had never seen from him before: surrender . His eyes had always been full of spark, but there was nothing there now. There was no more fight left for his own life. “And like I said, I shouldn’t be here, but I really needed to give you your present.”
    I frowned. “My birthday isn’t until tomorrow.”
    Seventeen.
    No longer sixteen, but it still wasn’t eighteen.
    Not yet.
    “Close enough,” he said, reaching into his pants pocket and grabbing something, pulling it out and concealing it in his fist. “I didn’t have a chance to wrap it, and well … fuck it. I’ve never been good at that shit.”
    He held his hand out toward me as he opened it. There, in his palm, lay a silver necklace. A smile crept up on my lips when I reached for it, taking it from him. A locket. Perfectly round, a tad bigger than a quarter. On the front was a snowflake, the edges of it framed in diamonds. I would’ve asked if they were real, but I knew Cody. He’d never buy me something fake. Flipping it over, I ran my thumb over the back, feeling the grooves from the words engraved in it.
    Gracie—
    Soon.
    —C
    “It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
    He nudged my hand. “Open it.”
    I flicked the locket open, my eyes meeting an old picture. It was Cody and I, back when we were just little kids, before we ever fell in love and realized what a harsh world we lived in. I was grinning at the camera, happy as could be, while Cody just stared at me.
    “Couldn’t keep my eyes off you back then,” he said. “Guess I loved you even when I was ten.”
    I traced the outline of our young faces before closing the locket again, clutching it