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Not without crying. And Maddie really didn’t need to see that.
Gemma looked at Maddie, her voice fast as she explained the call Cassie received yesterday, and Presley’s response. Maddie listened quietly, nodding in the right places, her face showing just how worried she was about them both.
“That sounds like my son,” she said softly. “He gets the idiocy from his father.”
Cassie tried – and failed – to smile.
“He’s told you about Jade, right?” Maddie asked her. Cassie nodded. “So I guess you know what a mess he was after she died.”
“I have some idea. But I wasn’t there. It must have been horrible to watch him go through it.”
Maddie nodded. “I barely slept for weeks worrying about him. We did everything we could, but you know Presley. He hates accepting help. He’s my son and I love him more than anything, but he’s stubborn. Again, just like his dad.”
“Like all men,” Gemma pointed out.
Maddie nodded. “Never a truer word said.” She looked at Cassie again. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Cassie admitted. “I can’t see a right decision.”
“Sometimes there isn’t one. Just a least worst one,” Maddie said. “I don’t know if it helps, but I can tell you my son loves you. I see it in his eyes every time he talks about you. Every time you’re around him.”
“See?” Gemma gave Cassie a pointed look. “I just said the same thing. He said he’d wait and he will.”
“Are you afraid you’ll like being part of the new band?” Maddie asked her. “That you won’t want to come back.”
“No. Not at all.” Cassie shook her head. She’d barely thought about it, to be honest. She was too focused on her own pain. On Presley’s.
She dropped her face into her hands. “I don’t know what to do,” she muttered. She needed to get control of herself. She had a class to teach in thirty minutes. She felt Maddie’s soft hand rubbing her back.
Oh how she wished she had a mom like her. Somebody who cared.
Somebody who didn’t judge her or demand that she do whatever shone the best light on her like her mom.
“What would you do?” she asked Maddie. “If you were in my position?”
Maddie smiled softly at her. “Honestly?”
Cassie nodded. She needed honesty. She needed insight.
She needed Presley.
“I’d go. Because I know my son. I think he needs this. To sacrifice himself. To give you the opportunity he never gave Jade. And I think it’s the only way he’ll really know that this isn’t history repeating itself.”
Cassie’s chest tightened. Mostly because the truth in Maddie’s words shone through.
“Well, I guess I’ll go to New York,” she whispered. “Because I love him, and if that’s what it takes for me to prove it, then I’ll do it. But I’ll be back. I promise you that.”
Maddie gave her the softest of smiles. “I hope so.”
“Two days,” she told him. “They want me there in two days.” She’d already spoken to Gemma, who’d found a teacher from a school a few towns over to sub in for the short term. In the longer term, she’d said she’d recruit somebody full time.
And then Cassie had told her there would be no longer time and she’d cried again.
“Okay.” He gave her the sweetest of smiles. “That’s good, right? Like ripping the bandage off?”
“Not really.” She looked him in the eye. “Just ask me to stay and I will.”
He cupped her face, and gave her that sweet smile again. “I know you would. But I can’t. You understand why, right?”
