Tightrope

Anytime

"Hey, man," said Knight.

"You're such a dick," supplied Austin cheerfully.

"I've had an emotionally traumatic day, no need to pile on," Knight complained, but he couldn't stop the smile that spread across his face.

It was as if, the moment he'd walked across the threshold, a weight had tumbled down his shoulders, and he was no longer forced to bear the weight of the world. His smile was brighter, his shoulders lighter, and his eyes no longer held the haunted quality of one battling their inner demons.

"Well, there was no need for you to be a bitch and go have a sob story in a tree," said Austin, in a display that was rather insensitive, if you asked me. He'd clearly spent too much time with me.

Knight shrugged. "It was just a cry for attention," he said, in an epic understatement that made me roll my eyes. "Lena says I'm an attention whore."

I crossed my arms. "You are an attention whore."

"Pile on, pile on!" Knight called, pointing at me accusatorily. I hit him in the arm playfully.

From behind him, I could see Liv racing down the stairs, relief easing the worried lines in her forehead as she noted Cole standing in the entryway. Liv's hair was windswept and wild and she had dark circles under her eyes—evidence of the previous night, as I'd wept and she'd searched—but it was all masked by the light in her eyes and she saw me standing next to me best friend.

Knight turned to her with sheepish grin, as if to apologise for the last day, and to thank her for all the days that were to follow. But, in true Montez fashion, he was hardly going to say that. He batted his eyes at my sister. "Liv, she's being mean to me."

"You're such a snitch, oh my god."

"Are you trying to get him to leave again?" Liv asked me, laughing.

"Give it another few hours, and I'll probably say yes."

Liv rolled her eyes.

Mum and Dad stepped out of the kitchen and into the entryway with matched expressions of awkwardness and gratitude. They didn't know Knight, not really, but they'd seen the desperation on my face and heard the pain in my voice when he had vanished. I watched as they clocked the smile on my face, and shared a look of thankfulness.

Even if Jace was killing me, Knight was back. He was home. And that was all that mattered.

If I kept telling myself that, I might believe it eventually.

"Hello, Eliza and David," said Cole, almost bashful. "Thank you for, uh, having me. And looking for me. I really appreciate it and I'm very grateful."

Mum smiled kindly at him. "No worries."

"That's okay, mate," said Dad gruffly. "I guarantee you're an upgrade on my own children. Maybe you can teach them a thing or two."

"I don't know about that. Your children are pretty special," Knight said, and when he looked over at me and smiled, my chest felt warm and whole. "By special, I mean that Liv and Austin are great, but Lena is more the whacked on the head as a child, overly-stubborn kind of special. Did you have really narrow walls when she was a kid?"

Never mind. He sucked.

Mum and Dad laughed, in a traitorous display of betrayal. My whole family, it seemed, had caught Knight's suckage. It was contagious.

I couldn't exactly stay mad at Knight for long, because when their laughter died down, he looked back at my parents with a small frown. I could tell he was fighting to keep his voice steady. "Did you, um. Did you speak to my mum?"