A heavy silence dragged by before any words came to Elise's lips. "When did you find out?" she asked, her legs still shaking from the revelation.

    The corners of Cadence's eyes shimmered, and the girl blinked the emerging tears away. "It was soon after you left," she answered as she hopped out of the car, slipping her dark jacket off and leaving it on the driver's seat. "Faith and Oli had planned to tell me they weren't my real parents when I turned thirteen. But my nosy pre-teen self was poking around their room while they weren't home, and I found copies of the reports they'd written about me and my 'siblings'. They couldn't have kids of their own, so they fostered us."

    "They really were such kind people." Elise wanted to reach out towards the girl, but the way Cadence's gaze swerved past her face made her think twice. "I'm sorry, Cadence. That must have been so tough to deal with on your own."

    "It's Cade. And it was." A bitter tang laced the ends of Cadence's words, twisting their sharp edges further into Elise's throat. Clutching at the vehicle's side for an answer that would never come, the rough slam of the driver door alerted Elise to Cadence's impatient stare. "Would you get off my car? This scrap wagon is going to be hard enough to shove back home as it is."

    Elise checked the time, a weight hanging around her heart at the sound of the car's slow crawl. The cabin stood not too far away, and the dense woodland around was more than capable of hiding her bicycle. "I could help you bring the car back," she said, tucking her bicycle behind a large tree. "Only if you wanted me to, that is. It's up to you...Cade."

    Even after she had revealed herself, Cadence still seemed more a stranger than Elise's childhood friend. As she paid Elise an otherwise unreadable look, however, the way the afternoon sun sparkled through Cadence's eyes made her resemble the girl from a decade ago. "You haven't changed a bit," she muttered, before shaking her head and taking hold of her car again. "Just don't wreck your back, alright? I'm not in the mood to push you down to the house too."

    "I'm not that weedy, you know." Elise flicked her hair and took up her position by the passenger-side door. "Don't you know how heavy books can get?"

    "Sure. With your years of intense book-lifting, we'll be back in no time, Supergirl."

    No time turned out to be a lot longer than Elise had bargained for when she had made her offer. The SUV's dead weight lashed screaming scars into her shoulders and back, and the short distance she had ridden only seemed to stretch longer with every glance. Across the vehicle, Cadence's determined gaze and pulsing neck betrayed the strain she suffered, yet no sounds of struggle fought free of her gritted teeth. The girl's eyes flicked through the cabin, and Elise dipped her head down and adjusted her grip on the car to take on more of the burden.

    Rolling the car into the cabin's shadow, all the numbing tension that fuelled Elise's focus fled into the motionless lakeside air, leaving wailing pains searing through her body. "We finally made it," she gasped, tossing her exhausted self onto the nearest grassy patch. The fine blades bent beneath her weight to release their soft cooling waves across her sweat-slick skin. "I can't believe you were about to do that on your own. I'm dying here!"

    "Been there," Cadence chuckled under a gasping breath. After shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath, she left the side of the SUV to stand over Elise, her hand outstretched. "Come on. Flo's not a fan of anyone trampling over her lawn."

    Reshaping her surprise into relief, Elise took Cadence's hand and hauled herself up from the grass. Sweat clammed the curves of her palm, but Cadence did not seem to mind. "I just found out Florence isn't a fan of me in general, messy grass or otherwise."

    Hints of fatigue cracked through Cadence's level expression as she fanned herself with her loose t-shirt. "It's nothing. Flo's a miserable old grump, and I don't think she could bring herself to be nice if her life depended on it."

    Elise brushed the streaks of stony dirt off her skirt and leaned on the car. "Really? But there were so many people at that talk she gave." Recalling Florence's hostile reception of her in the study, Elise counted herself lucky that she had wriggled out of Tegan's hold when she had.

    "Well, duh. People go crazy for a sassy old woman," Cadence said, kneeling to take the handle of the boathouse's shutter door. "Sometimes, I think if they love her so much, they can keep her."

    "That's..." Elise whispered as she clutched her hands together to stop herself reaching out. "I'm sorry."

    "Whatever." The shutter clattered along its rails until it crashed to a halt. Straightening her beanie, Cadence ignored the light switch as she entered the pitch-black garage and came to a stop at a wall-mounted shelving rack. She peeked inside a set of boxes, then deflated on the spot. "Why are you still here? Weren't you leaving earlier?"

    A shock of discomfort jolted along Elise's spine as she pushed herself towards the garage, yet she hid the pain behind a friendly grin. "I was. But after grinding myself down to move this beast back, I'm pretty invested in seeing it fixed up. Do you need to phone somebody, or have you already done that?"

    Pulling open a drawer at her waist, Cadence picked out a socket wrench and held it against the light. "Keep your phone in your bag. I can handle a blown spark plug just fine on my own," she said as she ran her finger along a row of spray cans. "Not that there's much to it. It'll be about as interesting as watching paint dry."

    "Maybe to you," Elise said, taking hold of the can Cadence held out for her. "I can't even fix my bracelets when a bead falls off. I just end up breaking them more."

    Cadence cackled and slapped the side of the wrench against her free hand. "Believe me – if this piece of scrap keeps being difficult, I might end up breaking things too."

    "Seems like a good backup plan to me," Elise uttered through a giggle.

    A smirk flashed across Cadence's face, yet she wiped it off before Elise could commit the sight to memory. "Fine. If you hang around while I bash this thing into shape, I'll give you a lift back to town when I'm done. I'll even stick your bike on a rack, if I can find the damn thing." She threw a querying glance into the garage, redirecting her eyes to Elise with her usual unreadable expression when nothing inside caught her attention. "That'll make us all even. Sound good?"

    With one hand clutching her arm, Elise nodded. "That works fine for me," she said as her heart eased to a steady, peaceful rhythm.

    ***

    "...and those scattered showers across the coastal parts of the region are going to hang around well into next week..." The stereo's voice crackled over the car's droning engine, masking the silence that lingered between the seats. Elise rested her head by the passenger-side window, only for a drop from one of the foretold showers to splash itself against her cheek and push her away from the side of the vehicle.

    While the outside of Cadence's car wore too many dents and scrapes to count, it hid an interior that looked even rougher. Stains coated the dashboard, deep cuts unearthed the stuffing of the fabric seats, and the flooring had been stripped out to expose the vehicle's metallic skeleton. Even after Cadence cleared the front passenger seat for her, Elise heard clusters of trash rattle around behind her with every turn of the steering wheel. The occasional slosh of unseen liquid spawned shivers to crawl along Elise's skin.

    "...the author Misty Waters will not be attending the remainder of her speaking events scheduled for this tour. Representatives say it's down to unforeseen circumstances, yet the move comes as rumours swirl around the renowned romance writer's health..."

    Cadence hushed the radio's voice away. "Assholes," she muttered into her palm as she propped her face against it. 

    Guiding the steering wheel with one hand and balancing her head on the other, the girl's eyes remained fixed on the empty road ahead. A delicate calm settled on her features as she drove, as if each breath of the vehicle's stale air concealed another mark of dark frustration around her eyes. The silver chain that hung from her neck glinted in the brief snatches of sunlight they found, and a soft jingle chimed from the butterfly charm that fluttered over her chest. Inked along her left arm, a trail of red butterflies fluttered between blossoming violets to take the eager blooms in a tender embrace. The colours swirled like twin flames whenever Cadence shifted in her seat, pulling Elise's eyes back time after time.

    As the car's wipers kicked into gear, Elise stirred her dumb tongue into life. "Can I ask you something?" she whispered as she fidgeted.

    "You just did," Cadence answered, not taking her eyes off the road. "Don't kid yourself, Ellie. We both know that whatever it is, it's going to bug you every time you see me. Just spit it out already."

    "Why are you living with Florence now?" Pangs of dread shot through Elise's gut, yet the lack of an immediate irritated response from Cadence urged her on. "Where are your foster parents?"

    A bump in the road lifted Cadence's head from her hand. "No idea," she said, swerving around the next hole in the asphalt. "I haven't seen or heard from them since they gave me up."

    "What?" Despite the girl's level tone, Elise gripped the sides of her seat to steel herself against the shock. "But they were so kind. They loved you more than most people's birth parents do."

    "Love doesn't pay bills," Cadence spat as she turned to face her passenger. "Oli picked up a nasty injury at work, and money got tight. Since I was 16, he and Faith figured I was independent enough that my birth parents wouldn't have to bother 'raising' me, so they'd take me off their hands."

    The cold metal beneath Elise's seat grew further away the longer Cadence's story went on, and shots of fear stunned her too much to relax her tense legs. What disturbed Elise more, however, was the lack of grey grief to stain Cadence's pale complexion. "That's awful," Elise said, her voice too hoarse to summon up more sympathy. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked out of nowhere like that."

    "It's fine. I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't want to tell you." Cadence eased the car to a stop and tapped the side of the steering wheel. "Like I said, you'd only keep asking me about it until I told you. Now you know, and that's where our trip down memory lane ends. We're done."

    Rain tapped taunts into the frame of the passenger-side door. The hairs along Elise's neck pricked in the invading draught, their whetted points sinking into her skin. "Cade, seriously, I didn't mean to upset you. I won't ask about anything else, and if you never want to see me again, just say the word."

    Cadence's intense stare bore holes through Elise's face, and they held their merciless course until a snicker cracked from her throat. "Chill already," she said through a laugh, wiping an invisible tear from her cheek. "We're done because this is your stop. See?"

    Standing tall outside Elise's window, the slate-grey façade of the university's main building blended into the dark skies overhead. "That was quick," Elise remarked over the thunder rumbling from the engine.

    "It helps to know where the shortcuts are. I have lived around here my whole life, you know." With a flick of her hair, Cadence gestured towards the university building. "Are you waiting for me to open your door for you too? Because you're going to be late for your class if you are."

    Elise checked the time on her phone and freed herself from her seatbelt with a gasp. "Thanks for the lift," she said as she hopped out of the car. Freeing her bicycle from the vehicle's rear-mounted rack, Elise wheeled it over to the passenger window. "You know, I was wondering..."

    "Again? You do that too much."

    "Are we okay?"

    As a cough stuttered out of the car's engine, Cadence shook her head and fell back in her seat. "We're nothing, Ellie. I'm chill doing my thing, and you're chill doing yours." Her hand clutched the vehicle's gear stick, and she narrowed her eyes at the road ahead. "Let's keep it that way."

    The vehicle rolled around the nearest bend to vanish behind a row of terraced buildings, and Elise hurried her way to her class. Even as her body reached a desk just in time, her heart remained pinned to the pavement outside, right where Cadence left it.